Seattleites know what rain is, right? Well, I would like to see our local hipsters wandering hoodless/umbrellaless in the Amazon rain. We woke up early to said pouring rain...rain that continued for the entire 2 hour canoe ride back to Coca. Someone spilled water all over that Bob Ross painting, and if getting all of us shivering and soaked was its way of convincing us to leave, the Amazon is a master persuader. Thanks to the confusion added by the rain, we were all "struggle bussing" this morning. For those of you that aren't streets ahead, "struggle bussing" is Allie's term for really failing at life. Although this morning, it was more like struggle canoeing, we are all looking forward to the stability that is awaiting us at Black Sheep Lodge.
Again, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Kevin on the flight back to Quito. We combatted our extreme hunger by discussing the fabulous events of last night over peach and orange juices. As it happened, last night was not only our last to be spent in the Amazon, but that of the group of Ecuadorians. They held a bonfire and told us stories. We were told of how the sun and moon combined, and...something about a bird that I couldn't understand (sigh, only three weeks left to get this Spanish thing down), as well as a story about how some dude's penis became all of the Anacondas in the Amazon...charming, right? And, as fate would have it, 2 victims from the crowd were required to dance for one of these stories (and no, not the penis one, so get your mind out of the gutter)...and guess who they were?! That's right, your two favorite indigenous dancers: me and Nikki! We rocked it yet again. Then a man named Diego got everyone up to dance and played a Spanish song that eventually faded into "I'm sexy and I know it." Michelle has befriended one of these Ecuadorians...so hopefully he will send her some pictures from our last night together. I will definitely go back someday, but for now, I would like to let my 28 bug bites go away. Chuck claims that he has a device that can make these bites go away, but it is not FDA approved and involves a minor electric shock, so I will make him try it first.
Now we are winding precariously through the Andes. The road is narrow, the tour bus is a little unwieldy, and I am focusing on this so that I do not have to look over the steep drop off. The kiddies here have some awesome sledding hills come winter, although I am fairly sure that these slopes surpass the threshold of what one would call "fun" sledding hills. I bet if you took the cows here and put them on flat ground, they would be critically lopsided. In fact, I can hardly understand how any farming here is done at all. The land flattens out and we come across a small town that is reminiscent of the one Belle lives in in Beauty and the Beast. Clothes hang on bushes and roofs, probably only acquiring a fresh splash of mildew rather than drying, as it is quite misty up here. Only a short time to the inn now and I am getting used to the slopes enough to not need this for a distraction, so...hasta luego people!
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