Perros y cascadas

Whew. We are in an internet cafe right now and my job is to write about yesterday, which seems like a week ago after the crazyness that was today (see Laura´s post about slug juice to see what I mean). Anyway, I´ll give it a shot.

We got up and took a taxi ride across Quito, which probably took 30 minutes at least...this must be the longest city in the world I swear to God, it goes on forever. We (mostly Laura) chatted with the driver the whole time about the differences between Los Estados Unidos and Quito. He was complaining about traffic but we told him that it´s just as bad in the Bay Area, if not worse. Also told him that I was a lawyer to which he exclaimed in spanish, ¨Ay...you must make at least 30,000 per year!¨ We told him that this was about right...but that we weren´t sure because I hadn´t started working yet. Hopefully he never learns the truth...

Anyway, then we arrived at the bus port which is nuts. People everywhere screaming destinations at you. So we made our way to the guy who was screaming ¨Otavalo, Otavalo, Otavalo¨because we were headed for Otavalo, you see. Anyway, the bus ride was pleasant enough, we met a spanish woman named Lydia who has randomly reappeared in our path TWICE since that bus ride...by now she feels like our relative and knows everything about our lives and vice-a-versa. The ride had lots of views of canyons and a snow-capped volcano in the distance. Very impressive.

We arrived in the small(ish) town of Otavalo and made our way with our packs on to our hostal which is called Hostal Chasqui. It is run by this great guy named Roberto who is over-concerned about our comfort at all times. For examle, yesterday he asked us if we had enough blankets...this was over-concern for two reasons. First, we have 3 beds in our room, each with 5 huge wool blankets on them and second, at night it only drops to about 55 degrees so its not even cold. Yet there he is, practically begging us to let him get us ´mas mantas.´ He´s a great guy.

Anyway, he advised us to go check out a local waterfall because it was about two thirty already and there wasnt time to do much else. So we started walking in the direction of the waterfall (la cascada in spanish). Very quickly we were the only gringos for miles around and walking through an area that was in pretty poor shape. Worst of all, for Laura, was that there were literally dozens of dogs (perros) walking around the streets. They were harmless but Laura is afraid of dogs and was literally crying at the slightest bark from the smallest dog. However, I will admit that she was brave enough to press on in the face of her greatest fear, so I was impressed. Eventually, after a nervous walk where we were convinced that every person was about to rob us at gunpoint, we made it to the entrace to the waterfall and things got much brighter and cheery. The waterfall itself was pretty large and the setting was breathtaking with mountains in the distance and perfectly blue skies against bright white clouds. In the end, it was worth all the worry and dog encounters and I think helped both of us to feel more comfortable walking around in cities where there are inevitably shady areas.

We returned by taxi and went out to a great seafood meal only a few blocks from our place. Shrimp ceviche which was excellent and meatballs and trout in a creolle sauce. Delicious. The food so far has been much better than I expected although the ketchup is shit. Its too sweet, so we both put salsa on our fries which come with almost everything here. I´m surprised you dont get ´papas fritas´with your ice cream here.

Today was 1,000 times more exciting and interesting than yesterday, but Laura wrote all about that so I won´t waste my time or yours talking about it. Suffice it to say that it was amazing beyond all descripion and it isn´t even dinner time yet. Our big decision now is whether we will sack up and take the bus all the way to Lima, which will include rides of 10 and 20 hours (several of them)...or if we should just take a plane which will cost a few hundred bucks...neither option seems very good but we will research it more tonight and let you know what we end up doing.

So as of right now we have no idea where we will be tomorrow, but we´ll let you know as soon as we can. Hope everyone is well. Adios para ahora.