Biohostal Mindo Cloud Forest

... a New Zealand writer) as its a cool place. Done a good few trails (Pauline fell again, of course, and i DIDNīT cut myself) and even held a tarantula without incident. Headed back to Quito for our final night before Pauline departs back to Dublin and i move onto Santiago de Chile before heading across the Pacific to New Zealand.

... match yesterday (part of a South America cup tournament). Which resulted in very colourful streets in Quito with at least 70% sporting the yellow national shirts. This caused us a bit of a problem when watching the match (in the very nice Cafe Este) as we naively assumed the team playing in yellow were Ecaudor and it wasnīt until the second half when Columbia scored we realised our mistake!! Next match on Wednesday with Bolivia so we will be much more clued up ...

OK, We went to the actual equator today, kids in tow. the Inti Nan Solar Museum is really cool, and we had an english tour guide who walked us thru everything from curare blow darts to a step by step diagram on how to shrink a head. Yeh, I know....Got a picture for all you horror show enthusiasts.

Anyways, the equator demontrations are NOT rigged. They ...

... both of which were delicious. And good coffee! They also dropped us off at Las Gralarias where we would spend the week volunteering.

Wow! Las Gralarias was nothing short of fantastic. Jane, the owner, has purchased over 400 hectares of cloud forest and adjacents farmland which she is rehabilitating. She is certainly an interesting, informative and inspiring conservationist (PhD from Texas). I also love the fact that one person can make ...

... the animal and fruit market, colourful and smelly... not good for the faint hearted like me, every part of every animal imaginable for sale, the worst was the poor live chickens hanging upside down by their feet, i skipped lunch that day.


Quito

now it was time to pay the historic capital city of Quito a visit.Quito is divided into ...

... people with a scale in front of themselves and thats it. You weight your self, pay the man a dollar, and come out feeling fat and a little broke. Women selling strickly incense or toilet pap** is v**y common. And the identical stands of cig**attes and candy. Its int**esting seeing kids below the age of 10 walking around trying to sell cig**attes.

My spanish has been improving. I have been spending hours on it ev**yday. Mostly reading in my book ...

... for the last morning...I went for a morning pee when I saw a huge tarantuala thingy running up the shower steps towards me! I was so scared I had to run away mid-pee! Russ was laughing his ass off when I told him! It was the size of a mouse & black and fury & ran like a spider, so it was either a tarantula or a giant furry centipede! Anyways, the place was really beautiful and people were very nice and we were sad to leave but weīre back in ...

... important Iīm sure, but and hereīs my gripe (I always have one, have you noticed?), I didnīt feel like I was particularly learning anything about conservation; this was really just ****-off hard labour.

Day three

Not so bad actually. We spent the day walking (slowly) up the mountain clearing the trail for the pending busy season. Feeling like men as we hacked down huge swaithes of vegetation with our machetes. Grrrrrrrr.
Nanegal, Pichincha, Ecuador lturnbull

... nosicich rousky a hned jsme je dostali v pristim letadle. Dalsi zastavka byla v Panama City a odtud uz jen do Quita. Po celou dobu cesty po nas nikdo nic nechtel takze je vsechno jak ma byt. Po priletu doQuita 10:30 vecer jsme prosli imigracni a celni kontrolou.Na letisti jsme si vzali taxi do hostelu ktery jsme meli jiz zarezervovany. Cesta taxikem byla opravdovym dobrodruzstvim. Nocni Quito nevypada opravdu bezpecne ani z okna taxiku. Gabka vypadala ...

... stupid grin that says "what the **** do I really know....but it will be alright." They fixed me with a breakfast the next morning of eggs, bread and trout..... inventive, I thought,,,,,,, smiled I did....... and I was on my way.... I would head back to Quito to pick up my rain jacket and say my goodbyes............ I actualy dreaded one more night in Quito. My mind was already in Lima.......long gone! But my Ecudorain "mother" was so happy to greet me one more ...