Hanging in the Clouds

I must admit I have been cheating on you--my heart has been elsewhere--with Jake and Debby Schloegel´s arrival to Ecuador has come a whirlwind of fun and adventure. With the big shoes of Andy and Jane Q to fill, the Schloegels came ready for action. They did not come empty handed either--their generous re-supply mission brought us the culinary joys of Ranch Dressing, Gate´s barbeque sauce, delicious home-baked friendship bread (thanks Vicky Springs!), and unbelieveably a sixer of Boulevard Wheat Beer. Home never tasted so good.
The journey started in Quito, trying to fulfill Jake´s unquenchable thirst for knowledge displayed on plaques and in churches, we toured the historical relics of the Old Town part of Quito. Petro and I supplemented our limited knowledge of Quito (and Ecuador in general) with lies to keep our touring guests intrigued. No harm, no foul.
Probably our best tour in Quito was to the Middle of the World, where we visited the precise location of where the equator runs. Amazingly enough, at that location a bunch of weird stuff happens--water drains directly down instead of swirling in a direction, people become slightly weaker and lighter, and Americans in the tour group become loud and unruly. Trying to fulfill Ugly American stereotypes, there was a lot of horse-playing done by us during that tour, which culminated with an argument between Jake and an Irishman over some astronomical issue discussed during the tour. After realizing that physical harm was coming his way, the Irishman conceded the point and we all felt relief for the narrowly avoided ¨gunshow¨ that follows questioning American wisdom.
After Quito we headed to Mindo, to explore what we consider a jungle and what Equadorians consider a cloud forest. Our lodge in Mindo was an amazingly built series of structures that blended well with the densely lush locale and was accessible by ferrying across the river in a little makeshift zip-line. Many visitors to the lodge are biology-oriented scientists or tourists because of the high concentration of various bird and butterflies species. So much so that a very knowledgeable guide in these areas is provided by the lodge to every group of guests. Having the same regard for bird-watching as the act of watching grass grow, we gave the guide his own vacation from that "excitement" and went to do the all the adventure activities that they area had to offer. Jake and Debby were given a first hand view of the joys of the liability-free manner in which adventure tour companies operate in South America. A ridiculously fun canopy tour (zip-lining over the forest valley), waterfall jumping, and refugee-style tubing down the rapid filled Mindo river occupied our days. Props need to be given to Jake and Debby for reckless abandon that they delved into these activities-- speaking for myself I was close to a pants soiling on several occasions.
Here comes the part where I tell you something that should very well be a lie but is not. After two nights or about a total of 4 hours of actual interaction with the owners of the jungle lodge (http://www.ecuadorcloudforest.com/html/lodge.html) they asked Petro and I to ¨host¨ their lodge for them while they spend a week or two vacationing and working elsewhere in Ecuador. No joke, these people must have contracted a mind-altering malarial flu overnight, as they are having us act as their proxies for awhile. As your boys are no fools, we promptly accepted and are due back to our lodge running duties right after the Schloegels depart. And so, if anyone has a hankering for spontaneous travel to Ecuador, come visit our lodge in the jungle.

At the moment we are now on the coast in Atacamas, Ecuador and are beaching it up until we have to be back in Quito on the 17th. I´ll give you the low-down on our time here along with all the pics and movies of the trip when I get back to Quito.


Su chico con suerte,
Brian

Quote of the trip so far: He´s not a boy Jake, he´s a man with a gun¨--Debby after Jake pointed out one of the many ambiguously uniformed and armed men who inhabit Quito´s streets.