Picture torrential rain on a muddy hillside. Now add a slippery rock path of steep steps and crawly, spiky, sticky things on the hillside, dropoff on the other. No, squishy mud, then drop off. Now you can put Bob & I on the trail but by now you have to add muddy water coursing down the path in brown waterfalls where it pauses in ankle grabbing pools. Yup, that's us for 2 1/2 hours this morning guided by a Kichwa named Jiare. The Kichwa are indigenous people ...

We're sitting on the porch of our cabana by the pool enjoying a morning cuppa and determined to catch up on some postings today. We're in a way-fun never-seen-a-place-like-this-before kind of town that I just can't get into yet--I still have to tell you about a fun day we had in Banos before we went to the jungle.  See? Waaay behind. Everybody loves Banos. Set in a green valley amongst nearly vertical mountains carved by waterfalls and lorded over ...

One of the greatest things about this is the people we meet. They have a certain something about them. It's more than a curiosity--it's like a drive to actually see and taste for themselves what's out here.  Sometimes they're searching for something inside themselves. But because we live in such a wonderful country, most of us are content to be safe in our comfortable, predictable lifestyle. It's just so........comfy.  Extensive travel is ...

I talk to myself in Spanish. I think in Spanish. It’s everywhere around us--in the people we meet, the signs we see. We’re living with Ensouk for a couple of days in her beautiful apartment across the street from La Lengua Spanish School main offices in Quito. And it’s a bit complicated. We met Ensouk (I think I spelled it Ensu then because that‘s how it‘s pronounced) and Ligia (the school director) at the school our first day in Q...

It was always just a line on the map, the Equator. It was just that south of that point they called hurricanes something else. Later I heard a draining sink swirls to the left down there, but come on, really?There are certain laws of nature that just ARE, aren't there? Water swirls to the right, days are longer in summer, temperatures are colder in winter--isn't that what we've believed all our lives?As we remember what our guide said, in 1792 French ...