Hey again, I am currently sitting in the South American Explorer´s Club House in Quito, where I just bought a yearlong membership. It was a little expensive, BUT there is free internet, a lot of information and the ability for people to send me letters that I will eventually get! but more on that later. Last time I wrote was from Atacames in the Esmeraldas area of Ecuador. After I last wrote...

Monday the 24th: I biked a couple of kilometers down to Sua, a tiny fishing village south of Atacames, and a much better place to hang out. While Atacames has all of the bustling crazy city-ness of any major city, it didn´t really have any of the charm that I have found in the Marsical and Old Town areas of Quito. Sua on the other hand is just a tiny town with fishing boats in the bay, amazing and never-ending fish lunches for only $1.50, camping near the beach for 3 dollars, and quite a lot of beer for only 1 dollar. All in all, it was a very good and relaxing day, during which I talk to several different groups of people in Spanish. the family who sold me lunch was really friendly, and we were able to meet up later that night for ice cream, the family who ones the hotel that I camped at (Hotel Chagra Rama, I think is the name) was very outgoing too, situated in a nice little cove at the corner of Sua, it is trying to becoem its own sustainable little community, with lots of fruit trees and economy hotel rooms available. I think that they can do it. Fell asleep to the sound of the ocean....

Tuesday the 25th: ...and woke up early to start my ascent up to Quito. It is definitely ALL uphill from the ocean to Quito, as I found out during these next several days. today I made it up the hills through Atacames and Esmeraldas, and along the way I saw stand after stand selling these rectangular blocks of dark brown gloop.. After about an hour of seeing them I stopped to buy a cocoa bar: Wowza, pretty much I should have bought 20 of them instead of 1. It was so clocolately and bitter and sweet and amazing... with my willpower it only lasted about half a kilometer. Long story short, if you ever get the chance to buy a cocoa bar in Esmeraldas, BUY SEVERAL and give some to me. today I went about 70 kilometers and slept a little bit past the town of Rosa Zarate. I am getting more used to this type of travel, and this night when I stopped I actually had time to just SIT without working on my bike or being too tired to move. So, I listened to my Ipod and stretched, which I had been forgetting to do for some time. A. Maz. Ing.

Wednesday the 26th: Today I got to choose which highway would take me to Quito; the newer faster highway, or the older steeper one. I choose the older carretera (highway) to Quito, thinking that there would probably be less cars and traffic on it. I was right, but there was also a lot more construction, meaning I had to ford a couple of rivers of mud and dirt with construction workers gawking at the me the whole time... I looked pretty ridiculous and definitely more than a little filthy. I made it around 70 kilometers today (I think, I never really know...) and decided that around 3:15 I would try and do something different for my evening: I was going to try and sleep next to a church in a town. I passed a town witha church on one side of the road and the school on the other, and seeing the professor I decided that I would ask him if he though it was and OK idea. Well, one thing led to another and soon I was watching 60 school children do a ceremony honoring the Ecuadorian flag (today happened to be their flag day) and also honoring the top children of the class. There was song after nationalist song which everyone seemed to know the words to, about 40 parents watching the event, and lots of standing and sitting and long speeches. I was VERY hungry, and wasn´t really expecting to go through this whole process. I just wanted to boil some potatoes and go to bed... It turned out OK in the end, for about an hour after the LONG ceremony there was a party with watered down whiskey (it had to be the right amount of water and whiskey, no more, no less) and am amazing rice and chicken dish. I was able to talk to several people, all who were really curious as to why in the world there was this gringo at this tiny little school party in the middle of the jungle... I stood out a little bit. Anyways, when it was getting dark I decided to leave the party for a bit a set up my tent next to the church. As soon as I started doing this a tiny little old lady popped out of the house down the road and warned me that EVERYONE knew where I was staying and that someone was probably going to bug me during the night, and that I should sleep on her floor. I offered to sleep outside in my tent (I was worried about mosquitos in the house) but she said that I must sleep inside (she was worried about cobras in the yard; a valid thought as I had seen a 5 foot long one killed by a farm woman the previous day). So, I tucked my bike under the house next to the outhouse, and brought my sleeping bag and pad into the house. I soon realized that the woman and her family were living so close to the church on charity, and that they had NO money whatsoever. Her, her blind husband, her disabled grown daughter, a baby granddaughter, a teenage grandson, and two other people who were not there that night all lived under the same roof. And tonight, me too. I had told people at the party that I would return in a few minutes, but I would have felt strange leaving this family to go to a party after they had given so generously, so I stayed with them all night. The old woman and I talked about the differences between our countries; how I am not particularly wealthy for America, but compared to them I have so many material things. there was no work to be had in that tiny little town...It was a very interesting conversation. She asked when I would return there to help the poor people, and I told her that I didn´t know. There are so many other places to help... I hope someday that I do. Anyways, I fell asleep to the sounds of mosquitos outside of my sleeping bag, woke up at midnight to a cockroach crawling in my hair, and then woke up at 5 am when every farm animal withing hearing distance decided to anounce to the world that it was a brand new day. I was pretty eager to get up, and left before it was even light out, after giving them a little bit of the food that I had.

Thursday the 27th: The uphill really started today, and after several hours of going up I stopped at a cafe in a small town for set breakfast. I may have said this before, but the set breakfast in Ecuador (usually of eggs, bread, hot milk and juice) is pretty much my favorite thing ever; filling and simple, and only ever 1.50. Awesome. Anyways, sat in a cafe for breakfast to collect my thoughts on the previous night, and started going uphill soon after that. I went past Mindo, a supposedly beautiful reinforest retreat, but I wanted to go far today to make the next day a little bit easier as I trudged up to Quito. There was a nice bit of downhill a little bit after the town of Nanegalito, and I found a nice, secluded, spider infested area to sleep for the night. I had the best cup of hot tang in the world, and some hard boiled eggs and cheese for dinner. It is really strange what I have been getting hungry for these days. Asleep by 7:30 because the next day...

Friday the 28th:... Was UPHILL in a really big way. Left my campsite at 6:45 in the morning, and after 30 kilometers of uphill (with maybe 1 km in there of down or flat) I made it to the ecuator around 11:30, where I stopped for ice cream and a photo opp, and then promptly got back on my bike to do the 20ish more km into Quito. Made it through the bustling streets to a hostel in about 3 hours (going through several subway-like tunnels, very eerie on a bike with cars zipping close by) where I SHOWERED and gave them my laundry. I hadn´t showered since before the beahc about 5 days ago, and still had sand in my hair. Beautiful. After that I went for a walk through the Marsical area of Quito, the trendy and touristy area where there are tons of hostels and stopped at no less than 6 different cafes and restaurants, eating everything from pasteries to pizza, from gormet sandwhiches to snickers bars. By 7:30 I was finally full, and went back to hangout with some other travels at the hostel, going to bed around midnight after talking in english(!) to everyone there.

And now it is saturday, I will hopefully meet up with some of my friends who are studying here in Quito, and talk to some people at phone cafe´s today. I leave on Monday to start my journey south, and have no idea the next time I will use the internet... maybe in about two weeks in the town of Cuenca, or maybe not untill I get to Peru... who knows?! Hope everyone is well, and if anyone wants to send me letters or something... or reach me thorugh a different form than the internet, the South American Explorer´s Club has an office in Lima Peru, someplace where I definately know I will be stopping for a few days. That clubhouse is

Calle Piura 135, Miraflores, Lima Peru

Yep. I think I might have to take a bus sometime in Peru, because it is a long country, and if I want to be where I need to be by Christmastime, I might have to bus it. Adios!