Josh hit on some nuns just before we came here to blog. "Hola hermosas," he greeted them as they walked into the restaurant. As in, hey there beautiful. Similar but not quite the same as "Hola hermanas" or hello sisters. My lecherous boyfriend :) Aside from Josh's unintentional pick-up line the last week has been fairly uneventful. We spent a nice few days in Cuenca but weren't blown away by the city. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful plac...

Did I mention I jumped off a bridge the other day? We were biking outside of Baños when we came across a little rag tag operation of locals peddling something called swing jumping over the river Rio Blanco. I wasn't planning on it, didn't even know it was there, but when we got to the bridge we stopped to watch a kid jump while his family looked on nervously. I got sweaty palms just watching him but it looked like fun so I told Josh I'd do it if it was $10 or ...

From Quito we made our way to the site of my on-going birthday celebration, Hacienda La Cienega near Volcano Cotopaxi. This 400 year-old hacienda was both grand and cozy. The rooms have meter thick walls and fire places and actual bath tubs. The lap of luxury. The first night we went to dinner in the hotel's restaurant with the other guests when all of a sudden the lights went out and waiters entered carrying an enormous chocolate cake followed by a 7-person Ande...

I jumped off a bridge today in Baños but since we're more than a week behind on blogging I'll wait and tell that story another day. What can I say; I'm a sucker for a dramatic first line. Almost 4 months into our trip we realized that our leisurely pace won't cut it anymore if we want to hit all the stops on our list and still make it to Patagonia and back home before Thanksgiving. So lately we've been on the move. We had a great last few days in Quito: We vi...

I celebrated the big 3-0 this week in Quito. We had fabulous plans to climb (part of) the highest active volcano in the world - Volcano Cotopaxi, and stay in an old Hacienda there in the national park. Unfortunately I came down with a cold soon after we arrived in Quito a little over a week ago and have spent much of the week resting in our lovely hostal taking full advantage of our ridiculously large cable TV. The good news is we haven't scrapped the volcano/hac...