Sitting in a Taxi on our way to Ambato, maybe if we do not arrive too late, we will continue to Salinas another 100 km. I am listening to Nephew on my headphones just to have a little bit of home with me ... Bizarre to listen to the lyrics while seeing the Equatorial country side. Behind the kids are also listening to their own phones. The cab driver is happy to get a tourist ride for the whole day. 600 km to a price of 100 USD or 500 dkk . He is eager to tell about the different sighs, but I am getting tired of the regular chitchat, and my tongue needs a rest from all the Spanish. I have reached the point where I´m dreaming in Spanish. Good for the practice but I need a rest just for the day I think to my self. Unbelievable that this scenery also would get trivial. Mountains, volcano's as far as you can see! Have we reached the point where we can not absorb more? Are we filled up with so many experiences that this scenery does not even touch us anymore? It can not be , we might just need a rest , maybe one or two weeks at home and then we will be ready to go again another 6 months. Yeah, well, not gonna happen!
Therefore we find ourselves forced to enjoy it just because we know it will soon be over and we will regret not to have absorbed it to the fullest. Therefore we do not hesitate anymore to be more adventurous and sometimes maybe a little careless. But have to absorb it all and therefore some days ago we went into the jungle!

The real one, the big one, Amazonas. Got a guide , a native one , a small man 150 cm but almost as wide , strong as an ox. He is walking barefoot just in shorts in the woods. We told him we wanted the hole enchilada, he shouldn't spare us for anything and we would try whatever he would present for us.

" Have to take a break , getting car sick in these mountain roads that are turning and twisting all the time ." The driver notices that I took the headphones out and he began talking. He explains to me that the government they have now is much better but he is still only earning 400 USD a week and therefore struggling to make ends meet. He continues, " I like to get long rides with tourists because I get the chance to see the country" . Then he tells me how stupid Ecuadorians are compared to the foreigners. I am struggling not to puke and i am just nodding to the driver and hope my nausea will pass soon. But the driver does not stop talking and it reaches the point where it just becomes a mumbling just interrupted sometimes buy the regular "og jeeeeeeeeeeeeeg er en kegle " from Sofie who is singing out loud Sys Bjerre. The car is stopping due to a road block.

Yes! A break. just what I need to get better.

With the native guide, whose name is Delphin, it became almost a dear! Could he present something we wouldn't eat or try? We started out from this little town called Baños , a very nice small town the locals went to for holidays. We stayed in an American owned guest house where the walls had a lot of colors, little hippie-like and all the rooms were different from one another. We got a nice big room with a fire place and jacuzzi for as little as 78 US including a huge breakfast wich could be this Mexican spicy meal with guacamole and beans. The first stop on our tour was a glide over a cliff in this small metal basket just big enough for the five of us. Ecuadorian mechanic was holding our lives in a cable 90 meters above the ground. I was scared s***less. From there it was an hours drive to the monkey rehab center. Five different species running around freely to the joy of the kids that loved to pet them and play with them. They jump on you , pull you and just loved our company!

Just need to say we just past the middle of the earth again, as they call it here, the Equator. We passed Quito and have now the wildest view over the city from an uphill mountain road.

Ok so after the monkey center we continued another hour deeper into the forest. We stopped at a local village where we were invited to have the local drink. We should drink it from a huge bowl. We tried it all of us, it tasted as sour milk. The drink was only a few days old and if it stayed longer it would contain 10 to 15 % alcohol. After that we were introduced to the SHAMAN "local medicine man" and he gave us another drink that would improve our lives. Again we drank it , this was made out of palm fruits nuts. It was also white fluid and had not much taste but it felt like glue. Our lips felt glued together, the tongue, the mouth, everything. We continued and had lunch , local soup with pop corn in it, local fish and water melon....huge meal. From there we had to hike up the mountain trough a dense rain forest with our guide that stopped every 2 seconds to show us something or just to make us taste something. We therefore all tasted the famous lemon ants that we sucked out of flowers, we tried some kind of a bark mixture that he called the cocaine of the jungle , probably because we had to sniff it and it burned your nose like hell. We finally reached the waterfall where we went for a swim in the small pond underneath it. At our return from the waterfall we saw an auto camper with French number plates and we talked a little. They where on a year travel from Canada to Ushuai in Argentina trough all America with their 2 small daughters. There are still more crazy people then us in this world (envied them a little though). On our way back we went to a "mirrador" a watching place , with a great view of all the small rivers that end up as the big Amazonas. There I tried the biggest swinging rope I ever seen out above a cliff. At the far end I was probably hanging some 40 meters above ground.

I am starving now and we still have to find a place to stay ... we are already in Ambato. There is a restaurant near a gas station by the road and we agreed to stop there and then I will call different hotels.
We had a terrible "meal" - sandwiches heated in microwaves. I managed to find an available hotel here in Ambato the Gran, witch turn out not be Gran at all.

The day after in Baños we had a relaxing day after all the excursions the day before but ended by renting these beach boogies Leon and Sofie wanted us to try. We went up the mountain, Jessica and Sofie in one ,Leon and me in the other. It is as uncomfortable as a go cart and after 2 hours drive on stone roads I was sure i would be peeing blood the next day... did not happen, must be tougher then I thought. At the end of the mountain road there was this tree house on the last tree before the cliff with an unpeckable view of the active volcano. There was no lava in sight but it had erupted just a few months ago, in December. Here there was this man living and monitoring the volcano's every move and he loved to explain to us all the electronics there was in his very small shack. Great story teller and the kids loved it.

We are going out to eat dinner now, the kids are playing in the room and have again been unbelievable! sitting 8 hours in the car and with no trouble. I do not tell them often enough but they are great kids, and I can not stop being a little proud every time the locals tell us that our children are amazing and undeliverable well behaved. I try to take some credit for it but most of it is Jessicas work. Enough of the sentimental part, it is probably because I am tired I babble this much.. I do not mean it! I hope the day tomorrow is going to be a bit easier, just have to drive 100 km to Guaranda and there we have a room reserved, a room with a balcony over the main square where the carnival is passing through... have huge expectations.

The day after we had to leave Baños to Guaranda 120 km because we had heard that this is the place to be when there is Carnival, but since every one in the country goes to this small city we might have problems finding a place to stay. This is exactly what happened, we arrived 2 days before the start but it didn't help us. We could find a small hostel for the first night but after that the whole city was sold out... We finally found a room for Monday only - the last day of the carnival, a bit expensive but the room had a balcony over-viewing the main square and the carnival. We reserved it and decided to go to Otavalo (600 km) for one of the biggest markets in South America.

We are back in the taxi on our way to Guaranda , not with the driver we agreed on , because when he came this morning he was so drunk he could almost not walk. Add to that, it is still only 8,30 in the morning. Well after this minor setback, I feel everything is going to be great today, only have to drive 2 hours to Guaranda, and from there we will be able to see the carnival from the balcony of our hotel. At arrival we got our room just to find out that the route of the carnival had changed and we therefore could not see it from the nice balcony. Rmrmmrm. So now we are going down to the carnival, there are like a million people and there is no way to get a spot on the side of the road, furthermore everybody is sitting on stools and we have none. But after walking a bit we found a man selling chairs, so we bought 4 and began in a hurry to find an available spot to sit.

The spot we found at the carnival was great and we patiently waited for the carnival to start. The kids got Carnival foam that they sprayed at everyone, and i can tell that some of it is not stain free when you get it on your clothes. The defile was as I expected, fun, grandiose, having huge decorated platforms to dance on . It went on for 3 hours and after 2 we left tired in our butts and having huge bathroom needs. There are so many people that you have to fight for your spot, even if sitting on a stool. It takes the crowd just a second to squeeze in and take you spot or even your chair, so when we left we didn't even consider coming back. Nice experience, and even if this was not Rio it was huge and exciting to see every one from the city beeing there since this is the only thing that ever happens here. Now we have one day to rest and past tomorrow we´ll drive to Guayaquil to catch a plane to Chile.