sayhitojohn

God-ffiti. Free gloves with every meal. Not California King, but Ecuador King size. Official Nike School of Driving. Mmm, Quail Eggs.  Please Mommy?! Daddy, can I hit my head on this overhead powerline? A sight for sore eyes. Posted via Blogaway

Warning: this is Too Much Information. The faint of heart should stop here, or if you want to revel in the Patti Potty Escapades, read in. Patti, being already diet challenged, had her usual international culinary issues on this trip. However, this time she had the additional challenge of a bit of of plumbing stoppage, like two and a half weeks worth. This condition reached critical as indicated by the accompanying pain in Mindo which led us to try to find a quick solution. We stopped by what was probably the on!y drug store in the town and began to see if we could land some relief. With the help of the Google Translate app we were able to move from the coagulants, which is what tourists in South America usually need, and into the laxatives. The first elixir offered had some nice purple fruit on the box and we thought we were good to go (no pun here).  Once again using the app, we were able to see that the Spanish name for plum accompanied the purple fruited picture. Plums are on the

Wednesday June 1 After what has become the normal breakfast of exotic juices and fruits along with hot chocolate and a nice hot berry tea we hiked up the road to see the Mariposas. This is a Butterfly breeding and conservation center that hosts many species of Butterflies in all stages of development. You are able to watch their transformation through the last stages into their final form in a matter of minutes. This one is just coming out pupa stage and drying it's wings. What may make this sanctuary unique is that we were encouraged to scoop up banana and attract, or just lift up, the Butterflies. Tara has the record with nine which I was not able to get a picture of. Riley scooped up no banana and was all but frightened to death by these most delicate creations of God. This is the same girl who flew upside down over the jungle in a position called, what else, the Butterfly. Tara also had this great idea for a picture. After the Butterflies we walked back to our place where Ri

Tuesday May 31 Today was a day for lots of hiking and flying through the air. After a nice breakfast we grabbed a truck ride up to a point high in the cloud forest for our first activity of the day viewing some waterfalls. We took ride on the Tarabita, a bucket dangling from a cable powered by an old truck drivetrain, across a deep ravine to begin our hiking. I was hoping that they we not going to have to call AAA while we were half way across. When we did arrive, we, Patti and I, well maybe just me, chose the longest hike to the biggest falls. The hike was nice as it wound through the cloud forest and with our early start the temps were still cool. We walked through all sorts of vines and large plants and pedals from the flowers high up on the canopy. The big waterfall was nice, not extremely notable, but we were the only ones out there which made it very pleasant. Zip-lining across the canopy was next in the list. We went for the full course of 10 lines including the highest, longes

Monday May 30 Today we moved from Otavalo to Mindo via a drive through Quito. The driving never disappoints as there are usually cultural things to looks at and if not, the terrain in this part of Ecuador is really something to see. We stopped by the official equator and straddled it just to say so. It is interesting to note that this monument is built on the originally 1736 calculated position of the dividing line, however advances in measurement accuracy now place the line 7km away from here. On our drive here I could not help but grab a picture of the emblems on this truck. That must be a thing here in Ecuador, put a bunch of seemingly random emblems on the side of your truck. He who has the most wins. Alpine - Car Audio - I get that Exxon - Gas producer - makes sense Alitalia - Airline - hmm Fox - Suspension technology - this works ESPN - Sports network - truck racing, OK NOS - Nitrous Oxide - that works Cobra - Car alarms - everybody's got 'em and they are always g