AAAAAAAAAGH!

I am far too busy scratching bug bites to post right now.

Geoff{s efforts

Geoff wrote a great update and since it{s all the things i would say, i{m just going to cheat and copy it here. Also, the apostrophe key doesn{t work on this machine and it{s driving me crazy. We did go out last night and didn{t make it home until about 430am. Good thing we ran out of money or we might still not be home. A great time was had by all.

Hello,
Just a quick update from Cuenca (koo-en-ka).
After a grueling bus ride from Banos via Ambato (roughly translated, This means ¨Ecuador´s Angry Armpit¨) Mj and I made it to Cuenca in the South Central highlands of Ecuador. In Ambato we said goodbye to Marcus as he needed to get back to Quito for his flight home, and we continued on. And on. And on. About 11 total hours of sitting in a bus in fact. Not surprisingly, our bodies were cramped and sore from the travel. Once we did get into Cuenca, and hopped a taxi to our hostel we found that they had lost our reservations. Seeing as it is a 3 day holiday here, there weren´t any other options really, and they ended up making us up a room in what was essentially a concrete box next to the laundry. We are seasoned 3rd world travelers, but even this was a bit much. However, things being what they were, we took the room with the promise that things would change the next day. The night turned out to be enjoyable however, as we walked around and watched the celebrations happening in the streets. One such included the lighting of large firework towers right in the middle of the street. Gotta love the 3rd world. No barriers, no cops telling people to back off. No firetrucks at the ready. Just lighting the fuse on the 20 foot tower and stepping back. Goes with the general rule of thumb here: ¨Don´t Get Dead.¨
After waking up in the unpadded cell today, we toured the city by foot, viewed some of the celebrations, markets and old colonial buildings. This city is hundreds of years old, and many of the buildings reflect that. Truly a beautiful place to visit. In between visits back to the hostel to see if there would in fact be a new room for us (various reasons why it didn´t just happen) Mj and I had a wonderful day exploring. Most exciting was that we were able to find a book store which sold English books. Books are worth their weight in gold down here (and are priced accordingly). Already Mj and I have nearly finished the first of the books we bought, and will be consuming the rest over the next few days I´m sure. It´s nice to quench that thirst, especially on vacation.
Tomorrow and the next day will be more local exploration, coffee shops to read books in, and general settling. We were planning on travelling on Tuesday, but may stay and extra night to watch election results with some other Americans we have met in the last 24 hours, seeing as Cuenca is a fairly large city we may be able to find a bar with the results on the TV. We´ll see.
Love to all, G

this country is great.

See these homemade fireworks?

imagine that bottle rocket fight....

that is all.

cemetaries

So day of the dead is coming up here and everyone has been very industrius cleaning the cemetaries. Repainting and redecorating and fresh flowers and all sorts of things. We went to the cemetary in Baños and spent some time there. Mostly there are above ground - almost like apartment buildings for the dead - hard to quite explain. Mostly the empty slots are empty, waiting for someone to come along and get dead in order to move into them. I didn't mind this too much, but it was when they were just full of crap that it seemed more odd.

great graffiti

So one of the things we´ve noticed here is the graffiti. Most of it is politcal which is interesting. Much of it has had to do with the election of a new constitution a few weeks ago which gives universal health care and guaranteed public education along with giving the environment human rights. Many graffitis have just said SI! -meaning vote yes. "vote with your five senses" - one of my favorites was "god will always forgive you, we will forgive you sometimes, but nature will never forgive you. don't litter."

One article I read interviewed someone who does graffiti and he was saying that when you want to share your ideas, it's really the only way. You could publish a magazine that no one would read, or you could buy airtime which no one would listen to, or you can put your poetry on a wall for everyone to see all the time. It is definitely a different attitude.

and some are just super fun, like the photo here.

photos

So I just uploaded some photos but the only way i could figure out how to put comments on each of them for now was to do seperate posts. So check them out but there is also a new written post after all of them. Or before them. Depending on how you´re looking at it.

Don´t forget to check out Mark´s video blog which is much more entertaining.

www.youtube.com/oksoblog

I love South America

Most trash cans are differently painted versions of this. I guess they figure you are more likely to throw away your trash if you get to throw it at a clown´s head.