Because it is...in my way

Look a mountain--let's climb it...Cotopaxi as seen from our hostel in Latacunga

When asked why he climbed Everest, George Mallory famously replied, "Because it is there." Well I call poppycock on that. I have just climbed the world's highest active volcano, Cotopaxi (at 19,347 feet or 5,897 meters), and can now say that I will be very excited to climb another mountain like it...if I can't go around it. It was a phenomenal experience, but not one I feel the need to replicate. It's kinda like my wedding, which was an awesome, huge, fun party that I never, ever want to have again.

Today season

Let's lay the entire Ecuadorian culture back on the couch. Go ahead, relax. Get comfortable. So tell me more about this problem you have with planning or thinking about the future. I see, so it's not a problem for you, but for others around you? Interesting. Tell me more about that. What, then, is their problem, and why do you think you are both different?

The buck stops...well now, where did it get to?

We had an apartment warming party the other night and our friends' 4-year-old, who is now functionally fluent, dropped a glass that broke on the wood floor. Teddy related later this thought that flashed in his mind: "I wonder if she'll blame the glass." And she said, "It fell by itself." Now this is not a story on clairvoyance. It is a ponderance on the Spanish language and my continual psych couch analysis of the Ecuadorian culture.

Birds and bees and boobies (heh heh)

"Hello!" or possibly "Go away...little farther..."

I was about to go on about our first overnight bus trip going from Mindo in the clouds to Puerto Lopez on the sea and the blaring loud music they playing all night long. But this is a happy post with parades, happy giant splashy animals, boobies (heh heh), and even a happy funeral procession. So I will refrain from reliving that sleepless night on that infernal, speaker box of a bus from hel...oops. Anyway, we're going to our happy place...in Puerto Lopez for whale watching season.

Mindo a go go

After sending Mom off back in Quito, we spent a couple of days there to do a little kid-centric exploration before heading to the cloud forest of Mindo.