I ATE ANTS!!!!!

Sorry Teegan. That title was originally supposed to shout "TEEGAN'S HERE!!!" or something to that affect, but the second I put creepy crawly leggy living ants into my mouth...INTO MY MOUTH, the Teegan title got the boot.

So anyway, the end of August Teegan, my oldest...er, longest (seriously, she's like 5'10") friend, came to visit me for two weeks. We had such an amazing time. Because she was only here for a short wee while it was certainly an action packed visit. Here's how it went.... (on a side note its pouring rain here now.)

Teegan arrived on a Wednesday night. We went out that night for a couple hours to see a hip hopish concert in a plaza around the corner from my old house. There weren't any tables available cafes and bars around the plaza so, being from Meaford... and since its legal here, we went to the closest convenience store, bought a couple beers, and stood in the plaza and watched the show. It was nice.

The following morning I had booked a trip to Lake Quilotoa. The lake is about a 3 hr drive from Quito (due to the stops at Markets, ect along the way) and is a gorgeous emerald blue lake set in the crater of a several hundred year old volcano. After arriving it is customary to take about half an hour to walk the slippery, slidey trail down the sandy path to the edge of the lake. I nearly took a fall a few times, but luckily I kept it together! haha. Now, this is the fun/terrifying part. Once you've enjoyed your time admiring the lake from the bottom of the crater you have two options for returning to the top. You (a) drag yourself up with your own two feet, or (b) the more appealing option, you can hire a mule for $5 to carry your lazy ass up. Naturally, we went for option B.... because Teegan had just arrived in Quito the night before and was not yet accustomed to the altitude, of course! Ironically, this turned out to be the worst option. Ever since being thrown off Buffy the Pony when Grandpa scared her with the weird noises he was making, and since abandoning horse in France when the stupid thing decided to tear across the countryside against my wishes, I have not been very partial to horseback riding. I mean they are lovely creatures to look at, but if I can help it I would prefer to stay on the ground. Anyway, apparently I forgot about this fear.

Well low and behold, I got the mule who like to make up its own mind and also make up its own path. Yeah, it was not comfortable when half the time your transportation is stepping inches away from a 10-20 foot jagged drop, and then it decides its going to take an alternative route to the top! Teegan's was the same. It got tired of being at the end of the line, bit the horse in front's backside, got kicked in the face, and then tore up past the others to the front of the line, beating us all to the top by 5 minutes or so.

The next day, Friday, we stuck around in Quito. We went with my flatmate Michael (the Swiss) to visit his foundation which works with street children in the old part of the city. After visiting the project we took a wander of the historic centre admiring the nice architecture, colourful houses, and armed guards on every corner... pleasant!

Saturday Teegan and I made the trip that most tourists make on a Saturday in Ecuador. We took a bus two hours north to Otavalo. I have talked about this before, the huge artisan market. It was nice because we had a look around, did some shopping, and got out of there in under two hours. Pretty impressive.

On Sunday, we had a jungle tour planned. But, before heading off on a 6 hrs bus trip to the Oriente, we tended to some important business - Liga vs Barcelona. That's right, soccer. Quito against Guayaquil. It was beautiful. The stadium was absolutely packed. We ended up paying twice as much for the tickets and Teegan and Michael stood the whole game. Naturally, Liga played much better however they weren't able to pull through with a win and we were forced to accept a 1-1 tie. Anyway, right after the game we got the bus to Tena.

Welcome to the Jungle

Early Monday morning we were driven out to our "primary forest" jungle lodge. Despite the fact that Tena isn't too far into the jungle, the view was still absolutely amazing. The lodge is set on a.... geographical cliff thing... 300 metres above the jungle so that you can look out miles over absolutely gorgeous... secondary forest. haha. The other people staying at our lodge were, well tolerable. In fact, this guy was probably the most tolerable! No, the jungle was really great. We were only there a couple days but we did several hikes (one through actually primary forest), went tubing 15 km down a jungle river, visited an "indigenous village" (more like an impoverished, unsustainable and disadvantaged formerly indigenous community, but that's tourism unfortunately), and went canyoning up the crevices in the jungle floor. One of the coolest thing was went I ate ants. I ATE THEM! They were really delicious.... kinda like lemon meringue pie. Seriously, they are called Lemon Ants and come out of little pods growing on plants. You just shake a few out onto your hand then lick them up like they were Christmas sprinkles!!

Tuesday night, after a full day of jungling, we raced back to Quito to prepare ourselves for our early departure to the Galapagos Wednesday morning. On our way back Teegan had her first encounter with the Ecuadorian (Right to Kill, as Emma says) National Police. They have had a road stop set up for a while now trying to minimize the circulation of drugs and arms. We had neither but got searched anyway.

Galapagos

(Warning - Some of you may be concerned about the pictures I am about to show you. I am aware that in ALL my Galapagos pictures it looks like there has been some kind of wide scale massacre or something, but worry not, the animals are all just really lazy and sleeping... they are NOT dead!! Proceed with caution.)

Wednesday morning we got an early flight from Quito to the island of Baltra. I was really surprised when we landed in the Galapagos. The landscape was like nothing I had ever imagined. The earth was all volcanic rubble and red dirt. The trees were all grey and leafless and looked dead, and there were cacti everywhere. I thought it was completely barren and lifeless. But, to Teegan the tree-hugging, bird-calling, primate-loving nerd it was pretty fascinating. I came to this conclusion later. Apparently the trees weren't dead, but because it was dry season they were simply just without leaves.

I don't want to drag this out because it is already long, so I will make it short. We saw a ton of sea lions and their babies too, lots of birds (Teegan was going crazy! Calling them and chirping and stuff. It was sooooo embarrassing, gosh!), lizards and iguanas everywhere... even mar iguanas (hahaha). I swam with lots of tropical fish, sharks (wee ones), and even a sweet little penguin. Oh, and lots and lots of boobies.... boobies everywhere. Ok, ok, that's a Galapagos joke that is way too overused.

Anyway, after 5 days of smelling sea lion crap everywhere and showering in yellow boat water(and four nights of being nearly thrown from our beds by the violent waves) I was ready to return to the motherland.

All in all, I think we had a pretty fantastic time. It was so nice being able to show Teegan what I knew of Ecuador and to discover new places with her. I'm so lucky to have been able to travel with two great friends in the last 5 months. Next destination, Colombia. Who's joining me?? No, seriously I'm looking for a companion. I'll be accepting applications starting.... now. First come first served, the competition is gonna be tough.

Pictures: Our pictures can be viewed at this link. Teegs are the ones with comments... mine have not! I might post more as I get the time. Enjoy.

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