Bienvenidos a Ecuador.

Finally I created a blog for all you wonderful friends and family memebers to read. It's Tuesday afternoon and I'm sitting in what I believe to be Quito's only wireless cafe. I might as well soak up my comforts while I have them before I run off to work in Ambato.

This past weekend was Carnival de las frutas y flores in Ambato. I was accompanied by two very young [14 year-old] boys who continuously demonstrated their interests in well, the female body. Yup, this is nothing new for ALL of Latin America but whistling and the shhhing sounds from males of all ages are part of the daily grind here. Moving on...the Carnival itself was an absolute blast, especially where sharing one cup with several strangers became customary. Ah, yes I did it. BUT I did mangage to refuse the pepper stuffed pig's head. Yeah, that didn't quite sit with me. After the Carnival, I headed off to the Elvis Crespo concert only to have him arrive 2 hrs late to his own concert. Ah, I guess Ecua-time manages to prevail no matter where you're from.

As I leave for Quito the next morning, I realized that I should have said 7am instead of 8am because by the time I left well, it was around 9:30am. The last image I had was the great grandmother chopping off the head of 2 little guinea pigs or cuy. And no...I have no regrets about missing lunch.

Off to Quito I go!