lap of luxury

Today marks the six week anniversay of my time here in Ecuador...and also my last night here. My sister and bro-in-law left for Peru this morning and my mother and I head to Asuncion, Paraguay tomorrow night. I am increasingly amazed by many of the friends I have made here who are on long term travel treks - I have enjoyed my time immensely, but I'm starting to get tired to traveling and am starting to look forward to being back in my own house and with a kitchen to access food when I want, and what I want!



Our week at the coast was disappointing weather-wise - it was cloudy all week except for a 40 minute sunny spot one day. And of course as we were leaving on Friday, a full blue sky greeted us when we awoke. Alas. But by far the highlight of our time of traveling as a family, at least for me, was our day at sea whale watching and visiting la Isla de la Plata that I wrote about briefly last time. Phenomenal. We followed one humpback whale in particular for a while and she was really playful, slapping her fins and jumping out of the water quite a bit. But the birds were just as fascinating. The frigatas in particular where incredible - they´re the birds with a red throat-pouch thing that expands like a huge balloon during mating season in order to attract a mate. Wow.

We flew back to Quito on Friday and headed for Otavalo yesterday. It was a great day weather wise so we actually had wonderful views of Cotopaxi and Cayambe (another volcano nearby) and the rest of the mountains all the way north to Otavalo and back again.

We have discovered what a small tourist world Ecuador is as we have run into someone we 'know' at pretty much every site we've visited. Starting with our fellow guests at the first hostal in Saquisili, we have run into our hostal-mates at every point of the journey. Atests to the power of the Lonely Planet itinerary. My favourite run in though was when I ran into Aaron, a student from the school who lived with my host family as well for one week. I was just strolling down the street in Montañita after my last blog post and there we Aaron and his friend he is travelling with! wild. but somehow not surprising.

So my time in Ecuador has come to an end. I have enjoyed it, learned a lot, seen a lot and feel so blessed to have had this opportunity. I am happy to be heading into the home stretch of my journey and look forward to seeing lots of people from home in Paraguay. My next post will be from the southernmost point that I will have been thus far! Until then, take care.