lossmithviajan

We knew this would happen. I've been planning to put together and share some information and observations on our two weeks in Suriname. But once we got home, we got really busy, and it has been very hard to get to do the blog. To make up for the delay, we're delivering an extra load of photos with this blog entry. Suriname is on the South American continent, but belongs to the carribean by culture. The mix of cultures is amazing, and it frankly took a while to get used to everybody speaking dutch (although when the Surinamese speak English to you, they sound like they could be from Jamaica). We had the pleasure of staying with our friend Astrid MacDonald outside the capital city of Parimaribo. Astrid had this home built on a large lot, ... read more

Well perhaps not sweating to the oldies at the moment, but definitely sweating a lot. In addition to the very North American behavior of moving from air conditioned building to air conditioned building, we have adopted a few Surinamese practices for handling the heat. To Wit: two, or sometimes three showers per day to cool off, men going shirtless around the home in the evening (not particularly pretty, but effective), and women going, shall we say 'alfresco', under their summer dresses. Yesterday we used the pool at a downtown hotel for a few hours, and it saved us. Today, we stayed put and did a few things around Astrid's house in the morning and are checking out a mall with an internet cafe this afternoon. The Carnival of Wellness Later we are going to watch a ... read more

Just back into Quito from the rainforest. Will be posting a more detailed blog when time and bandwidth permit (the connection speed at the hotel right now could charitably be described as glacial). For now, let us just say that the trip to the Napo Wildlife Centre was teriffic. Among many other things, we saw huge centipedes, Tucans, Parrots, Monkeys, Anacondas, bats that catch fish, trees that shed their bark twice per year, and ants that farm a type of fungus, which they then eat. We also spotted the president of Paraquay, Fernando Lugo, who visited the centre. I was operating the blow gun in the cultural centre for the community of Kichwa Añangu when the president and his entourage entered the building, trailed by personal security and armed Ecuadoran military. The security guys took one ... read more

This may be the only good internet connection that we will have for a long time, so I´m going to give you an extra blog to hold you over. Read it slowly and it will last longer. The schedule had us two days in Baños, then to Quito with a day trip to Pupillacta but after a half day here, we called HQ and switched it to three days here. Good call. We realized after walking around that our itinerary had a bit too much city, and not quite enough visits to small towns, and Baños fits the bill nicely. The hotsprings in Baños have long been valued by people in the region for their health benefits, (the full name of the town is ¨Healthy water of Baños¨) and to add to its appeal, a image ... read more