The 10 Hour 5 Hour Plane Ride

---

Hey folks, I´m in Quito right now after a long day yesterday. My flight that was supposed to depart yesterday at 4:30 and land at 9:45 in Quito turned into a flight that departed at 5, was diverted to Guayaquil because of bad visability in Quito and eventually landed in Quito at 1 am, so I got to the hotel at 2 am. This is typical of Ecuador though, you are told that you are going to Quito and you go to Guayaquil, you are told that you will be there in 5 hours and it takes 10. Right now I am writing from the tourist area called La Mariscal, or if you like, gringolandia. There are lots of bars, dance clubs, hotels, places to eat and the largest English language bookstore in South America, which is called the Confederate Bookstore and has a crawdad holding a confederate flag and a book for its mascot, this is something that I am still having trouble wraping my head around. Anyway, tomorrow I am headed to Junin to start my work as an observer in Junin which is in the Imbabura provience of Northwest Ecuador, the busride takes 3 to 12 hours. Junin is in what is called a cloud forest, basically a rainforest at 5-6,000 feet elevation. It is cooler that the rainforest but as humid and as rainy. There are two seasons the rainy season and the holy cow, it will not stop raining season which is about to start. If you want further details about the organization that I am working for visit http://intagsolidarity.org/ don´t be afaraid to click the link on the right to donate some money to the organization, the organization exists thanks to donations from individuals almost soley and every bit helps, literally, 5$ will pay for a whole mess of rice to help feed the observers. Also, I know that you are, or hopefully will be, enjoying reading my blog entries and I can´t be in the country writing them if the organization cannot affort to keep me here. Thanks for reading the NPR style begging, I´m off to find something to eat and to call Nadia.

PS. The reason that the blog is titled Perico´s blog is that Mirasol, whose first language is Spanish and thats all I will say about that, a cook at the Georgia Shrimp Company, eat there if you are in Peachtree City, its the best food in town, could not remember how to say my name so she called me Perico. Translated it means parrot and because the parrot is such a nobel, handsome and intelligent creature the rest of the cooking staff took to calling me that.

---

Comments

[JC]

bookstore
Take pix of the Confederate crawdad!! Glad you made it safely. Take care of yourself!