Finished with our preschool job, we had a week before Chris started Spanish school and Justin started teaching at a short summer school program. The beach is overcast and cold this time of year, so we headed out to the other direction…to the Amazon basin jungle. Most of Ecuador’s jungle tourist spots are farther north, accessible from Quito or Baños, but we stayed closer to Cuenca into the country’s southern Oriente. It was like a road trip without a car... each day we spent a couple of hours on a bus, explored a new little town, and searched for someplace to have dinner, usually ending up with the ubiquotous roasted chicken. First stop was Mendez, an extremely small town. In about an hour we found a room in the one hotel, walked through the center of
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