I just noticed......
I bought a motorcycle Monday, and I was going to write about how this machine has become my nemesis, but then I noticed that I never talked about my trip to Ecuador.... so.
I was in Ecuador for two weeks
I am terrified of flying. My first flight was from Birmingham to Atlanta. Even though I didn't say anything during the flight, when we touched down in Atlanta, the girl sitting next to me said, "You did good." All of my subsequent flights were much better because in Atlanta I learned my personal pre-flight cocktail.... Two beers, a pomegranate martini, dramamine, and a klonopin.
I had a two day lay over in Miami. If you have never been to Miami, don't go. I like to describe it thusly: Even though I didn't see any dogs, I fully expected to be attacked by one.
When I finally arrived in Ecuador, I immediately discovered that I had made an enormous mistake. As it turns out, I don't speak any Spanish, and they sure as hell didn't speak any English. I didn't eat for two days. I would go into places, try to speak a little Spanish and point to things on the menu. They would insist on saying gibberish back to me, and eventually I would just leave. On the second day, I wrote an email to Allison telling her to call the airline and get me out of Ecuador. It would have cost me $800.00 so I stayed. That night, I went to a restaurant, pointed to something and refused to leave until food of some sort was brought to me.
After about the third day, when I calmed down and resigned to the idea that I was going to die in this place, my Spanish started coming back to me. At least well enough to get food, and to get my general point across. I decided to start off my sight seeing slowly, so I went to the equator. It is a funny place because about a hundred years ago they placed a huge, elaborate monument on what they thought was the equator. Then GPSs came out...... As it turns out, there were about 500 yards off. So, the people who own the land 500 yards away, built their own monument. It is a car tire with a sign post sticking out of it. If you go there, they do all of these bizarre experiments to prove to you that you are on the real equator. In one of these, they demonstrate how you are not as strong when you stand directly on the line. To prove this, they asked for the strongest person in the crowd..... And everyone pointed to me! I was, of course, very surprised. Then it dawned on me that at 6'4, I was probably the biggest person in the whole country. I'm pretty sure that the tour guide called me "White Giant."
After that, I became much more adventurous in my explorations. I climbed a volcano.... half way. Rode through the Andes on the Pan-American Highway where I was nearly killed by a land slide, and got lost for several hours by myself in the rain forest.
Maybe I'll post pictures with captions later. Because I went alone, I'm only in a few of them.
I was in Ecuador for two weeks
I am terrified of flying. My first flight was from Birmingham to Atlanta. Even though I didn't say anything during the flight, when we touched down in Atlanta, the girl sitting next to me said, "You did good." All of my subsequent flights were much better because in Atlanta I learned my personal pre-flight cocktail.... Two beers, a pomegranate martini, dramamine, and a klonopin.
I had a two day lay over in Miami. If you have never been to Miami, don't go. I like to describe it thusly: Even though I didn't see any dogs, I fully expected to be attacked by one.
When I finally arrived in Ecuador, I immediately discovered that I had made an enormous mistake. As it turns out, I don't speak any Spanish, and they sure as hell didn't speak any English. I didn't eat for two days. I would go into places, try to speak a little Spanish and point to things on the menu. They would insist on saying gibberish back to me, and eventually I would just leave. On the second day, I wrote an email to Allison telling her to call the airline and get me out of Ecuador. It would have cost me $800.00 so I stayed. That night, I went to a restaurant, pointed to something and refused to leave until food of some sort was brought to me.
After about the third day, when I calmed down and resigned to the idea that I was going to die in this place, my Spanish started coming back to me. At least well enough to get food, and to get my general point across. I decided to start off my sight seeing slowly, so I went to the equator. It is a funny place because about a hundred years ago they placed a huge, elaborate monument on what they thought was the equator. Then GPSs came out...... As it turns out, there were about 500 yards off. So, the people who own the land 500 yards away, built their own monument. It is a car tire with a sign post sticking out of it. If you go there, they do all of these bizarre experiments to prove to you that you are on the real equator. In one of these, they demonstrate how you are not as strong when you stand directly on the line. To prove this, they asked for the strongest person in the crowd..... And everyone pointed to me! I was, of course, very surprised. Then it dawned on me that at 6'4, I was probably the biggest person in the whole country. I'm pretty sure that the tour guide called me "White Giant."
After that, I became much more adventurous in my explorations. I climbed a volcano.... half way. Rode through the Andes on the Pan-American Highway where I was nearly killed by a land slide, and got lost for several hours by myself in the rain forest.
Maybe I'll post pictures with captions later. Because I went alone, I'm only in a few of them.