The Things I Have Been Doing
So far since the tenth of this month, I left the country for the first time; got altitude sickness; saw so many volcanoes that even a Catholic country like Ecuador can't possibly provide enough virgins to appease them; stood on the equator; flew business class for the first time; recovered from altitude sickness; rode in a Zodiac on thirty-two separate occasions; snorkeled near a shark; collided with a giant sea turtle; swam near what appeared to be the Cliffs of Insanity; got charged by an iguana; saw a coffee plant in the wild; exchanged currency for the first time; got altitude sickness; slept in a monastery, which may be the only hotel room I've ever been in without a King James Bible in it; walked among ancient temples of unimaginable scale; fled from an elderly photobomber; watched horses dance; climbed the steps of a still-inhabited Incan city built more or less vertically on the side of a mountain; said "sil vous plait" to a hispanic waiter instead of "por favor"; rode on the Orient Express in South America (I am not kidding); let out a gasp after stepping through a small stone doorway to unexpectedly behold all of Macchu Picchu; encountered a Ghost Llama with a Purple Ass; danced to a Spanish cover of "Jailhouse Rock" (no one was hurt); gazed into a pit twenty-three-feet deep, fifteen of which were buried in carefully arranged skulls and femurs; is now trying to remember that the customary greetings in the US aren't "Buenos dias," "Buenos tardes," or "Buenos noches"; and has had, overall, two of the busiest weeks of my life.