There are no rules in driving

So Ecuador is amazing. It feels like we have been here for a long time, and it has been less than a week.

We left Quito and went to the Intag Cloud Forest. You have no idea what fear is until you ride up and down the side of a mountain on a sketchy mostly dirt road that has barely enough room for the bus, let alone the other cars, construction crews and motorcyclists that share the road. Then looking out your window, and not being able to see the road underneath said bus, because the road is just that narrow. The only thing scarier is doing the same thing, but in an open air bus practically made out of wood. To make things a little bit worse, Ecuadorians don´t have rules in driving. There are speed limits, but they´re not followed. And you can almost do any illegal maneuver here and not be in trouble.

After surviviing the drive to the Intag, we arrived in Junin, where we stayed in an ecotourism cabin/tree house. Kristi and I slept in hammocks on the roof. We went on a hike to the little village of Junin (to learn more, watch Under Rich Earth). From Junin, we went to Carlos Zorrilla´s farm, where he grew a bit of everything to try and make it as natural and organic as possible. We were right on the mountains, and sometimes in the clouds. There was no electricity and barely running water. It was completely rustic, but so much fun. Other than the bugs. There were lots of those, and big ones at that. Our first night, after we turned off the lights, we heard something like a rock falling. I turned on my flashlight to see a giant cricket on the floor. He was probably around two-inches in any direction. He was promptly squished by Laura.


We had our own beds for a while, until the rain came. Our cabin leaked just a bit and three of our beds became completely soaked. Wednesday morning, we went on an intense four hour hike around the mountains. Our guide was cool and would make jokes about snakes hanging from trees. Soon into the walk, we actually found one...and it was poisonous. So what did we do? Get as close as we could to take pictures of it. The hike was rough and muddy, but some of the views we got to see were just breath taking.