Ecuador

So I finally made it down here to Ecuador to Kate´s smiling face. The plane ride was one of the more beautiful trips that I´ve had, looking down on slot canyon complexes in Arizona, passing above massive thunderstorms, and experiencing a sunset that made everything a bit more peaceful.
Quito is quite the city, with an old town full of cathedrals and colonial buildings, and a new town with discotecs, bars, and posh hotels. We stayed in the ¨Magic Bean¨ hosteria, where the sleep was hard to come by for me due to the elevation (it´s the second highest capitol, next to Bolivia´s La Paz) and the discotec next door. The food was good though. I´ve found that Ecuadorians love their fresh juice and tea with breakfast. After a couple of days we escaped Quito and hopped on a bus South towards the Cotopaxi National Park.
I´m a lucky man to have Kate, her Spanish is light years beyond my Spanglish, and she´s been able to navigate us without any hiccups so far. Right now we´re in a farm turned hosteria named Papagayo, with some of the best chocolate cake in South America.

Today we traveled up to Cotopaxi to see what we could see. The ride up there was long and grueiling since we happened to arrive just after half of the school children in Ecuador, and thus had the pleasure of eating the dust of 8 or 9 school buses (mmmm volcanic dust). At long last we made it up there and were presented with one of the most beautiful volcanos in the world.
Kate and I hiked up to around 4800 meters before turning around at the sound of thunder. Tomorrow we´re heading off to South America´s Crater Lake (Quilotoa) for a couple of days.