According a local legend long since forgotten by all except for a drunken old man at the end of a bar, the falls were created not by a large volcanic eruption leaving a major crack in the earths surface, oh no, he had a far more thrilling story.

After another whiskey or two, he regaled me of the story of Naipi who was apparently a beautiful young girl who caught the fancy of a God nonetheless. Lucky girl you might think.

Apparently, being a young charismatic God with superhuman powers and abilities were not enough for her. Like most women. She ran off in a canoe down the Iguazu River with the local heart throb.

There's just no pleasing some women.

Sure enough, the God didn't like being made fun of by his other God friends. So he decided to take out his anger. A lot of lads have been in this position before. You give her all she could ever want, food on the table, enternal life, money to go shoping and all that stuff. What do you get in return?? She jumps on the closest canoe with the closest showing off his six pack... the story of my life...

So the God did what any of us would have done, he smote them and he smote them good.

He sliced the river in two and crushed the surroundings creating not 1 but 275 or so mighty waterfalls to stunt their escape.

Its a good thing that all this happened as it gave me the excuse to visit this end of Brazil and make a trip over to Argentina for the day to check out the wonderous waterfalls in particular the Devils Throat with its awesome size and power.

Later I was to find out that the old drunk struggling to hang out to the side of the bar would be my driver for the falls in the morning. Safety first eh.

People often ask, which side of the falls should be seen, Brazil or Argentina. I always say, why not do both??

The Brazilian side is awe inspiring. You get up close and personal with the majority of the falls.

On the way to the Argentinian border, you can stop off at the Triple Frontera to stand nearby or as close as possible to where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet in the middle of the river.

The Brazilian side of things is brilliant to see the amount of falls but the Argentinian side is mostly to see the colossal Devils Throat waterfall. I am admitedly a man afraid of heights and standing a top of this waterfall did not help.

The force of the spray rushing back up is even pretty powerful so you could imagine what it was like when young Naipi went over with her little canoe.

After bearing witness to the dramatic falls, I headed to see the Itaipu Dam with a few people to see how these falls have been put to use to power 40% of Brazil and Paraguay's electricity needs from the world's largest dam.

From the hostel where I stayed you could hear the faint roar of thunder in the background from the falls as if the God was still crying for the loss of the love of his heart....

We visited this hotel as part of a cruise/tour with Princess. The location was less than ideal but certainly not bad. Before arriving here, we dropped other passengers at the Sharaton Park Towere at the end of Calle Florida and, at least based on location, that would have been a better choice. In any case, the Intercontinental is quite nice. Because we were part of a cruise package and a zillion of us had just arrived from the airport, checking was in a special location rather thann at the desk and, of course was a bit of a zoo. Fortunately, our friends Gus and Val had arrived a bit earier and had us upgraded to the conceirge level for a very modest cost. Unfortunately, our room was not ready and as the timeticked away, I could get a straight answer as to when it would be. However, we had a great lunch while waiting and then were able to wait in the concierge lounge. Our room was spacious and elegant and had a nice view of a small park. Actually, when the time came to board the ship a few days later, we weren't ready to go!

Brazilian steakhouses are becoming rather popular in the US so must people are familiarwith them. A parilla is essentially the Argentinian equivalent. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, it's protien overload; waiters continue to bring you various and sundry types of meat until you scream uncle. In Buenos Airies, they are omnipresent and a friend had strongly recommended we try one. Spettus was recommended to us by the concierge at the Intercontinental. Spettus, lotated in very trendy Puerto Madero, is an especially nice white tableclothparilla with superb service. In addition to the endless meat, there was a huge buffet table with about every salad or side dish you could dream of. The surprise of the evening was the price; given the exchange rate, it was incredibly low. What a great place!!

I´ve completed one week of volunteering in the mornings and the kids have been great. I´ve been taking a local bus to the Clinic in the morning and it only costs 60 centimos (20 cents)....it´s crazy cheap here. I spent one day at the clinic, 2 days in classrooms at the attached school and today I did therapy with some of the children. Unfortunately I didn´t go in yesterday because I have an inflammed throat and bad cough....didn´t want to get the kiddies sick too. The children are all so sweet. Most of the 40-45 kids live on-site at the clinic because their parents are too poor to care for them due to their disabilities (cerebral palsy, down syndrome, mental retardation, etc). The older ones attend school from 8:30-3:00 and the younger ones (2-4) stay at the clinic all day. Many of them are non-verbal, so I wish I had brought some communication systems with me from home (PECKS)....sorry the Special Education teacher in me coming out there. Anyway, it has been a really fun week at the clinic/school with the children. I´ll make sure and take lots of pictures of the students before I leave.
http://www.clinicasanjuandedioscusco.org/index-clinica.html

After volunteering from 8:30-12:30, I walk home for lunch. After sharing great food with my five female roommates, we head into Cusco for Spanish class from 2-4 or 4-6, to meet with our Tandem Peruvian speaking partners, to check email, or to shop. We have dinner every night at 7:30 and the meals have been sooooo yummy! I have been spending most of my afternoons with Aneesha, a 24 year old girl who is about to start law school in Boston, and Grace, a 19 year old college student from Ohio. We share a beroom together and have also been sharing lots of other great memories together. For the past five days we´ve been hanging out with three amazingly fun boys: Martin from the UK, Chris from Australia, and Luke from Wales. We´ve shared many great meals together, played lots of card games at local bars, and danced the night away at clubs until the wee hours of the morning. They departed yesterday, so we were all a little bummed today, but our own adventures here in Cusco will continue on.....

Since I couldn´t go to Puno/Lake Titicaca last week and Aneesha & Grace were climbing Machu Picchu, I did a city tour of Cusco on Saturday and then a tour of the Sacred Valley on Sunday, accompanied by seven funny, energetic, friendly Chilean medical students. It was a great way to orient myself in Cusco because I got to see all the main sites within the city limits for the tour on Saturday....the Qoricancha Temple, the remains of a colossal structure called Sacsaywaman, a sanctuary of worship to fertility at Qenpo, an old military headquarters at Puca pucara, and the Tambomachay baths....mostly historical sites. http://www.cuscoperu.com/cusco/travel-peru/022-classic-tours-cusco.php   The tour of the Sacred Valley on Sunday was amazing as well. I saw several Inca ruins within 40-50 miles outside of Cusco....Pisaq (an old Incan city made up of stonemasonry buildings), Ollantaytambo (a fortress with temples and lots of hillside farming), and Chinchero (Inca structures and colonial buildings). I can´t even begin to imagine what Macchu Picchu will be like because these ruins were absolutely amazing. http://www.cuscoperu.com/cusco/travel-peru/023-valley-travel-peru.php

I´m exstatic because Grace, Aneesha and I are going to Puno and Lake Titicaca this weekend. I´m excited to see the lake and stay with a family on one of the many islands. It will be our last adventure together as a threesome because Grace will be leaving for the jungle next week. Aneesha and I will also try to go south to Arequipa next weekend as well to see Colca Canyon, which is suppsosed to be similar to the Grand Canyon. We may even meet up with Chris (the Aussie) again while we are in Arequipa. It will just depend on whehter the strikers are blocking the roads next week. Well, that´s all for now. Please continue to keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I travel throughout Peru. Have a great 4th of July weekend!!

Until next week.... 

I have been in Cusco for almost one week and it has been thoroughly amazing!! I am living with a couple who has been married for 51 years this July, Osmar and Virginia. Osmar is a retired accountant and Virginia is a domestic engineer. They have three grown children, two boys and one girl, of which only one still lives in Cusco. They take great care of all the volunteers in their house....cozy rooms, three amazingly yummy meals everyday, and lots of great spanish conversations. Currently there are five girls in the house and they all volunteer in Cusco with children to some extent, either at a day care, an orphanage, or a school. We share bedrooms and the one bathroom that has an interesting shower. The hot water in Peru is heated by electricity, so you have to be very careful while attempting to take a hot shower so that you don´t touch any metal and shock yourself. The toilets flush most of the time, but occassionally the water is turned off. So far the electricity has stayed on everyday since I´ve been here, so my stay here in Cusco is an upgrade from India and Kenya. :)

I was supposed to go to Lake Titicaca this weekend, but my trip has been postponed due to strikers blocking the roads to Puno. My roommates and I will try and go next weekend, but it will totally depend on whether the bus drivers are willing to drive there. The strikers are non-city dwellers who are fighting the government´s desire to privatize water. The city dwellers have no problems with it, but the farmers and suburban dwellers have been in an uproar about it for weeks. They have been blocking the roads to Puno, thus causing monetary damages to the Peruvian tourism industry, which is unfortunate for the entire country since tourism is their largest source of income. I haven´t spoken with enough non-city dwellers to understand the entire story, so I will have to see what people in Puno say once I finally make it there.

The Inti Raymi Festival on June 24th was absolutely AMAZING!! It involved three parts at three different locations within Cusco and over 500 actors. The first was at 9am and involved a salute to the sun at the Temple of the Sun, Qorikancha, which is directly across the street from my volunteering office. There was a processional of musicians, the Sinchi and his guards, the Imperial Army, women, princesses, nobility, and finally the Inka. The second ceremony began at 11am in the Plaza de Armas and involved a processional of the same people and a presentation of coca as an offering to the Inka. The Inka was on a stage in the middle of the Plaza de Armas preparing the people for the afternoon´s cermemony, which is the largest and longest of the three. Everyone proceeded up a huge mountain to Saqsaywaman for the final ceremony from 1:30-3:30pm. It involved a processional of the same 500 actors, a dedication to the sun, lighting of a fire on the main altar, offering of a llama (used to be an actual llama), eating and drinking of Chicha (Peruvian liquor), and ended in dancing/music/ eating/drinking by the actors. It was the most beautiful ceremony I have ever seen and I can´t wait to show everyone my photographs.
http://www.unique-southamerica-travel-experience.com/inti-raymi.html

I am excited for the beginning of my volunteer position on Monday. I will be working at Clinica San Juan de Dios, which provides rehabilitation services to children with disabilities, especially those whose parents cannot afford it or do not know how to care for a special needs child. There are doctors, nurses, and therapists on site who provide physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and general medicince. There is also a school connected with the clinic which provides Special Education services to the children. What a perfect placement for a Special Education teacher....I am so excited to begin on Monday. You can explore more about where I will be volunteering at this site:
http://www.clinicasanjuandedioscusco.org/index-clinica.html

RIP Michael Jackson.....The bars/night clubs have been playing his musis all week long. :-)

Last week i visited Argentina for the first time, and i'm sure i'll return sometime. It's absolutely fantastic. I wanted to tell you about the hostel were i stayed in. At the beggining i was kind of doubtful, because the hostel had recently opened and i wasnt sure how it was going to be like. My brother reccomended it because the owner of the hostel is his friend. I have to admit: i was surprised. Everything was excellent, and they have an opening promotion: 2 nights for the price of 1! I had a really great time. They've been open for 2 weeks now, and everything is working smoothly. The staff is really nice, the building is big and clean and it is located in the "barrio" of San Telmo, one of the main places in Buenos Aires Well i think thats it. This guys deserved an excellentreview! So here it is. See ya!

Despite some problems at the airport, I finally made it to South America! I spent the first few days in Brazil visiting Marcos in Sao Paulo. His family was extremely welcoming and served some delicious food. They were also all immediately shocked that I wasn't wearing a parka or something, because for them this is winter. But coming from Wisconsin and Boston, 60 degrees doesn't exactly seem to warrant breaking out the long underwear for me... Sao Paulo was like no other city I have ever visited. The entire skyline is filled endlessly with skyscrapers. Even at 9 pm there is still bumper to bumper traffic and these crazy motorcycle riders weave in and out of traffic. I did also get to see the quieter side of Brazil when we went to Marcos's beach house which is located in a tiny town a few hours outside of the city. The drive out there is beautiful as well, through mountains and huge forests with a few slums thrown in on the side of the road. The house itself was only a short walk from the water but it was way to wavy and cold to actually swim-- even the surfers were waiting for it to calm down some.

After these relaxing few days I arrived to my homestay in Buenos Aires in a neighborhood called Recoleta. It essentially is the Manhattan of Argentina with many upper- middle class families living in beautiful parisian style apartments. My host parents are Raquel and Juan Carlos and they were both extremely welcoming to me. They speak only Spanish here, which will definitely be nice in improving my Spanish. One of their daughters, Joaquina, also lives here but she is 24 and in her last year of University so she doesn't seem to spend much time here. Raquel and Juan Carlos also have another daughter that lives in Buenos Aires with her son and husband. She and her son have turned the apartment into their own little day care since all of the schools in Buenos Aires have been shut down as a result of Swine Flu. This is another thing people seem to be extremely worried about. As soon as someone hears I'm from America they want to know if I have swine flu and tons of people walk around wearing masks. My favorite are the people with the mask around their necks, smoking a cigarette-- clearly health is their #1 concern. They also have two maids here from Paraguay who both live in the house as well-- it gets a little crowded at times, but it's still very nice. The whole maid concept took a little getting used to, but it is very common in South America and much different than in the States. The maid does basic cleaning and housekeeping, but also cooks all of the meals and is generally considered almost as part of the family since most stay for many years. Food here seems like a very different concept. I knew that Argentines ate lots of meat, but I have NEVER seen these kinds of portions. The other night we were served a literal kilo meatball (we asked the maid, so yes, it was actually a kilo)... needless to say I stuck to potatoes and salad and then went out for ice cream later instead haha... Although I have decided that at some point during my time here I need to try asada-- I don't think I can spend an entire year in Argentina and not at least TRY their world-famous steak.

I've also finished my first week of class as well. The course is taught by a very funny man from Ireland who has been teaching English around the world for about 25 years. He has some very interesting stories. The class consists of fairly common sense material, but it will definitely prepare me well for any situation I might encouter in my actual classroom. There are only 5 other people in my class, and its quite the mix of people. Rachel (a friend of Brendan's, who I knew before I got here) and I are the only recent college graduates.

I also taught my first English class last night. It was quite overwhelming but it went much better than I expected. I taught prepositions to a beginner class. There were only 3 people and they were all very patient and understanding. It was a bit difficult to get them to follow my directions at some points, and they spoke Spanish most of the time but I think for the most part they understood the lesson. By the end I felt much more confident and I think starting these classes so soon will only help.

I've done a little touring of Buenos Aires between class. I've noticed that dog poop is EVERYWHERE in this city. You have to constantly watch every step or you are bound to end up in some mess. Besides the sidewalk, the city is certainly beautiful. It's a very large and overwhelming city, but I am slowly getting my bearings here. I walked through el cementerio recoleta the other day and almost got locked inside, because we didn't realize how late it had gotten. I've never seen a cemetery like this. It was filled with these massive, ornate sarcophaguses all in rows so it feels like you are walking through a city of the dead. Well that basically highlights the beginning of my time in South America... I've got my second class to teach tonight so I need to go over my lesson plan some more.

El Tayta is a bar nearby the central park in Miraflores. It's hard to find the entrance if it's the first time you want to visit it. When you come in, the staff is greeting you very friendly. You can sit at the bar, on the bench or on one or take a seat to one of the little tables. They have a lot of nice coctails, but also good cold beers. I definatly recommend the mohito's, but i have to tell you they are very dangerous at el Tayta haha! Every day around 11:00 in the evening they have a live band or a singer, and they are always very good! There are some old farmer tools on the wall and some old paintings, what makes it feel a comfortable place. The drinks are not very expensive, so a perfect uppertonity to drinke one more ;) It's a very nice bar,nice staff and they have nice drinks. Great to sit there for a night!

Couchsurfing is a brilliant concept !!! It is an excellent way to experience different parts of the world, meet a diverse range of travel - minded people, and get direct immediate exposure to everyday life in what could be otherwise an unknown foreign place to the couchsurfer.

A couple of months earlier, when booking accommodation to initally stay in Buenos Aries, the guesthouse advised that the room had already been reserved for a few days, but it was available for my first three nights. After forty hours travel from the Far East, this provided a chance to rest and adjust. By booking in advance, I got a good discounted deal with the room rate. So, I decided to check out for 4 nights, couchsurf for that period, then check in again at the guesthouse for another 12 nights.

For more information http://www.couchsurfing.org/ 

It seems that this American world
Is waiting for that girl
For the stars to shine in her eyes,
For its wind to caress her,
For its flowers to have someone
To pick up the essence of their souls,
And the currents of its great rivers,
Someone to listen to and love its vague songs.

Tabaré - Juan Zorrilla de San Martín
http://www.welcomeuruguay.com/colonia/index_i.html

This one, too, was part of a Princess Cruise/Tour so, for the most part, we had little choice. The hotel itself is quite nice with the typical Hyatt cebtral atrium. As happened at the Intercontinental in Buenos Aires, checkin was in a special area and, though it was well into the afternoon, many people's rooms, including ours, were not yet ready. Tempers were short and it was most unpleasant. To make matters worse, the bags were forever coming up and when I inquired I was told if I wanted them anytime soon, I should come and find them. My bags and hundreds of others werespread through several banquet rooms and only a few very tired, very frustrated bellmen were on duty at all! The young man who very graciously helped me locate my bags was as angry at the situation as I was. It's obvious to me this hotel was simply not prepared for the arrival of our group. As to the room itself, it was absolutely magnificent! It was more ir less terraced with the king bed on the upper level and a sitting area and desk a few steps down. Furniture was very modern and huge large windows presented a magnificent view of the city. The swimming pool was large with lots of pleasant seating around it and a great waterfall. We were only a very short walk from Parque Arauco, a large shopping mall that had a wide range of restaurants. Except for the horrible check-in experience, the place was great.

We were up with the alarm at 7:00, had breakfast in the Horizon Court and met the gang as planned at 8:30. Gus & Val and we went to the Horizon Court to wait it out while Frank and Pat stayed at the lounge on 7. Our color, “Gold 1”, was near the bottom of the list so we knew it would be a long wait. As with our trip to Alaska, booking the post-cruise program with Princess apparently gives a lower priority, not a higher one, for getting off the ship. Eventually we were the only people in the Horizon Court and, though the staff didn't bug us, we moved to the pool to get out of their way. It was after 10:30 when we got called for disembarkation. There was further delay because we had to take a shuttle bus to a terminal and then have our luggage scanned by dogs for agricultural products so it was after 11:00 by the time we got on the bus.

The good news was that we had an outstanding guide, Alex. The bad was that we shared the bus with a group of incredibly rude, overbearing, loud-mouthed New Yorkers (actually I think New Yorkers transplanted to Florida) who thought they were very special indeed. We stopped at a quaint roadside stop called "Los Hornitos de Curacavi" for lunch. Among the six of us, we had 10 empanadas, 4 glasses of wine, a glass of water and a glass of coke and the bill came to only about US$40...TOTAL! We were fortunate in that we were the first bus there and got tables and prompt service. By the time we came out, people were stacked up waiting to get in.

Alex was fantastic; both entertaining and informative yet the obnoxious New Yorkers had a discussion about tip for him and decided among themselves that $2 was appropriate! No wonder people hate Americans; I was ashamed to be associated with them. Scum!

We got to the hotel, the Grand Hyatt in Santiago, about 2:45 and, though most people got their keys, we did not because our room was apparently not ready. It was almost 3:30 when we got to the room and when I called for the bags I was told if I wanted them soon I'd have to come down and get them myself!

I called Franco and we agreed he'd pick us up at 9:00 for dinner, then called the others to give them the word that we'd not be joining them for dinner.

Having waited long enough, I went down and got the bags. The bellmen were helpful enough; they were just totally overwhelmed by sheer volume. The young man who helped me said they had checked out over 500 bags early this morning and were checking in almost 500 now. He was dead on his feet yet, though he was supposed to have quit at 3:00, he couldn't go until the bags were all delivered. He didn't complain at all; I dragged all this out of him. I don't know whether it's true but someone told me they only had 4 bellmen on! God bless those guys.

I spent about an hour at the hotel's absolutely gorgeous pool. When I was returning to the room at about 6:30 I ran into my friend Jim from the Patagonia trip. I'd seen him in line when we were waiting for our keys yet he had just then gotten his! And I thought WE had a beef!

After I dressed for dinner I realized I was too hungry to wait until after 9 to eat so I went in search of a snack. Options in the hotel were sparse so I walked the 3 blocks to the huge mall, Parque Arauco, and after a search settled for some hot pretzels from "Mr. Pretzels".

Franco and Carola picked us up at a little after 9:30 and we went to a restaurant called "C" for dinner. C is a new fusion restaurant and was excellent. We had a fantastic time and a great meal. They did not have an English menu so ordering was challenge and a lot of fun. We shared abalone and razor clams for appetizers. For the main course I had duck while Lin had filet and both were excellent. Carola had said that Tom Jones had just appeared in Valparaiso and, sure enough, he was entering the restaurant as we left. We got to the room about 12:30.

This place is called El Batan. IT is located almost 210 km from Lima, Peru. It is right at the gas station. This restaurant has 3 differents places, a snack shop, a bar and the restaurant place. If you are going to the south and need a snak I would recommend you to make a stop at the snack shope. The empanadas, and desserts are ñami !! If you want a properly lunch, you can go to the restaurant place, but... remember... all you eat on that site will be more expensive... not a little more... A LOT !!!!!

Porto Alegre (lit. "Happy Port", pronunciation (help·info)) is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil and the capital city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Porto Alegre is one of the most important cultural, political and economic centers of Southern Brazil. Two Mercosur countries, Argentina and Uruguay, border Rio Grande do Sul. It is also the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area.

Porto Alegre was founded in 1742 by immigrants from the Azores, Portugal. In the late 19th century the city received many immigrants from other parts of the world, particularly Germany, Italy, and Poland. The vast majority of the population is of European descent.

The city lies on the eastern bank of the Rio Guaiba (Guaiba Lake), where five rivers converge to form the Lagoa dos Patos (Lagoon of the Ducks), a giant freshwater lagoon navigable by even the largest of ships. This five-river junction has become an important alluvial port as well as a chief industrial and commercial center of Brazil.

The port of Porto Alegre is important for transporting local produce. The "Gaucho capital" has a broad-based economy that lays particular emphasis on agriculture and industry. Agricultural production includes produce such as plums, peaches, rice and cassava grown on rural smallholdings. The shoe and leather industries are also important, especially in Novo Hamburgo, in the Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre.

Porto Alegre has a long coastline on the Guaíba Lake, and its topography is punctuated by 40 hills. In the lake, a vast body of water, a maze of islands facing the city creates an archipelago where a unique ecosystem makes possible an exuberant wildlife. The city area concentrates 28% of the native flora of Rio Grande do Sul, with 9,288 species.^[1] Among these, there are many trees which are the vestiges of the Atlantic Forest. Fauna is also diversified, specially in the islands and hills. The Portoalegrense environs include many parks, squares and wooded streets.

I got to Guayaquil and it was ridiculously humid. I was staying in a hostal (Dream Kapture) owned by a Canadian woman. The room I was in had two bunkbeds, and the whole hostal was booked, so there were people everywhere. The first night, I got some Chinese food, because it was the only restaraunt really open in the neighboorhood. I passed out without even knowing so while reading around 9. I only ended up staying for one day because of the humidity. I got dropped off in the middle of the city to wander for a few hours. Then I decided to escape the humidity and go see a movie at Mall del Sol. I saw Duplicity for $2.10, for the second time. Then I headed back to the hostal and met up with a New Zealander, two Americans, a British girl, and a Norweigen girl. We went out for some food then went back to the hostal to play cards for a while. The next day I had breakfast, french toast with fruit, with MAPLE syrup, which was a nice surprise because I can´t handle the overly sweet sugar cane syrup. Then I headed to Ambato, a few hours away.
I got to Ambato in the afternoon. I ate at a little coffee shop, that I can´t remember the name of to save the life of me, around the corner of my hotel. I experienced the best sandwhich and the best mocha coffee, ever. I went back up to my room and watched TV and fell asleep right away. In the morning I headed to Latacunga so I could get to the market the next day. I stayed at the Hotel Central again, with the friendly owner, and went up and layed down for a while. Then I went and walked around for a couple of hours, and had some pasta for dinner. Went to the market the next day and headed towards the south again, where I was thrown off track by going to Peru unexpectedly. The bus was about 8 hours and it broke down an hour from Cuenca. I didn´t eat breakfast because I wasn´t hungry, and I planned on eating street food from vendors on the bus because it is terribly good. Unfortunately there were none. So I had a bag of potato chips and got to the hotel around 9pm and was too tired to go downstairs and have dinner.
So, I only planned on staying in Cuenca for a night so I wouldn´t arrive in Loja at 1:30am. I ended up staying for three nights, because I remembered how much I loved Cuenca. The first day was a Sunday, so not much was open. I hung out with an Irishman that was staying in my dorm room and an Aussie couple who all knew each other from Quito. The next day we went to a mueseum in one of the  churches and went with an Austrian girl to the Mueseo Banco Central, which has a lot of Ecuador´s cultural displays. We had really good lunch at an outdoor restaraunt and hung out at the hostal for a while. I had pasta for dinner and went to bed early so I could get up and finally reach Vilcabamba the next day. Which, is where I am now for a bit.

On a bitter note: I have seen Fast & Furious 4 three times in one week, twice in one bus ride.