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Wednesday October 13th


So we've had an eventful couple of days. We took a bus to jaen where
we were clearly the first gringos to come through in a while. We got
stared at and overcharged for dinner and our hostal. We were glad to
just be there for the night. We grabbed the first collectivo out of
there at 6 in the morning and began yet another excruciatingly long
day of traveling.

The first collectivo to San ignacio we fit 6 people in a car built for
5. Laura and I shared the front seat for 2 hours which was
uncomfortable to say the least. We thought 6 people was a lot, but in
the second collectivo we fit 7 and a baby. Both collectivos tool us
flying along bumpy muddy dirt roads with steep dropoffs. It was
frightening, but just part of the adventure. So, It was tight quarters
for an hour and a half, then we were dropped off at the border.

We had to check out at the Peruvian border with a guy who spoke really
fast and mumbley. We had to keep asking him to repeat himself and
instead of slowing down he just kept raising his voice. By the end he
was pretty much just yelling at us. Finally out of frustration he
stamped our passports and told us we could leave. We then walked
across a bridge and were in Ecuador.

Ecuador was a little more official looking. There were three guys in
uniform who intimidated us a lot. We checked in, got our passprts
stamped and were told we were going to have to wait for a few hours
before the carito, large flatbed truck with a bunch of wooden benches
in rows, left. We sat with our bags and eventually the officers
curiosity got the best of them and they started asking us questions.
Top of the list was "are you single?" and "why are you traveling
alone?" meaing without men. We answered their questions and in an
attempt to add to the conversation I managed to ask them if they were
in love with each other. How embarassing! They laughed and said "us?!?
No , we're just friends." I am pretty sure they knew what I wasasking,
but just wanted to give me a hard time. So evenntualy 1230 rolled
around and we hopped on the truck, waved goodbye to our new border
patrol friends and set out for our ecuadorian adventure.

Within 3 minutes we came upon a gate in the road with a bunch of
millitary guys in uniform with guns. My heart immediately started
racing and almost burst through my chest when try told laura and I to
get off the truck. What did they want from us and why did they need
those huge guns? I was pretty sure this wasn't a good situation. They
asked for our passports, wrote down the numbers, appollgized for the
inconvenience and let us get back on the truck. Phew!! I guess I tend
to overreact when there are huge guns involved. So we bumped along for
a while then came to zumba where we would catch a bus to vilcabamba.
We sat around at the bus "terminal" (it was really just an open grassy
area with a few buildings here and there) until our stomachs began to
rumble. We had two hours beforeour bus was to leave so we decided to
ask where a restaurant was. We were told there was one in oneof the
buildings at the terminal so we decided we'd try it out.

The restaurant was little more than an open room with several tables
and chairs and at first we though we had just stumbled into someones
house. We got a lot of looks and eventually a curious little girl
wandered over to us to stare. We asked her name and she asked ours and
that opened the floodgates of conversation. She started talking really
fast, as 5 year olds do, and we had a difficult time understanding
what she was saying. Our food eventually came out and being vegetarian
was clearly not in the cards for this lunch. We picked at our chicken,
trying not to be rude but it was sort of less than appealing. At one
point the little girl came over to us and said something we didn't
understand but everyone else in re restaurant seemed to get as the all
turned and looked at us, stiffling chuckles about what the girl had
said. We don't think it was anything mean because the laughs seemed
friendly enough but we will forever be curious about what she said.

At the restaurant a middle aged man and a kid our age struck up
conversation with us. They were very kind and were heading to loja and
offered to drive us to vilcabamba which is on the way. Our thoughts
flashed to everything we have ever heard about not taking rides from
strangers but our instincts over ruled the warnings and we accepted
the ride. It would be an hour faster, more comfortable, and we would
get some pleasant converstion in. They were extremely kind and the 4
hour ride actually went pretty fast. They dropped us off at our hostal
outside of town, made sure we were able to get a room and toldus if we
were ever in loja to email them and they would show us around.

So we are here in vilcabamba which is hands down the most beautiful
place we have been yet. It is incredible and we are excited to get to
spend so much time in this area. We are heading to the farm now so
emails ad updates will be less frequent. Maybe once a week...