Sunshine and Farewells

I find myself in another internet cafe in yet another beautiful little Ecuadorian town. My jungle adventure is now behind me, as is my time in Ambato with the Robles family and the people at the hospital. I am spending my last couple of days in Otavalo, a little town north of Quito, with the hopes of doing some last minute sight-seeing and maybe some Christmas shopping too.

I hope you all enjoyed my journal entry from the jungle, yet another addition to the growing list of embarrassing bug stories. I managed to survive the whole experience relatively unscathed, and learned rather quickly that it is the small biting sandflies and mosquitoes that present the biggest threat to my safety. The state of my legs and arms was renascent of a certain traveling companion after being in Ayutthaya Thailand who was quite confident that mosquitoes didn´t like to bite her and therefore didn´t need repellent. I made the mistake of not reapplying said repellent after swimming, an equally avoidable situation. The days were spent cruising up and down the Rio Napo, one of Ecuador´s largest rivers, in a motorized canoe, and enjoying all of the sights and sounds of the jungle. Just in case there are people out there who still disbelieve the ferociousness of the bug life I watched one of the large green grasshoppers bite a human trying to get a closer look as well as fend off an inquisitive puppy. It was quite a sight to see a grasshopper turn and face this dog, bowing and raising its head threateningly and finally have the pup put its tail between its legs and back off sheepishly, leaving the giant hopper the undisputed king of the dining room.

My last couple of days at the hospital were wonderful too, although it was very hard to have to say goodbye to everyone there. I took lots of pictures of them all and will hopefully have the opportunity to visit them next year. I took the Robles´out for dinner on Friday night and on Saturday morning they took me to the bus station, video camera rolling, for a tearful and heartwarming farewell. I will miss them all dearly, and appreciate deeply everything they did for me. I have an open ended invitation to re-occupy my bedroom and am officially a member of the family. Although the words were difficult, I managed to express how much I appreciated their kindness.

So now I am in Otavalo reminiscing and wandering through the streets. I can´t believe that the month is already gone and that I am returning to Canada in less than 48 hours. I hope its warm there - or at least if it isn´t that there is a good base of snow at Lake Louise . . .

-Emnlyn

PS - Have managed to locate a very useful turtle, but am still having trouble with the badger situation. Perhaps the badger will have to settle for warmth and comfort instead of companionship. And Vexation - the google translator is not always an accurate way to communicate in another language - but I appreciate the valiant effort.