Rockin’ The Bus

We just returned home last night from another amazing trip to Ecuador.  I haven't had a chance to download or sort through two cameras and one iPhone filled with photos but I've been thinking alot about the trip and do you know what I've decided I like best about Ecuador?  Do you?  It’s the people.  Well … other than drinking Pilsner and eating plantain chips. Of course that Amazon trip last year was absolutely incredible.  It’s right up there at the top of my favorite things about Ecuador.  But … I don’t know … it wouldn’t have been the same without a cold Pilsner at the end of the day … lying in a hammock, sweating, drinking Pilsner … in the Amazon … how can you beat that?   And this trip – the highlands and volcanoes were breathtaking and Dean was in geology-heaven – but we drank Pilsners and ate chips there too.  Hmm … it doesn’t get much better than sitting outside at the beach, or in the Amazon, or in the Ecuadorian highlands, or in Quito, or Guayaquil, or oh, hell, anywhere, with a cold Pilsner in your hand and a basket of plantain chips in front of you.  But the people are incredible ... Pilsner and chips or people … Pilsner and plantain chips or people ... it's a close call, but I think it's the people.  Yup, the people.  That’s the best thing about Ecuador.

I love the people.  I love how friendly they are and how they go out of their way to help you.  Like the guy working at one of the places we stayed on this trip.  He was dressed in his worker coveralls, walking past the cabin we had stayed in to go do whatever it was he was being paid to do, but when he saw me heading in the opposite direction with my suitcase, he stopped, turned around, came back, took my suitcase and carried it to the car.  Smiling.

Or the man from Ecuador I met on the plane when I went to Ecuador by myself last July who rented a cart for my suitcases and wouldn’t let me pay for it, helped me when there was an issue with my baggage claim form, and made sure Abby & Jorge were there to meet me before he would leave.

Did you know that men actually open doors for women in Ecuador?  Really.  They do.  And they let you go first.  Always.  They stop.  They hold their arm out toward the doorway and they wait, actually wait, for you to go through – before them!  I’m not kidding.  I felt like a queen … an old, wrinkled queen, but still … a queen.

And I love their smiles and joie de vivre.   One day we got caught in road construction and had to wait for one whole hour before we could continue on.  The wait could have been long, boring, and irritating, but instead we were entertained by the folks on a bus just ahead of us.  They cranked up the music and next thing you know the bus was rocking from side to side from the people who were dancing inside.

Other people were dancing alongside the road, and everybody was laughing.

I am not a seasoned traveler but I have never visited any city, state or country where the people are so courteous, so happy, so friendly, and so willing to help.  I don’t know what the secret is but I’m starting to think it must be the Pilsner and plantain chips.  The only way to know for sure, though, is through scientific study.  To that end, I have decided I will make the ultimate sacrifice and offer myself up as a guinea pig test subject.  Once I find a source for dollar Pilsners,  freshly prepared plantain chips, and have completed my research, I will report back.

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Rockin’ The Bus

Zippity Do Da

One of the opportunities Dean and I will have while we’re in Ecuador will be zip-lining. 

I feel like this is an experience I should take advantage of because who knows when the chance to dangle in a harness above tree canopies while my flailing body rushes toward the next tree trunk will make itself available again.  However, zip-lining is something you need to be fit and healthy to do.  And, even though it’s not a requirement, it is helpful if you are not afraid of heights.  I used to be terrified of heights but I’m much better now.  I can ride in a car driving over a bridge without hyperventilating.  I can ride those elevators with the glass walls, and if there’s room for me against the back wall I can even do it with my eyes open.   Heck, now I can even walk over a bridge if I have somebody to pry my fingers off the handrail when I get to the other side.  So there’s really no reason for me to abstain from this chance of a lifetime.  I’m not terrified of heights anymore and I am fit and healthy for zip-lining because I am not afraid of germs, slime and spit.  I believe germs, slime and spit have not only made me healthy but kept me healthy.  And I have conducted my own scientific study with resultant data to prove it.

The Theory:

Too much cleanliness can make you ill

The Subjects:

Woman

Man

The Research:

These are the woman’s lunch utensils.  She licks them off really good after each use and then replaces them in the drawer.

The man brings his plastic utensils home to be washed with soap and water.

 

This is the woman’s water bottle.  She cleans it by shaking the remaining water vigorously to remove the slimiest of the spit before emptying and refilling it as needed.   Any water remaining at the end of the day is finished the next day.  Except for Mondays.  On Monday mornings she refills with clean water to begin the week.

The man brings his go-cup home every night to be washed with soap and water.

 

This is the woman’s coffee cup.  She rinses and wipes it out every morning but it has never been touched by soap. (A black interior is just a bonus).

The man drinks tea at work.  He uses his go-cup which he brings home every night as stated above.

 

This is the man’s neti pot. It is used so often it is permanently stored on the bathroom counter.

The only time the woman touches the neti pot is to pick it up and clean under it.







 The Results:
 The woman last had a cold seven months ago which required no outside intervention for recovery.

The man recently completed a regimen of antibiotics to treat his current bout of bronchitis.

The Conclusion:

The woman is smarter than the man … oh, I mean … germs, slime and spit make you a healthy candidate for zip-lining.

If you have followed my example and not only replaced your terror of heights with a mere healthy respect, but taken the results of my scientific study seriously, you will also be fit and healthy for any future zip-line opportunities that may come your way.  In the meantime, I have one more possibly scary opportunity for you.  If you think a blog post about my adventure zip-lining would be entertaining, please leave a comment on this blog post.  If I receive 10, 15, 20 comments from real people – and I don’t mean my one friend writing 20 different anonymous comments, I mean 20 different comments from 20 different people (yes, I know it’s terrifying) – I  will write a blog post about the terror ecstacy of zip-lining.  If 20 of you are able to conquer your commenting fears, I promise I will hook my quivering, hyperventilating wrinkled old body into a harness and zip across the trees.  And I will blog about my experience.  But I’ll make sure Dean is there with me so if I pass out in mid zip he can tell me what a great time I had.

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Zippity Do Da

I Don't Know Why She Swallowed A Fly ~ Perhaps She'll Die

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything to this blog because I haven’t been able to think of anything to write about.  I’ve been blog-blocked.  Those creative juices have been squeezed right out of my brain.  It’s dry and wrinkly up there in my head – just like my skin.  So I started randomly reading blogs to see what other people were writing about.  I was hoping I would be inspired by their words, and my own words would begin to form in my puny brain and begin the journey down my neck, through my arms across the bony bridges of my fingers and shoot out like lightening onto the computer keys.  But no such luck.  After reading those blogs I was not only blog-blocked, I became blog-barren. 

It’s not that there aren’t a lot of really interesting and funny and creative blogs out there. There are.  Lots of them.  That’s the problem.  I read blogs with hilarious cartoons.   I read blogs with gorgeous photos and inspiring thoughts.  I read blogs with a purpose.  I read blogs with a theme.  Instead of feeling blog-inspired I felt more and more inadequate.  My pathetic little blog has no purpose.  It has no theme.  It doesn’t inspire.  It’s about nothing. 

And then, during my random blog reading, I stumbled upon this guy’s blog. 

When I opened the Stick I.T. tab it was like he’d taken some pages out of my own life with computers at work.  Just that very afternoon I’d spent way too long trying to remember all the plotter settings for a print job I’d printed dozens of times before because somehow they had disappeared and my very large map kept cutting off two inches two short.  I mumbled and swore (quietly) under my breath at I.T. because I knew one of their updates, or server changes, or who knows what, had caused my missing settings.  I didn’t know how they’d done it, but I knew they had.  After one too many failed printing attempts I threw that 40 x 48 inch map on the floor, somehow managed to stop myself from kicking and stomping on it – and you have no idea what kind of restraint that took – growled at it, picked it up, wadded it up into a big ball and crammed it into the recycle bin along with the other attempts.  That's one example of why, when I found it, I immediately felt a kinship with his blog.

After reading and commiserating with his Stick figures I looked over to his sidebar and saw the “HUH?” stick guy.   The code was there for the taking.  And I took it.  And I put it on my sidebar because finding this blog was not only the inspiration I'd been searching for; it was a sign. The fact that the code for something that would be appropriate for a blog about nothing was available and free for the taking was just plain kismet.  Because I figure when anybody finishes reading most of my blog posts, they are probably open-mouthed, staring at the computer screen saying, “huh?”  

Close your mouth now.  It’s fly season.

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I Don't Know Why She Swallowed A Fly ~ Perhaps She'll Die