Alrighty, then. Here's a map of some of the highlights of our trip.
As you can see if you squint just right, Dean and I flew into Quito, then spent a couple of days in Mindo. We spent most of one day hiking to six different waterfalls. To get to the falls we had to ride a tarabita across a gorge. Up until the very moment I walked up to that metal basket of possible death I was still almost sure I could face my fears and zip across a canopy. But when I heard myself whine "no me gusta, no me gusta" to the attendant, and nearly cut off the circulation to Dean's arm as I squeezed it when the basket moved, I decided I probably shouldn't try the zip-line tour. Not that I couldn't do it. I know I could do it. I could zip across the tree tops ... if I really, really wanted to ... if I had to ... if my life depended on it ... if somebody physically grabbed me, put me in a harness and let go. I'm pretty sure I could do it.
Abby and Jorge met us in Mindo and we headed back to Quito where we rode the teleferico (which is just a much fancier basket of possible death). This one took us up the side of a volcano to an amazing overlook of Quito and because I was now an experienced basket-of-possible-death-rider, this time I barely whined.
After we left Quito we headed toward the region where geologists have been known to become so overly stimulated by their surroundings that their heads begin spinning causing the hand lens they're wearing on a greasy shoestring around their neck to get caught in their beards. And then their limbs begin to spasm and flop about so much they almost lose control of their rock hammer.
Dean began to drool and smack his lips in anticipation of all the rocks he was going to lick. He started babbling and giving mini geology lectures and when he wasn't lecturing I would hear him mumbling to himself about bedding. And it wasn't me he was talking about ... we were in volcano alley.
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| Cotopaxi |
And after we left Cotopaxi, Dean was so overcome he got sick.
And that's enough for this blog post.◦
2 comments:
It's a good thing not enough people commented to get you on the zip-line, otherwise you might still be recovering in an Ecuadorian mental institution.
Did Dean burn his tongue on the Lava? This is the first time I've ever heard of someone getting rope burns from a hand lens. Leave it to those rock-lickers to come up with new stuff.
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