Mindo, Ecuador June 29

hello, friends! we have been in the birdwatcher´s paradise of Mindo for the past few days staying at a place called Casa de Cecelia. After a frantic trek around Quito with all of our gear in search of an elusive bus station (we were following an out of date Lonley Planet guide book), we arrived in Mindo in high style, paying a taxi driver $40 to drive us the entire way from Quito. A bargain by our New York standards, and it made our cabby´s day.

We are almost a week into the trip at this point and our gastrointestinal systems are adjusting. our spanish is terrible, but we´ve perfected the phrase "mi español es muy malo". We´ve befriended a nice American couple from Michigan at a hostel called Le Quetzal. Barbara roasts her own coffee beans, makes homemade strawberry ice cream, and processes her own chocolate, too.

An errant ziplock bag of granola attracted a long-tailed visitor to our ´habitación´ last night. We successfully warded of the hungry creature by erratically shining our mini-mag flalshlight around the room and in general making many foolish hissing and clapping sounds. Our sleep was restless to say the least. Kim had Phil Collin´s "One More Night" stuck in her head and I came up with a touristy t-shirt slogan "A rat crawled in my window...in Mindo".