Touchdown Quito!

I made it to Quito, Ecuador without a problem, which is a beautiful town up in the moutains. It was so cool to fly in and see it through the clouds. Annie and I met up in San Jose, Costa Rica and made friends with Elizabeth, who is traveling alone from Hawaii. We got a hostel with Elizabeth, and for the past day and a half we have explored the city, which is beautiful. There is an old town and a new town and our hostel is right in between. Today we took a bus up to the equator, el mitad del mundo!! it was really cool. The altitude adjustment isn{t bad, although we do get out of breath walking up a hill and are always hungry. Quito is 3,ooo meters.
We are heading out to the Amazon tomorrow, it is going to be incredible. We will take the bus tonight up to Coca, and from there we go by bus for 3 hours and then by canoe for 3 hours, so that we will be deep in the amazon. The Huoarani is an indigenous tribe that live out there and are learning how to have a sustainable ecotourism arrangement all by themselves. They are working with a company that is helping them get it on their feet and then they will run it all by themselves in a few years. We will be able to canoe around and go on night hikes to see all the insects and caymans, and hopefully river dolphins and macaws. Elizabeth had heard of this trip when some of the village elders came to talk at the anthropology department at Berkeley. These are the people that use the frog venom in their poison darts. Hopefully Annie won{t shoot me!
We will be in the Amazon until Sunday, and then we will head straight for the coast and hang out there for a few days on our way south until Elizabeth goes on ahead and Annie and I take our time going down through Peru.
We have been eating great food and so far have not had any problems, and good water is readily available. Everything is great down on this continent, and being in the Amazon will be a great way to spend my 24th!