I was somewhat depressed to see the Ecuador border come and go, since I knew it would be my last crossing in South America, but I was also aware that the trip was far from over, with a lot of the world waiting to be seen. My flight out of Ecuador was just over 10 days away when I entered, so there wasn't time to do a five day trekking excursion and see the equator and see the ocean and earn my first million dollars, I had to be sort of picky. At the same time, after seven months of travel I was a little worn down and not really up for anything too draining. I decided to get a little more beach time before hitting the mountains.

The Peru-Ecuador border I crossed left me in the heart of the Andes, which worked well for me, as it meant I would get to see some of the country on my way to the ocean. I cruised over to Guayaquil (Ecuador's second city) via a fantastic mountain pass that crossed through some barren stretches of an Ecuadorean National Park. It left me questioning my decision, but as the bus began desceding into the port town of Guayaquil and the palm trees and banana plantations started cropping up, I dropped my mountain fever by the wayside. As a metropolis, I wasn't interested in bathing in the industrial waste and runoff of Guayaquil's beaches, so I headed a good deal up the coast to the tiny hamlet Bahia de Caraquez.

Bahia has earned some praise for their eco-tourism industry (including the world's only eco-friendly shrimp industry, don't ask me how). I had my sights set on a trip to the mangrove forest, after a day at the beach of course. Unfortunately, Bahia is at the mouth of a river and the beach on my first day in town left a bit to be desired. I knew it was the middle of winter, but figured that a town at two degrees latitude wouldn't be effected too much. I was wrong and decided I'd better devote my second day to working on my tan as well. This time I hopped across the river to San Vincente (the jumping off point for the mangrove trip) which had much nicer ocean beaches, bath water warm. Hundreds of tiny crabs cruised the beaches creating a moving red sheet everywhere they went, and enormous sand dollars were floating in on the waves. Add to that the fact that the beach was all mine as soon as I got out of town, and it added up to a fantastic day of beach-combing. Nothing complements a good day beach-combing like a good night boozing, so I tracked down a cabana (there were quite a few, but as it was winter there was only one open, and it was empty). The owner was plenty happy to have me, though slightly dejected I wasn't eating anything. After a few beers (including one on the house as a reward for keeping him company in Spanish) we caught the last boat across to Bahia. The following morning, I started making my way to Riobamba (the mangroves will have to wait tilll next time).

The nice thing about Ecuador, is its size. Getting anywhere doesn't take long, (which is a plus on a tight time schedule). Riobamba is located in the middle of the Andes about halfway between Peru and Quito. It was my last stop before the capital, and I was headed here to indulge in a pure tourist trap day. A train runs from Riobamba south to a feature called "The Nose of the Devil", a rock ridge which the railroad was forced to switchback down in order to continue forward. At the time, it was considered one of the great feats of railroad engineering (the promo brochure described it as the most difficult railroad inthe world to build). Now there is a nice road paralleling the train tracks much of the way, but for the bravehearted tourist, you can ride along on top of the train cars for a bird's eye view of the countryside.

Who knew there were so many bravehearted tourists. We were crammed onto the roof of about five train cars with everyone sitting on each other and trying to keep arms and heads out of our photos. Oh well, I knew coming in it was going to be a tourist trap, so I just grinned and bore it. The train ride was very pleasant (though a bit cool in the morning) and the scenery was nice. All along the route, local kids came out to wave at us on the way by, which I thought was quite nice until I realized they were only waving until someone tossed them some candy (which must happen a lot as the train runs four times per week), then it was kiddie-fight time. Nothing like instigating violence in a foreign country. I passed on the candy (there were merchants hawking it on the roof for exorbitant rates), but there were plenty of others pelting the kiddies along the ride. Coming down "The Nose" was interesting, and drove home the meaning of the term "switchback", which I'd never really pondered previously (i.e. they switch the train track and you back down). It was a good trip, and a relaxing way to wrap up my adventures in South America.

From Riobamba, I headed to Quito the following morning. I had a couple of days in Quito before my flight to lick my wounds and buy my free allottment of alcohol. I spent my first night on the south side of Quito in the "Old Town" which was very nice and gave me a chance to check out their very good national museum. It had a terrific history section which detailed all the tribes which had inhabited the area with loads of samples of pottery and metalwork. The Incas, while good at mimicry, were far from the best at gold or pottery. I learned a lot which I will never be able to recall. Kind of like college.

My second night, I switched to the north side of town, the "New Town", or as it is affectionately known, Gringo-ville. Here, the bars are plentiful and expensive, but the menus are in english and the hostels are packed with tourists. I was looking for a little bit of social life, as my birthday was the following day (and my last full day), so I camped out in a place a friend had recommended to me months ago. I didn't remember most of the places recommended to me, but this one stuck in my head as they have a "rum and coke night" every other night (as I would soon learn, the intervening nights are "hangover" nights). As luck would have it (or not), my first night conicided with Monday's rum and coke night, and sure enough, a three gallon pot of brew was gracing the table with a ladel and cups just as I came through. One quick note here, those who knew me prior to my trip realize that I occaisionally partook in a bit of alcohol to soothe the spirit (or summon demons depending on the occaision), but I have refrained from more than the odd beer or two throughout the trip in the interest of money. Here for my pleasure sat an actual vat of liquor, free for the taking with the requisite social group half-drunk gringos gathered around it. Let the good times roll.

After we drank the first three gallons, everyone pitched in exactly one dollar (Ecuador uses American dollars as their currency) and it was miraculously refilled. It was a dollar well spent, too, as the second batch had some kick. After we knocked back that bunch too, we headed out on the town for some dancing, another of my fairly common pasttimes from which I had largely abstained on this trip. Two beers into our night at the club I stumbled onto the dancefloor and helped myself to a very large Ecuadorean woman (I really hope it was a woman) and I did something resembling dancing for a while. She intimated that the cost to dance another song was a refill on her martini. Since I was currently without beer, I stumbled up to the bar, realized I didn't have any money, any idea what time it was, or much of an idea what my name was. I split. I woke up a few hours later in the rather gross bathroom, scraped myself off the floor and went to bed.

All that is to say that my birthday present was one hell of a hangover. At about one o'clock I decided to brave the outdoors and went to a movie. My head was still spinning and my stomach churning, but I managed to choke down a birthday steak (pretty lackluster given the price, I've been spoiled by Argentina), grabbed a bottle of Bacardi gold to take home and called it an early night. The next morning, I crawled out of bed at 5:00 AM for a shower and hopped a cab to the airport. I cherished the ride as I spent the time blabbering about family and weather to the cabbie, and showing of my Spanish skills. Then it was on to the plane and the good ole' U. S. of A. Thanks for the memories South America, hopefully I'll be back sometime soon.

Technically, the next stop on my trip is Asia, but I planned to visit my uncle in Hong Kong, and he was out of the country for a couple weeks, so I decided to travel through North America in the interim. I landed in Miami at 2PM local time and made my way to the bus station. Miami was a good entry point because everything was still operating almost entirely in Spanish. I grabbed a Greyhound at about 10PM, but felt really miserable. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of rotgut was in that rum and coke because I was having trouble standing up or walking straight two days later. Oh well, I had a 33 hour bus ride to worry about that. My first real stop in the States was Blacksburg, VA, home of Virginia Tech, the Hokies, and all my stuff.

I swung into town about 6AM and made my way to my storage space. Luckily, in my rush to leave, I'd left a bag of relatively clean clothes (dirt is relatively clean compared to my travel clothes) perched right at the door, and I took the opportunity to change into something clean in an empty storage unit. At this stage I'd been on the road (i.e. without a bed) for about 50 hours and it would be 17 more before I finally got some blissful sleep. I spent a couple days catching up with friends and acquaintances (and reading and watching TV at every opportunity), before heading to Richmond, VA to say hello to my folks. A restful weekend at the parents house and some good home-cooking in the belly, I made my way, once again in Greyhound, to Boston, MA. The start of my Asian Adventures would be done in tandem with one of my former roommates, so I went to crash with him in Boston for a couple of days before we headed out.

Somehow, we thought it would be a good idea to fool jetlag by partying all night before our flights. Unfortunately, my flight wasn't until midnight, so I ended up staying awake the whole day as well (I had to make my way to NYC) and by the time I got on my plane, I couldn't see straight. Plan backfired miserably and I lost all sense of time on my flight across numerous timezones and the date-line. Well, whatever works, I arrived in Hong Kong ready to take on the best that China had to throw at me, if not a bit groggy. This should be interesting.