Virgin by Day, Witches by Night

DAY 12: Spanish class with my tutor Rosa was going pretty normal -- we reviewed some more helpful verbs -- until she mentioned a card game called Cuarenta, which is Ecuador's national card game -- so much that every year there are championships for money. For the whole second half of my morning class, I asked her to teach me, and we just sat at the table playing cards. We got weird looks from the other students and professors who were still trying to figure out the difference between the two verbs for "to be." It was a perfect way for me to "learn my numbers."

For our weekly Friday class trip, all the students and teachers from morning and afternoon, including Anita from Sweden and Pamela from London, hopped on a bus for El Panecillo, the big towering mountain in the Old City that overlooks all of Quito. Mike, My Spouse In Air Quotes was there too, having enrolled at the same school for his first day, despite his attempts to find a Spanish school where you could learn new vocabulary while lifting weights.

"Dude, that girl is hot," Mike said on the bus. He was referring to a young-looking Ecuadoriana. "What age would you give her?"

"Twenty-four?" I guessed.

"Ha, you'd give her twenty-four. You want it to be twenty-four."

"Yeah, it's hard to say around here. I wish I could give them all twenty-four -- like those girls in Catholic school uniforms everyday at two."

"I know! And they travel in packs too! It's like a Britney Spears fantasy every afternoon."

THE PUBLIC BUS DROPPED US OFF along its route about 3/4 up the mountain and we took a minivan taxi for the rest. At the top of the Panecillo stands La Virgen de Quito, a towering statue that overlooks the city. We managed to bargain down a group discount for entry into the statue, despite the ticketers disbelief that Navid was a student. (His stammering in Spanish gave it away.)

After taking pictures of the view from the highest point in Quito and a group picture, we toured around this exhibit on the mezzanine level about the history of the Panecillo and the Virgen de Quito. The guide conducted the presentation in fast-talking Spanish, only to received confused looks and respectful "Sí"s from the class. After ten minutes, she opened up the floor to questions and I think I spoke for everyone when I simply asked, "¿Que?"

WE ALL HOPPED ON A PUBLIC BUS back to the New City. I sat with Pamela La Tarta, for whom it was her last day of school. She told me her situation -- the same situation of many that I've come across -- how she was sick of her job around the age of 30 and just quit to travel for a year. (Sounds familiar.) She was leaving Quito and headed south, so we swapped e-mails and made tentative plans to meet up in Bolivia.

Pamela and I were joined by My Spouse In Air Quotes for lunch. We went to an Italian place in the backpacker district where Mike ate the unwanted crusts of pizza from my plate after his arroz con pollo.

I DIDN'T HAVE CLASS in the afternoon, but I went back to school anyway. Rosa told me that she had the whole afternoon to kill in the city before hopping on a night bus for Cuenca, and that we'd try to get a game of Cuarenta going. We played in the school lounge and got some other unoccupied professors to join in. Not only did I learn how to play the four-player version, I learned from Fernando, co-owner of the school, how to play with style and how to use trash talk to psych out your opponents despite their pleas, "Pero, soy tu profesora!"

"WANNA GO MEET SOME ECUADOREAN GIRLS?" my Aussie "brother" John said immediately went I got home. He was originally going to leave for Cuenca in the morning for Cuenca's independence weekend celebration, but decided to stay another night for Quito's Halloween festivities.

"Sure." And the three of us left.

The Ecuadorean girls John spoke of were four girls he had met in the popular touristy city of Baños a couple of weeks before. They were all law students at the University in Quito. We met them at a cafe, where John immediately went to go help one of them write an e-mail in English to his buddy -- leaving the other three with me and Arne. (FYI: Arne is the German "brother" formerly known as "Ani"; he read my blog today and corrected me.) I suppose the natural course of Spanish language education is to go from verbs to flirtations, and we tried our best. We got mixed results, but they liked us anyway.

My surrogate brothers and I took a break from the Ecuadorianas to go home for our family dinner with Blanca. Arne ran into Luisa, the German-speaking Russian girl from the day before, and brought her along. She wasn't hungry, but joined in on the Spanish dinner conversation while sipping on a cup of colada morada, Ecuador's traditional festive drink, a sort of thick sangria made with blackberries and other fruits and served hot.

After dinner, Arne went off with Luisa, leaving John and I to meet up with the girls.

HALLOWEEN WAS ADOPTED BY ECUADOR, solely as a reason to party and act silly like the Americans. I mean, why not have an excuse to dress up five-year-olds as the killer from Scream and have them demand candy from door to door?

Earlier in the year, the president of Ecuador, in an effort of national pride, declared that Halloween was prohibited in the country, as it is the holiday of another country -- the overpowering country that nobody likes that starts wars based on hunches at that. But everyone in Ecuador made a fuss about the decree. In fact, Blanca teaches eight-year-olds in the day and and thought a declaration to prevent little kids from having a little fun was ridiculous. Mike once said, "What, they can adopt our money but not our customs?"

However, two days before Halloween, another branch of government agreed with the public and said Halloween was okay. I suppose that makes it a "treat" and not a "trick."

Halloween wasn't nowhere as big as it is in New York's big parade where you can dress up as a nutsack and give away peanuts, but it was a big deal nonetheless. The sidewalks of Avenida Amazonas, the main street near the backpacker district, were filled with people in costume and vendors selling masks and those hairband things that make it look like you have a knife stuck in your head. John and I witnessed all this as we made our way to grab a drink while waiting for the girls. Two of the girls eventually came over and told us to meet them at the Mongolian grill down the road where they were still having dinner.

At the time that this blog entry was written, I didn't recall the names of the girls. I'm really bad with remembering names. If you were ever introduced to me at a party, I'd most likely tell you right off the bat, "I probably won't remember your name, but it's nice to meet you."

One of the four girls went home, so I only had three names to hear and forget immediately. No matter, it was Halloween and one girl was wearing all black with black eyeliner.

"Soy una bruja," ("I am a witch") she said. "Somos las tres brujas."

For the purposes of this blog, I will refer to them as The Three Witches.

THE THREE WITCHES WANTED TO TAKE US OUT DANCING and lead us out of the comforts of GringoLand and into Quito's real nightlife. We walked to a nightclub district in another area of the city without a white person in sight. John stuck out like a Big Mac at a vegan convention.

We went to Papillon, a trendy-looking night club popular enough that there was a line out the door about 40 people long. We managed to make our way to the front, where the bouncer checked our IDs. He looked John and me over real quick and denied us. The Witch In Black pleaded with the bouncer, but he said it was because our boots were too sporty-looking -- even though he had this look on his face that said, "Dude, you fucking gringos don't belong here."

SINCE MY FIRST NIGHT IN QUITO, there was always loud music emenating from a particular night club in the center of the backpacker district -- til the wee hours of the morning on any day of the week. The club is No Bar, and it is arguably Quito's most popular nightclub whether you are a gringo or not. I've heard it's so good an any given night, so much that it should be called the "Yes Bar" if you know what I mean.

We waited on line for only about ten minutes and paid the $3.50 cover -- which included a free drink. Inside, it was a cross between a really wild frat party and a rave, all inside a space reminiscent of a VFW hall. In the center of the club was a bar/stage where various bartenders in costume entertained the masses by throwing out prizes, juggling with fire and passing around a beer funnel. ("Once it hits your lips it's so good.") Girls dressed up in nurse outfits with garter belts danced on top of the bar and it was very much like Comedy Central's The Man Show. Coming from New York, the whole thing was no big deal to me, but I was wowed when they set the bar on fire. I'm told this is a nightly activity.

John, The Three Witches and I danced the night away as the DJ spun a mix of every 90's American hip-hop, Latin Dance, and trancey hard house. Glow-in-the-dark light sticks were passed around and I broke mine to make a pen with glow-in-the-dark ink, hoping it wasn't toxic. (It's not, is it?) We drew hearts and shapes all over each other in the dark. The Shorty Witch signed the breasts of The Witch With The Cleavage.

At the end of the night, The Three Witches walked us to the end of our block. The Witch With The Cleavage's Spanish was a bit too fast for my comprehension -- or was it the beer? -- but I managed to figure out by use of hand gestures that she wanted me to call her. Either that or she was telling her right ear to hang ten.

John and I got back to the house as Gabi was just getting in from work. I asked John for the number of The Witch With Cleavage, but unfortunately, he didn't have it like I thought he did.

The next day, John hopped on a bus for Cuenca.

Erik Vs. The Volcano

DAY 13: "Did you go out partying for Halloween last night?" a Danish blonde asked me in the back of a truck at 8:03 in the morning. She saw that I looked pretty exhausted.

"Yup," I answered all groggy-eyed, waiting for my coffee to kick in. "And you?"

"No."

"Ah, you're smart."

And so began my trip to Cotopaxi, the highest active volcano in the world, just 90 minutes south of Quito by car.

While climbing to the peak of Cotopaxi is a popular to-do for many travelers, I wasn't really interested in the inevitable altitude sickness of it. Instead, I had signed up for a day trip with the Biking Dutchman, a mountain bike tour group based out of GringoLand, recommended to me by a fellow member of South American Explorers. Despite its name and location, the tour guide was Latino.

Originally I signed up for a two-day trip, but four people were needed and I was the only one registered. I switched over to the one-day and lucked out with three Danish girls, Lisa, Dort and Luisa, each in Ecuador on a work visa. However, our little group of four was unexpectedly joined by a group of 24 British people in a big volunteer-tour group, with their own bus that we always had to wait up for.

We drove southbound on the PanAmericana highway to the park entrance to pay our park fees. From there we drove up the volcano on a twisty and bumpy road comprised of volcanic rock and soil, passed trees and wild horses. It would have been an American SUV owner's dream if s/he ever left the suburbs.

We parked at a parking area at about 14,800 ft. above sea level, just a couple hundred meters short of the snow line. It was the vantage point of a spectacular view of the Valley of Limpiapungo, the common countryside in between three other active volcanos. We unloaded our gear in the frigid air while guys in ATVs and dirt bikes had a field day nearby. Then we geared up in helmets and enough safety gear to protect our bodies from falling, or a freak occurance involving a sudden barrage of hockey pucks.

Tired of waiting for all the Brits to get their stuff together, our guide Fernando let the four of us go ahead to the rendezvous point. It got warmer and warmer as we descended down the slope of the volcano -- clenching our hand brakes the whole way -- down a twisty path of loose volcanic rock and soil. The bumpy ride could have made any guy feel like his testicles were in a paint stirring machine at the Home Depot.

At the first rendezvous point, we waited for all the Brits to come on down. Their ages varied from young to really old, so it took quite some time. Luisa complained that it wasn't fair that we paid the same amount as other tourists who didn't have to deal with all the waiting, and we all decided that we'd complain back at the office back in Quito.

YOU KNOW WHEN YOU FIRST START PLAYING a racing video game and you always start in the pole position, but gradually end up in 16th place because all the computer-controlled cars are better than you? Well that's how it was with me en route to the second rendezvous point, which was only about fifteen minutes away on level ground. I blame the fact that my gears were messed up and my chain fell off at one point, and the one time my shoelaces got caught in the main cog like spaghetti wrapped around a fork. It didn't really matter to me because I was surrounded in a land reminiscent of Tolkien's/Jackson's Middle Earth. I eventually caught up with the rest for lunch near a creek.

I switched bikes for the last leg of the day. We traveled like Hobbits on bicycles on an undulating path through the Valley of Limpiapungo, passed cows and kids riding on mules. It had been the most amazing scenery I had seen on my Global Trip so far.

I WAS EXHAUSTED WHEN I GOT HOME in Quito, and Blanca made me a refreshing juice. I say "made" because that's the way it has been in Ecuador so far. I don't think the people here believe in buying big half-gallon cartons of juice -- every juice I've had has been made with freshly-squeezed fruits, blended with water and a little sugar. I figured my stomach had already strengthed because I had no reaction to Blanca's latest batch of OJ.

It was a Saturday night but I was too exhausted to go out partying or anything. Instead I vegged out at my new favorite internet cafe around the corner, run by a German guy completely fluent in Spanish. I imagined he was a total computer nerd back in Germany who just got sick of sitting in front of computers all day at home and traveled to Ecuador to sit in front of computers all day in Quito. I swear the guy never leaves the place -- he's the only guy here from 8am to 11pm -- and he just sits at the front desk surfing the web while listening to 80's new wave songs and Cirque du Soleil soundtracks.

After updating The Blog, I just wandered into the hip internet cafe/bar Papaya.net to see who was around, and found Navid on a computer using Yahoo! Messenger next to two guys using the messenger on Gay.com. I think it subconsciously inspired us to go across the street to Zocalo, a trendy bar with ambigously gay chi-chi drinks. Navid and I had a midnight snack and a nightcap before I went back home and slept for a nice ten hours.

Pee On The Trees

DAY 14: After breakfast, I updated The Blog at the German computer nerd's internet cafe around the corner. Outside, all the stores were closed for Sunday and even in GringoLand it looked like a ghost town. Arne said it reminded him of the movie 28 Days Later.

In hopes of finding people out and about, Arne and I walked to the Parque El Ejido, on the south end of Avenida Rio Amazonas, home of the weekly Sunday markets. On the way there, a woman approached me and asked for directions in really fast Spanish.

I've discovered that 80% of blending in as a local is to just pretend to understand what they are saying -- even if it's all in one ear and out the other like a telemarker's pitch. I stood there for a moment pretending to think I knew where she was referring to and simply entertained her with a "Yo no se."

THE MARKETS AT PARQUE EL EJIDO were similar to those at Otavalo, only not nearly as big. Vendors sold the usual things: clothes, crafts and cheesy souvenirs one can buy for friends back home so they can unethusiastically say "Oh, thanks" before putting them on their office desks to collect dust for years until they rediscover it's there when they get fired or laid off. On the outskirts of the market, local artists and painters displayed their works, including contemporary and surrealist ones.

"You know why there are no people sitting under the trees?" Arne asked me. I looked around and sure enough, no one was leaning under a tree reading a book, mediating or making out. "It's because people pee on the trees."

This I believed immediately because a couple of days before I had been in the park and see it myself. In fact, on our way back down Amazonas, we saw a random guy just peeing on the sidewalk.

We walked to the other end of Amazonas to the Parque La Carolina, a much bigger park full of Ecuadoreans. I realized that's where everyone went.

Inside the park was a man-made lagoon (picture above) filled with paddle boats. The lagoon was a great addition to the park, but it was all fun and games until someone's dog fell in and couldn't get out -- which was all fun and games until that person's other dog fell in to save the first dog and couldn't get out. The two dogs doggie-paddled for their lives until a human chain was formed to drag them out.

I got a foot-long hot dog with the works and a Coke for only a buck and ate it on the bleachers that overlooked a big skatepark, where a troupe of BMX bikers were putting on a show by jumping over willing participants laying on the ground. Then Arne and I just leisurely walked the entire length of the park, passed many fields for multiple simultaneous game of soccer.

Still, no one was sitting under a tree.

BLANCA MADE A DELICIOUS SPAGHETTI for us when we arrived back home. As usual, Cometa was snooping around near the table, looking for scraps. Arne and I really lucked out with Blanca and her homecooking because I had heard stories of other host families that only served rice and beans everyday. Navid told me that his first night with his host family, the father simply came home from work with a bucket of KFC.

After dinner, Arne and I went to Zocalo, the trendy bar in Gringoland with the fancy drinks. We sat near a roaring fireplace -- it was a bit nippy outside -- and discussed over a couple of rounds our plans for the future in life and in travel. We made tentative plans to meet in Rio and Berlin and toasted with a "¡Salud!"

On the way back home, we noticed Navid at a computer at Papaya.net and dropped in for a visit. Just as every night I ran into Navid at an internet cafe, I had walked in on an informal session of internet sex he was having with a girl in the States via Yahoo! Messenger. Each night I'd arrive, he'd write "Oh, Erik is here now," but this time I decided to intervene for a bit:

Girl: ...i am thinking of you (naked!)
Me: this is erik
Me: put your clothes back on
Girl: seriously?
Navid: seriously...Erik and friend are here
Navid: they just read that
Girl: hello Erik...I am enjoying your blog
Me: thanks
Me: get a room you two

Arne and I walked back home to leave Navid go about his cyberstud ways.

Keep the comments coming guys! Save all your compliments from Instant Messenger and post them here!

Mallrats

DAY 15: My morning started as always: getting out of bed to take a piss. However, this day it was different. In the center of the bathroom, atop a small drain gate, were three turds.

"Uh, pienso Cometa hace una cosa en el baño", I said to Blanca making breakfast in the kitchen.

"Ay! Es Tina, el gato!"

While she went to get a broom and a dustpan, Arne woke up for his morning piss. I banged on the door to warn him.

"Que?"

I pointed at the turds.

"Oh."

IT WAS MONDAY, the third day of a three-day weekend in honor of La Dia de los Muertes, or The Day of the Dead. Unlike the big street parades of Mexico, La Dia de los Muertes in Ecuador is a quieter affair, an opportunity for people to go to the cemetaries to visit their loved ones and have picnics on their grave plots, so they can share a meal in spirit. Should I ever be buried in Ecuador, I'd like a surf and turf platter, please. Oh, and an order of that Bloomin' Onion thing from Outback steakhouse.

To some people La Dia de los Muertes was a sacred day, but I discovered that to most people, La Dia de los Muertes simply translated to "The Day I Don't Have to Go to Work." And what else is there to do on such a day? Go away to the beach for three days, or go shopping.

QUITO IS A GREAT PLACE. I mean, where else can you go riding down the side of the tallest active volcano in the world one day, and the next day hang out in a modern mall amongst alienated youth? Not even in New Jersey I can tell you.

I walked down to the Mall El Jardin, just a ten minute walk from mi casa. With the city practically empty, there was little air pollution and a nice change for my lungs.

Mall El Jardin (picture above) is more or less your basic modern American mall, complete with the stores no mall can do with out: Cinnabon, GNC and Radio Shack. Well, we could do without GNC but definitely not Radio Shack. Anyway, I went to a small bookstore to buy an Ingles/Español dictionary and found one for just $3.70. Of course I only had a new twenty dollar bill on me and the woman just stared at me with this disappointed look in her face, like I had thrown a bright red sock in her laundry's white load. She picked up the phone and made a call like I was a wanted criminal -- "It's another one of those punks with a twenty dollar bill" -- and had to leave the store to get my change.

I WANDERED AROUND THE MALL'S THREE LEVELS, and discovered that there was a supermarket called SuperMaxi. It was just like any old supermarket in the States, only with a much bigger Spanish section. I blended right in with my Latino façade -- no one gave me the kind of stares that someone like Arne would get -- and I simply bought some supplies with no problem. I was even able recognize when the cashier asked me if I had a frequent shopper card.

NO MALL IS COMPLETE WITHOUT A FOOD COURT, and no food court is complete without a Taco Bell. There was also a Pizza Hut and the obligatory salad/sandwich places run by people who most likely hated their jobs.

The smell from KFC beaconed me the way an animated odor does in a cartoon, and I couldn't resist but go there. I managed to order -- in Spanish -- two pieces of chicken, fries, a Pepsi and a cookie. This was extremely easy to do as it only required me to say, "Uh...combo dos, por favor."

As I ate, the original recipe was a bit bland, and I figured Colonel Sanders probably had some customs problems exported all eleven of his secret herbs and spices.

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY OUTSIDE and I intentionally got lost in unfamilar neighborhoods. No one was around and I almost felt like the guy in that Twilight Zone episode. Unlike that guy, my glasses didn't break -- but my bowels did. I walked like a robot trying to get my ass to "reverse swallow" it all, but luckily I was in the vicinty of the South American Explorers clubhouse and dropped my load off there.

Membership definitely has its privelages.

THE REST OF THE DAY was pretty boring. I just wandered around like a sophomore with nothing to do on a college campus. I ran into the two Danish blondes from the volcano trip, and Navid as always. For dinner, Blanca made a mashed potato loaf thing -- it looks exactly as you picture it -- stuffed with chicken and vegetables.

I was pretty exhausted after dinner and just passed out on my bed while doing my homework.

La Gripe

DAY 16: I woke up at about 3 a.m. feeling a little feverish. I popped a couple of ibuprofen and went back to sleep. I woke up around 7 with the sun feeling better, but still a little feverish, but managed to finish my homework. I had to write a story in Spanish using as many of the new verbs that I had learned. I wrote one about the final battle between a secret agent and an evil scientist -- in the end, the secret agent defeats the him, but not after saying "Hasta la vista, PUTA!"

My tutor Rosa saw that I wasn't my usual energetic self and said that I probably had La Gripe because I'm not use to the rapid change in temperature.

On a normal November day in Quito, the weather is like this: you wake up and the sky is blue, the sun is shining and you look out the window and say like Ferris Bueller, "How can I possibly be expected to go to school on a day like this?" But you go to school anyway since you already paid for it in advance in cash, and sit with a tutor for four hours and conjugate verbs. After class, you walk around to soak in the sun and its 80 degress F temperature and maybe grab something to eat. As you eat, you notice the clouds come in and the temperature drops from the mid 80s to the mid 50s. A sprinkle turns into a drizzle, and a drizzle turns into a rain, and the only thing to do is to vegg out in an internet cafe and write a blog entry whose third paragraph is about how fast the weather changes on a normal November day in Quito.

I TOOK IT EASY the rest of the day. I hung out in my bedroom and just rested for a bit (picture above) after lunch. Then I went out to wander in the area and ran into the two Danish blondes. I tagged along with them as they went back to the Biking Dutchman office to complain about last Saturday's trip to Cotopaxi, how it wasn't fair that we couldn't do everything that had been promised because we always had to wait up for the 24 other Brits of varied ages and previous biking experience. We thought we'd have to make a strong case to get any compensation, but our guide had already explained to the owner the situation, and the woman gave us each ten bucks back and a free T-shirt. This works out great because ten bucks can get you about nine 30 oz. bottle of beer here and the t-shirt could be used as a change of clothes when you vomit all over the shirt you're were wearing.

I went back to school to pay off my housing. Carmen the director of the school had nothing to do so we played a round of Cuarenta until Mike, My Spouse In Air Quotes, dropped by to pay off some of his debts.

"What are you eating over there, at your family?" Mike asked me. "For breakfast for example."

"Fresh juice, a big plate of fresh fruit, eggs and croissants."

"Wow, you get eggs? I only get a roll with some cream cheese and some pineapple marmalade."

I told him Arne and I would be out next week and that he should try to switch to Blanca's house.

"Eggs. Man, I love me some eggs," he said.

THE RAIN LET UP late afternoon and I walked back to the Mall El Jardin and practiced my Spanish by asking around for an adapter for my camera, so that I could simply use my Sony MemorySticks in a 3.5" floppy drive. I looked all over but couldn't find one. I even went into Radio Shack since they say "You've got questions, we've got answers." But their answer was "No tenemos."

At least I managed to leave the store without being asked for my zip code.

AT DINNER, Gabi saw that I looked a little tired and I told her that I felt a little sick. "Oh, la gripe," she said very nonchalantly before asking me to pass the juice. "Es común." ("It's common.")

Gabi had grown up in a house where, for the past ten years travelers had been coming and going, and she probably had seen hundreds of them suffering from La Gripe. I was just another number and was glad it wasn't just me.

After dinner, I still felt a little grippy but still had some energy to go out partying with Arne, since he invited me to hang out with his friend from Texas who lived in Quito and apparently knew all the cool spots and lots of chicas. However, we I asked him what the plan was, he said he wasn't going anymore because he too was feeling a bit sick. Apparently, La Gripe had gotten him too.

So I popped an ibuprofen and went to bed at nine and slept for ten hours.

I woke up the next day, a refreshed new man. La Gripe had come and gone.

Everything That Has A Beginning Has An End

DAY 17: For the past week and a half, I had fallen into a routine in which I'd wake up, shower and have breakfast with Arne and Blanca. Things were different this morning. It was Arne's last day in the house, since he was planning to move to his friend's place a couple of days before he starting work in a hospital the following week.

Since Arne didn't have school, he was in no rush at breakfast -- nor was Blanca because she wasn't going to school either. As a teacher, she and all of her fellow teachers across the country, were on strike. They were sick and tired of only making ten dollars a day.

I've realized that although Ecuador uses the US Dollar, everything is about 20%-25% the price that it is in the States. For example, a private room in a hostel in Quito is about eight bucks a night. Multiply that by five and it's forty, which sounds about right for what it is. Cab fare from the airport into town is six bucks; multiply that by five and it's thirty. A 32 oz. beer at this bar we always go to is $1.12; multiply that by five and its some number that I can't do in my head because I suck at math and went to art school.

By this rationale, Blanca made just fifty bucks a day in American standards, which is still pretty shitty when you have to deal with annoying kids all day. Blanca almost spit out her tea when I told her minimum wage in America was over five bucks per hour.

I LEFT MY GERMAN BROTHER IN HIS BEDROOM (picture above) and walked to school without a compadre for the first time since I began living at the house. However, it was also my last time, because it was my tenth day in my ten-day crash course.

My tutor Rosa and I went over more verbs conjugated in the past tense and I felt pretty good having had a grasp on it. I was feeling really confident in my Spanish -- until I asked about the difference between para and por, which put my brain in a mind twister again. (Both words mean "for," but are used differently depending on the context.)

For my final "exam," I simply had to -- with no help from Rosa or a dictionary -- write a message in the school's guestbook. I wrote:

Cuando estuve perdido en Quito hace dos semanas,
quise apprender Español y encontré la escuela Beraca.
Con mi profesora Rosa, aprendí muchos palabras que
voy a trater no olvidar...pero depende de las cervezas!

¡Muchos gracias Beraca y Rosa!

It was a tad more polite than what I had written in my homework the day before: "¡Hasta la vista, puta!"

IN THE AFTERNOON I grabbed a quick shawarma for a buck -- that's five bucks if you can do that math in your head (I used a calculator) -- and went back to school for a quick last game of Cuarenta. Then I met up with Arne and his friend Jurgen and we hopped in a cab to Cinemark, a couple of miles away. Cinemark is just like your average American big multiplex theater -- video games, popcorn, soda -- but with one major difference: a ticket is just $2.60. I couldn't even imagine what a matinee price was.

While almost all movies that are exported from Hollywood into other countries aren't released until months after the US release, producer Joel Silver promised a worldwide release date of the third installment of the Matrix trilogy. Posters for "Matrix Revoluciones" were everywhere with its tagline "Todo lo que tiene un inicio tiene un fin" ("Everything that has a beginning has an end.") Just about every teenager that just got out of school was there. I fit right in.

"It's gonna be in English right?" I asked Arne as we sat in the theater as the advertising slides ran.

"Yes, it has to be. I think of all Latin America has films in English with Spanish undertitles. That's how it was in Mexico when I saw Snatch."

The previews began, the first one being for Disney's latest soon-to-flop animated picture Brother Bear. To my surprise, it was entirely dubbed in Spanish.

"Uh, it's in Spanish," I pointed out to Arne.

"Ja, that's weird."

I knew I took had just completed a crash course in Spanish, but I wasn't sure I was ready to sit through an entire movie dubbed in it. The only thing I probably would have picked on would be "¡Señor Anderson!"

The trailer for S.W.A.T. came on, in English with Spanish subtitles, which was a pleasant surprise. I thought perhaps they only dubbed the animated movies in Spanish, but then came the trailer for El Retorno del Rey (Return of the King, the third installment of El Señor de los Anillos). It was entirely dubbed in Spanish with voices that closely matched those of Gandalf, Samwise and Gollum.

The green ripple of the Warner Bros. studio lot appeared and zoomed out to the WB logo. I had no idea what I was in store for until the main title sequence began. Sure enough -- and luckily for us -- The Matrix was in English with Spanish subtitles. However, most of the dialogue consisted of simple, deadpan one-liners using the verb "believe," that I probably could have figured it out had it been dubbed anyway.

Allow me to digress for a bit with my comments on Matrix Revoluciones without giving it away. I enjoyed it. In fact, I thought it was much better than the second one; it didn't rely on kung-fu or that 360° Bullet-Time "Matrix Effect" as much as Reloaded. Instead, it relied on good ol' fashioned war action, with an amazing edge-of-your-seat sequence of machines vs. mechs. Sure the dialogue was pretty lame, and the love story was unmistakenly written by a guy, but it in the end, it was definitely worth at least the $2.60 I spent on it.

THE GERMAN GUYS AND I took a cab back to GringoLand for happy hour. Well, at a buck a beer, it's always happy hour. Afterwards, Arne went his separate way to his new place while I went back to Blanca's. Arne's room had been cleaned out already, and I was an only son. Arne missed out though, because for dinner we had nice big juicy steaks.

Later on, I ran into Navid in an internet cafe. He was busy involved in a cybersex four-way chatroom on Yahoo! Messenger, and just for the cafe's hourly rate of just ninety cents. Even if that translates to $4.50 in the US, that still ain't bad.

Ecuadorean Jedi

DAY 18: Back in the days when I had a 9-5 American corporate job, I was only alotted the miniscule vacation time of two weeks. Two weeks, compared to other countries, is an embarrassingly short period of time and I would always use these two weeks to rush through a destination, doing one thing after the other after the other to pack it all in. I slept very little in attempts to make two weeks seem like three.

But there was always a guy in the hostel dorm who would never been in a rush. Usually it was a British or Aussie guy travelling for a year or looking for work, and some days he'd just sleep in or just run errands in the day. I never understood how he could do that -- there was so much to do! So much to see! So much to experience! My God I've wasted too much vacation time wondering about this guy's situation!

However, now that I am free from the cruel, American two-week restriction, I can just sleep in or run errands while I'm away. I'm THAT guy.

SO, FOR MY LAST FULL DAY IN QUITO, I just took care of some unfinished business. I spent a couple of hours in the German computer nerd's internet cafe, uploading a video file for a client in New York that had been rendering on my laptop the entire week before for 170 hours. Then I did some research on programming Cascading Style Sheets for another project I have for a client in Boston.

I was walking down the Avenida Rio Amazonas when I heard whistles coming from above. It was Rosa and her fellow profesora Areitha sitting out on the school's terrace, enjoying the temporary sun. "Ey, chico!" they called. I went upstairs and joined them.

In just 40 hours of class time -- and 10 additional hours playing Cuarenta -- Rosa and I had become friends. We sat and talked on the terrace and it was just like our friendly conversations in class, only for free and without the annoying interjection of verb conjugation charts. Rosa and Areitha vented about their jealousy of foreigners, how they can travel whereever and whenever, while most people in Latin America are stuck, having to worry about visas and the like. I almost felt ashamed of myself for being so lucky. However, they did speak of their positive influences of all the foreigners they teach. Foreigners showed them that unlike Latino families, it's just not cool to live under your parents' roof until the age of 40, labeling the orange juice in the fridge. Rosa thought it was important to find yourself in your twenties, and felt like she was on some sort of a crusade to change the Latino mindset.

I WENT SEARCHING for an adapter for my digital camera's MemoryStick, so that I could use it in a standard 3.5" floppy drive. I've discovered that not every internet cafe has an available USB port, so I thought it was best to get one before moving on. I searched all over, looking for the "Centro Comercial" that Blanca had told me about, only to realize that "Centro Comercial" wasn't the name of a particular mall, it simply means "mall." In a city with five or six of these, simply asking around for the "Centro Comercial" was like asking "Where is the mall?" in the northern New Jersey or Los Angeles suburbs. The only thing more inane would be asking "How much is this?" in a 99 cent store.

I eventually found Orve Hogar, a electronics superstore that had what I was looking for. It was behind a display case, so I had to get a salesman to help me. At over $100 -- which is like being $500 -- the salesman was confused as how a local kid who looks like he's in high school could afford such a thing. Everything became evident when I stammered in my Spanish and flashed my American passport for the credit card check.

ORIGINALLY, I DIDN'T PLAN ON SPENDING SO MUCH TIME IN QUITO, but it seemed to be the perfect training ground to acclimate to the South American language, culture and food before really starting to travel. As this was my last full day in Quito, I decided to challenge myself with the ultimate test: take a public city bus by myself without the help of a professor.

The buses are confusing since there are so many that go to different destinations, but all stop at the same stop. It's even more confusing when you don't know exactly those destinations are and you still can't tell your left from your right without having to thinking about it, even in English. Most of the gringos avoid the bus because its confusing and just hop in a cab.

But I managed to find the right bus, pay the fare, and sit next to a local guy, without any strange looks. I felt like I had just completed the training with Yoda on Dagobah and was ready to move on.

I stopped into school for a quick game of Cuarenta (picture above), and then bid Rosa goodbye with the traditional kiss on the cheek. The apprentice had left his master. I had gone from Ecuadorean-Looking Gringo to Ecuadorean Jedi.

ARNE WAS NOW LIVING IN A HOUSE HOSTEL with a Texan guy he knew, who apparently was a super stud and knew everyone around -- including all the chicas that knew how to party. He had been described to me as the type of guy where if you'd just mention his name, you'd be an honored guest just by knowing him. He'd been living in Quito for two years, of which a good majority of that time was, as Arne described it, spent "drinking and fucking." If there was any one way to party your ass off for a final night in Quito, it would be with this guy.

I went over to the hostel/house where Arne was staying at. Forrest, the Texan, was sitting in the living room just chilling out watching MTV-Latino. "Hey man!" he said in his native Texan accent. Arne did the introductions and Forrest, a ball of Texas energy, went off about this and that and how are you and where you been and yadda yadda yadda. If English wasn't my first language, I probably would have only caught about three words of it. He told me the tentative plan, how we'd meet up at some pub called The Turtle Head to meet up with people before heading out to a club at ten.

"There's gonna be some Dutch girls and some girls who just came down from San Francisco and some Ecuadorean chicks too," he said like a pimp. "It gonna be a good time, man. Hold up, lemme call my boy."

He picked up the cordless phone, switched to Spanish in a Texan accent and tried to get his friend to come out and party like Vince Vaughn in Swingers.

"Bullocks!" he said, using the British expletive in a Texan accent. "He's down in Argentina. It don't matter 'cuz my boy is coming down after class, and it'll be good. You guys hungry? 'Cuz I can just call my boy up and he'll send stuff over, no problem. Cheeseburger, double meat, double cheese, double bacon, whatever."

"I'm okay," Arne said. I explained that I was still having dinner with my family.

Forrest dialed a new number. "Hey man! I'm getting hungry over here, send me over something to eat..."

I wasn't sure if I had to kiss his hand and call him the Don.

Forrest gave me the his phone number and told me to call him up later after I had dinner. I went back home just in time because Blanca had locked herself out. She had been in a conference all day discussing the teacher strike and was running late.

For The Last Supper, we had corn and potato soup followed by baked fish. Gabi had gone out to a concert with her friends, so it was just me and Blanca. For our final dinner conversation, she told me about the one time a Japanese student lived at the house and introduced her to wasabi, of which she spread on like ketchup while the guy was in the kitchen. Needless to say, she is no longer a fan of Japanese cuisine.

I CALLED UP FORREST but he wasn't there. So I just walked down to The Turtle Head, a couple of blocks away from GringoLand to see if they had gone there already. I walked into the Scottish pub and was surrounded by gringos. Surprisingly I fell out of place. Who was this local boy coming into the bar?

I broke the mystery when I just spoke in my regular American accent. "You know Forrest?" I asked the barkeep. He was a tough looking Scotsman with his arms crossed.

"Forrest? Forrest Gump?" he said in his heavy Scottish accent. I smiled.

"Nah, Forrest. Guy from Texas," I said. Surely just mentioning "Forrest" would get me somewhere.

"Ha ha ha... Run Forrest, run!" the Scotsman said. Let me tell you there is nothing more entertaining that seeing a big burly Scotsman making himself chuckle by saying "Run Forrest, run" in a thick Scottish accent.

"I think I know him," a nearby barmaid said.

"You seen him around here?"

"No."

I walked back to GringoLand.

JURGEN WAS STANDING ON THE CORNER of Calama and Mera in front of Papaya.net, looking as confused as a long lost German shepard -- one with a ponytail at that. "Have you seen Arne?" he asked me.

"Uh, I think he went out with the Texas guy to a club."

"Oh really, he told me that would meet here around ten." It was 10:05. "I was hoping there would be live music at the bar over there, but nothing tonight."

"Oh, I don't know then. I'm pretty sure he went out with the Texas guy." I explained how I had just come from The Turtle Head and couldn't find him either. I went into Papaya.net to check my email while Jurgen stood out there on the corner some more, waiting for Godot. After about ten minutes, he came in and told me he was going out for a beer.

Realizing that we had both been stood up, I joined him.

We went to Choco Loco, the bar we always went to since it had the cheapest prices on beer in the neighborhood that we could find. We sat over a couple of Pilseners in the brisk, cold evening air.

"I don't think they are coming," he said.

And so, for my last night in Quito, I just hung out with Jurgen in a bar. I didn't know much about him anyway since he was always just speaking German when Arne was around. We talked about travel and such.

"In Germany, we only get four weeks of vacation. Four weeks is nothing," he said.

"We only get two weeks."

"That's less than nothing."

Around midnight, all the bars in GringoLand were closing. This surprised me because weeks before, all the bars were open all night and every night was a party night. I thought that perhaps it was the sudden drop in temperature at night, or perhaps too many people back in school or something. Quito nights were over too.

I bid Jurgen goodbye and walked back home. I worked on a bit of freelance work before turning in.

Movin' Right Along

DAY 19: I had my last breakfast with Blanca in the morning, which was a good and bad thing. A good thing in that I was getting fresh food and a lot of it served to me on a ceramic platter with no effort on my behalf. A bad thing because -- just as every morning I'd been living there -- it was way too much food for me so early in the morning and I almost had to force myself to eat the whole thing. My stomach simply can't handle a huge plate of fruit three inches tall plus an egg and bread and juice and a cafe con leche. I think for once I would have actually preferred just having some McGriddles.

Before Blanca went off to work, I said my goodbyes. She told me where to leave the keys and wished me a good trip and luck in my writing. She was always proud of the fact that a writer was living in her house; it was her dream for Gabi to become a writer until she enrolled in hotel management. So as a souvenir, I gave her an autographed photocopy of my published story. And she couldn't have been any happier. (Well, she never had McGriddles in the morning, so maybe she could have.)

I did some web design work for clients in Boston and Portland, and uploaded it at the German computer nerd's internet cafe. I cleaned my room and packed my bags and walked back to school to say my goodbyes. I noticed there were bags all packed and ready to travel in Navid's classroom, and thought maybe he'd leave Quito with me after his class. He told me they were actually Mike's (My Spouse in Air Quotes), who was planning to go to Baños for the weekend and that he might go with me. But Mike was busy somewhere flirting with some girl in some cafe somewhere.

A Japanese guy walked in, all disheveled and pissed off from being stuck in traffic. I figured he was a student there for quite some time because he was pretty fluent in Spanish. However, he spoke Spanish in a Japanese accent with the inflections of an angry samurai. It was like watching a kung-fu movie dubbed in Spanish.

I waited for Mike to show up while playing cards with school directors Carmen and Fernando, and this crazy Japanese woman who was always there just hanging out. We were really getting into a game of Cuarenta, getting loud and rambunctious when the Japanese Samurai Guy came storming in. "ESTA ES UNA ESCUELA! NO ES UN LUGAR POR JUEGAR LAS CARTAS!" His nostrils flared up like a Sumo wrestler who had just been told to go on a diet.

We all apologized but then secretly made fun of him as we continued to play cards quietly.

It was getting late and the daily afternoon rain was coming and I didn't want to wait for Mike any longer. I figured perhaps traveling by myself on a bus would be more secure than tagging along with an obvious gringo anyway. I hopped in a cab and went off to the bus station to find a bus for Baños. The taxi dropped me off on the street near the station, but I managed to get lost trying to find the entrance. I was trapped in some maintenance area until I asked a guy how to get inside. He permitted me to go through his office into the main lobby as long as I bought a ticket from his company, but I was lured by another one that was just about to leave. I left the two to argue in the hallway as I hopped on the bus bound for Baños.

NAVID NOR MIKE WEREN'T AROUND to accompany me, but my old friend La Gripe came back for the ride. The combination of bus fumes and the rain really got me sick and I just sat on the bus for four hours all feverish. It's an awful thing when you have La Gripe; you just hate everything, from the bumpy ride, to the annoying teenagers who are sitting near you, to the ultra-cheesy Spanish love ballads they play over and over and over. And you thought elevator music was bad. Despite all the previous warnings I had gotten that a tourist should never fall sleep on a bus, I just passed out anyway, holding my bag. I knew I blended in anyway because the teenagers tried to strike up a conversaton with me like I was one of them.

The nap did wonders because it helped pass the four hour ride and made me feel a little better. I was dropped off in the commercial district where the streets were lit up and everyone was out and about. I checked into the first hostel I ran into and got a nice big room with cable TV and a private bathroom with hot water, for just seven bucks.

In less than ten minutes of wandering down the block looking for a place to eat, I saw Hugo, the crazy Dutch guy from my school back in Quito. He was sitting outside of a pizzeria with his friend Alberto, just drinking beers. "Ey, Hugo!" He pulled up a chair for me.

We had dinner and drinks as we caught up on our latest adventures. Alberto was funny because he had dropped out of Spanish school, and was always at a loss for words. Whenever he couldn't think of the word to use, he'd just saying "shitting" or "fucking" while using air quotes, or just say "Choco Loco." For example:

Me: "What's around here to see?"

Alberto (in a Dutch accent): "There's...uh...'fucking' things to do. Choco Loco, Choco Loco!"

We sat and people watched, waving a hello to all the pretty chicas. However, it wasn't all pretty chicas. "It's so typical Dutch," Hugo said. He noticed that about every five minutes a Dutch person would walk by. "I hate it. I didn't come to South America to see Dutch people." But sure enough, he'd see another one walk by.

As the night progressed, fewer and fewer people roamed the streets and all the stores closed. The two of them were staying at a family run hostel of which the owner also owned a bar around the corner. We chilled out there for the rest of the night as four teenagers danced to the 50 Cent album in the back. The owner tried to hook us up with some girls, but they didn't seem interested and just left.

Hugo and Alberto went off to another bar, but I just went back to my hostel to rest up because I was still a little grippy. On TV, I switched between a cheesy softcore and Sesame Street until I fell asleep.

Hot Bath

DAY 20: Baños is a town in a valley surrounded by lush green mountains, one of which gets really excited and ejaculates liquid hot magma every so often. In 1999, the Volcán Tungurahua erupted, causing a major evacuation of the town, and since then the town has been on guard. In Baños, after you look up the weather forecast, you look up the volcano forecast.

A major eruption hasn't happened in three years, and in this time, tourism has been booming for Ecuadoreans and foreigners alike. The word "baños" means "baths" and it is here people come to soak in thermal baths naturally heated by the volcanic activity below. The closest and most popular of these baths are the Piscines de la Virgen, a facility on the east end of town conveniently placed adjacent to a scenic natural waterfall.

The pool of the hot water was about as sanitary as public pools go, at least I had hoped. Without the use of chlorine and the presence of natural sulfuric sediment, the water (picture above) was yellow-greenish and so murky that once you stuck your feet in you couldn't see them. I know what you may be thinking -- public pool, yellowish tint, warm water -- because I thought the same thing.

However, no one seemed to mind and I didn't actually see any public urination -- they save that for the streets and the trees in the park, remember? -- so I did as the Bañosians. I blended in pretty well and joined the Ecuadoreans when we all stared at the four gringos playing cards on the side. I thought that one of the girls might be American until I noticed what looked like two brown hamsters growing from her armpits.

After a while it finally sunk into my head that taking a hot soak on a sunny 80° day just seemed silly, so I exited the questionable water and just wandered poolside to take some photos of the waterfall. A guy on a lounge chair noticed my big Canon AE-1 SLR camera. "Amigo," he called to me.

I managed to figre out through the Spanish words I knew that his name was Pablo and that he, his wife and son were on vacation from the city of Guayaquil. Recognizing the international index-finger gesture for "take a photo," I figured he wanted me to take a picture of him and his family.

I thought it was an unusual request but I entertained him anyway. I bid him farewell, but as I walked away he started saying something I couldn't understand. Soon, I realized that he thought I was one of the many guys around the area with Polaroid cameras that sold instant photos to tourists. I wanted to explain that it wasn't a Polaroid camera and that I was using slide film that had to be developed, but I didn't know any of the Spanish words for any of that and just took off really fast.

THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON I wandered the streets of town. I bought a soda from one of the street vendors -- who didn't give me the bottle. Instead she poured the drink into a baggie and wrapped it around a straw. I thought that perhaps it was a good idea for recycling purposes, but it just felt weird drinking out of a bag. It was like walking around town sipping on a breast implant.

I saw the Basilica Notra Señora del Rosario and its adjacent Spanish courtyard. I walked over a bridge that went over a scenic gorge to a trail that went up a mountain for a great view of the city. Unlike Quito, it remained a sunny day and didn't rain.

IT'S A FUNNY THING about the backpacker trail. Everyone seems to have the same book, Lonely Planet's South America on a Shoestring, and knows the same narrow information. Everyone seems to start in Quito, take Spanish for a couple of weeks, and then head south. By this rationale, every so often a "graduating class" of a Spanish school in Quito eventually moves on their way down to the cities mentioned in the guide, which is why I ran into Hugo the day before and Anita, my Swiss schoolmate that afternoon. She was with a friend and had just arrived the night before.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" I asked.

"I don't know. Probably nothing. Whereever we walk, people see that we are foreigners and hand us flyers and flyers for all the different things you can do here. It's all pretty much the same as everywhere else; horseback riding, rafting, see the volcano," she said. "What are you doing?"

"I might rent a bike and ride down to Puyo," I said.

"Ah, you have the Lonely Planet book too, huh?"

There was no use hiding the truth.

I RAN INTO NAVID at random just as he was sitting down to dinner after just arriving into town, and so I joined him. Later, I went out to the bars with him and Hugo -- a sort of Class of The First Week of November 2003 reunion -- but not before taking a nice hot shower.

I wondered if the water coming out of the shower head was the same murky volcanic water from the thermal baths, but I tried not to think about it too much. Golden showers just aren't my thing.

The Gorge

DAY 21: When I ran into Dutchman Hugo on my first night in Baños, he told me about his adventures since he left Quito, one about the time he and his friend Alberto were threatened to be beat up by a group of villagers unless they respectfully ate cuy (fried guinea pig) with them. (They snuck out the back door and ran away.)

"Quito is weird because you go there and even though you are traveling, you aren't traveling because it is just like any big city," he said. "Only when you leave Quito and start seeing the smaller Indian villages does the real traveling begin."

By the time you finish reading this blog entry, you'll see what he means.

ONE OF THE RECOMMENDED THINGS TO DO around Baños in my Lonely Planet guide is to rent a mountain bike in town and ride the scenic mountain road to the next city of Puyo, 70 km away. There you can take a bus back to Baños with your bike strapped to the roof.

Originally, Navid was thinking of going with me, but in the morning we couldn't find each other at each other's hostels. We both ran errands and had breakfast separately but finally ran into each other at 11, which to Navid was too late to get going since he felt a bit out of shape. He decided to stay in town, and so I went it alone. No matter, I figured, the bike ride is recommended in the Lonely Planet guide, so there must be tons of gringos doing the same thing.

I rented a cheap dual suspension bike for $4 all day, which included a helmet, lock and chain, a tire repair kit and a map. The young man at the bike shop pointed out the highlights of the road up until the 22km point where a store existed. There, most bikers hopped on a truck back to Baños. Whether I would end my journey there or press the extra 48 km to Puyo I didn't know yet.

I RODE THE HIGHWAY OUT OF TOWN and it was more or less downhill, with only small sections of pedaling upwards. I rode passed a dam and a hydro electric power plant, through a dark tunnel that cut through the mountain, and eventually made it to the beginning of the dirt road that hugged the gorge of the Rio Pastaza.

Along the dirt path, I saw the Agoyan waterfall, slicing its white water through the greenery like an aquatic bolt of lightning. There were some nearby smaller waterfalls along the trail for a refreshing mist amongst the hot weather. There weren't many other bikers around -- I only noticed three other pairs of cyclists -- and we all suffered from dust clouds whenever a car or bus would drive by. I was wary of cars driving too fast on curves -- one nearly skid off the edge.

At the overlook of the Manta de la Novia Waterfall, there were two options to cross the river and see it up close: via cablecar or via a wooden foot bridge reminiscent of the one at the end of Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. Finding out that the option that would fulfill a childhood fantasy of mine costed nothing, I chose the latter. Most people were doing the same, and I could only assume they all had the same fantasy -- or were just as cheap as I was.

I walked to the center of the bridge and admired the view and made my way through the jungle like environment near the base of the falls, spawned by the abundance of moisture. At the base of the Manta de la Novia waterfall, I took some photos, including one with myself. I walked back over the Bridge of Doom, but not before taking in another view with daydreams of yelling "You want the stones, let her go!"

No one was around to appreciate it.

I RODE TO THE STORE that the bike store guy mentioned where I could hop one of the many private trucks for a ride back to Baños. A boy came up to me and said something in Spanish I couldn't understand. I assumed he was asking if I need a lift back into town and I simply said "No, gracias." It was still a beautiful sunny day and I figured I might make it to Puyo after all.

I continued down the road, down the valley. I rode passed some more random waterfalls and through a small town. One thing I didn't see were fellow bikers, which started to become a scary thing.

I rode about another 10km when I noticed it getting really dark. Clouds were coming in and I could see in the distance a storm coming. I was near a checkpoint in the road by a construction zone, which was all coned up. And if that wasn't enough of a sign to start heading back the other way, a loud thunderous boom filled the air from above.

I decided to be smarter than a teen in an 80's horror flick and turned back the other way.

A SHADOW HUNG OVER ME the entire way back. The storm clouds chased me like an evil force and I was always trying to get ahead of the rainline. However, it was all uphill from there and the rain eventually caught up with me. Depressed, wet and alone, I had no choice but to pedal my way back to the store with the boy and the trucks. Nothing made me happier when I saw it from around a bend and I got a second wind that took me there.

The boy asked me the same question in Spanish that I didn't understand, but this time I said, "Uh, sí. A Baños. Y una Coca-Cola." I went to a table where (I assume) his father was, and he went to get me a cold Coke. I drank about half the bottle outside in the rain when the father went into the house and walked out with a sawed-off single barrel shot gun in one hand and a shell in the other.

I don't know about you, but I had never been in this sort of situation before -- alone, wet, stranded at a mountain house in the middle of nowhere with a guy who suddenly has a gun and a bullet in his hands. I'm surprised I didn't hear any banjos.

Two thoughts entered my mind: 1) Erik, you should really get the fuck out of here; and 2) Erik, you should really get the fuck out of here. Fortunately, these thoughts passed as soon as I saw the guy with the gun walk right passed me and down a path down the valley. I figured he was going to hunt something for dinner.

I looked down the gorge but there were too many trees and it was too steep to get a good vantage point. Then, amongst the pitter patter of the rain, I heard a loud gunshot.

I asked the boy "Que es eso?" ("What is that?") and he said something in Spanish I couldn't comprehend. But he said it so nonchalantly like it was no big deal, that I figured his father was just killing an animal for food afterall. But the man came up with his gun and nothing else but what looked like an empty beer bottle, after of which I thought 3) that I should really really get the fuck out of there.

I didn't know what to do and I was starting to think that the boy's original question had nothing to do with a ride back to Baños since none of the guys with the trucks were budging when I picked up my bike.

THERE WAS A TEENAGE COUPLE nearby, waiting on the side of the road. By the way they were dressed I could see they weren't from the villages and were probably from the city. I approached them as they were trying to hail a bus back into Baños. Just my luck, within one minute they flagged one down and I ran with along with them with my bike. I helped the conductor stick the bike on the roof and tie it down as the rain was still coming down.

It felt so good being on that bus, driving passed the sights I had seen just a few hours before when the sun was still shining. However, I was still wary of pickpockets on the bus, and kept a hold on my bag as we went through the dark tunnel.

The sun was coming back out as I arrived at the Baños bus terminal. I got my bike off the roof and rode it to the store -- which was closed. I didn't know what to do so I locked it to a nearby post, hoping they wouldn't charge me another day for not getting the bike back in time. But I went back later on the in the day and found the guy to check in and returned my helmet as well.

WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE HOSTEL, I inserted my key but the the door just opened before turning my wrist. I searched my belongings and fortunately nothing was missing -- nothing important was left out in the open and all my valuables were hidden and locked down. My bed was made and the garbage had been emptied so I figured it was just a cleaning service. Perhaps the woman I told in the morning that I was staying another night never told the person who cleans up the rooms that I wasn't leaving yet.

With so much excitement in the day and my body all sore, I just stayed in all night. The first Matrix movie was on broadcast TV (in Spanish) and I knew just then that watching a lot of fake Hollywood guns beats confronting a single real gun any day.

Liquid Hot Magma

DAY 22: Navid had moved to my hostel since his other was too noisy, so it was easy to find him for breakfast. We played a quick game of generic Jenga before looking for the other thermal baths of Baños on the outskirts of town.

Following the Lonely Planet guide, we continued walking down one street where we should see a footbridge that leads you over a creek to another road that brings you right to the facility. On a map, everything looks flat, but in reality the road goes up a mountainside like a street in San Francisco. It lead us up into the suburbs and eventually out of town and on a dirt road with calves, cows and bulls. Although I had heard that bulls are color-blind, I wasn't about to take chances with my bright red shirt.

The trail went nowhere and we decided to head back down the mountain. We ran into a gringo who also had the Lonely Planet guide and also went the wrong way. We told him that the directions must have been wrong or something and so he tagged along with us. "Thank you for doing that exercise for me," he said. "I would have gone all the way up if you hadn't told me."

His name was Olf -- no relation to the alien puppet Alf -- a Swedish man perhaps in his 40s. (Being from Sweden, there's a possibility he could have been related to the Swedish Chef muppet, which could in turn made him sort of related to Alf -- or perhaps Kevin Bacon.) Olf was backpacking through Ecuador for a month and was also interested in checking out the Piscina al Salado, a bigger facility than the Piscines de la Virgen in town. We eventually found it, with its multiple tubs of thermal water at different temperatures. Everyone was playing Goldilocks to find the one that was "just right" -- including this old Spanish guy who would bounce back and forth from the cooler ones to the hottest one. In the hottest one, he'd just sit in the corner and whisper to himself an orgasmic "Aye ya yaih!" I tried to avoid him as much as possible.

ON THE WAY BACK DOWN INTO TOWN, we had a clear view of Tungurahua, the nearby volcano that once erupted and evacated the city in a mad panic in 1999. Right before our eyes, we saw it begin to smoke on a clear day. (picture above) After lunch with Olf and Navid, I walked back to the vantage point in the suburbs with my video camera to capture it on tape. I stood there, totally mesmerized by the dark plume it was making, and nearby townspeople were looking at me as to think, "What, you've never seen a volcano bellow in your hometown? Feh."

When I got back to my room I realized they might have been looking at me strange because I had accidently put my shirt on backwards in the changing room and my tag was flapping in the wind.

THE SOUNDS OF DRUMS FILLED THE STREETS, so loudly that I could hear it from my room. I ran out to see what it was and right down the main road was a parade. I love a parade! I followed the parade route and walked alongside the participants who were sporting team uniforms. It led into a big school courtyard where some sort of pep rally was going on. Hundreds of students were there in uniform with parents and relatives. I snuck in and blended in with the crowd without any questions and before I knew it I was standing along side them for the national anthem and applauding whenever they would applaud. However, it got pretty boring for a while so snuck out.

I ran into Olf and having nothing to do, we went out to a sidewalk cafe for beers. An empty bus blasting salsa music from its speakers cruised by. "That's the bus for the volcano tour," he told me. He had gone on it the night before and recommended it since it was only three bucks.

A BOY CAME OFF THE BUS and approached us with flyers. He looked about nine years old, but after the usual Spanish 101 questions, I learned he was actually twelve, his name was Pablo and that he was from Baños. For a twelve year old, he was a turning into quite the salesman, determined to get a sale, yet not too pushy. He'd make a good used car salesman one day, or perhaps even a guy that sells camcorders at Best Buy. Navid joined us and Pablo was determined to get another sale. He even brought over a photo album of the different tours that are available and talked non-stop about each photo. I interupted his sales pitch when I pointed to a girl in the album and asked him if it was his girlfriend. He paused for a quick moment smiled and told me no, probably because his was at the age where girls were "icky."

The bus came to pick us up and we hopped on the roof while most of the other tourists stayed inside. Pablo's friends Juan and Alberto hopped on too and we cruised through the moutain roads in the nighttime air playing music, waving at passerbys and dodging tree branches. Pablo remained a complete businessman and pointed out all the sites to see along the way.

The driver brought us up a mountain a look out point of the volcano not much better than the one I had in the afternoon, although at night you could see distant specks of red lava glowing in the darkness. The mediocre view of the volcano was complemented by a specatuclar view of the city.

The guides made a campfire since it was a chilly night and served us tea spiked with rum. For kicks, I was going to try and sneak some of the spiked tea to Pablo, but he had already snuck a small cup which he shared with his friends. However, they seemed to be more excited looking at themselves on my camcorder with the night vision on.

Soon after, the female tour guide got everyone's attention and gave us a little lecture on the volcano, completely in Spanish. A British tourist had a question that the guide didn't understand, and seeing that I had been talking to Pablo in Spanish all night, she asked me to translate. So I did:

"I only pretend to know Spanish. This entire trip I've just been pretending. I have no idea what she just said."

"Gracias," the guide thanked me.

ON THE WAY BACK DOWN the mountain road, Navid, the boys and I were on the roof again, this time standing up, pretending to surf. I don't know if it was the alcohol in the tea, but the three boys just started getting all hyper, dancing to the music and making each other laugh. I kept watch ahead and warned them for branches and wires. At first Pablo wasn't into the dancing, but he ultimately couldn't resist. Eventually they all started getting really hyper, took their shirts off and waved them in the air like Ecuador had just won the World Cup. I was glad to see Pablo not be a salesman and just be a kid again.

Back in town, I gave Pablo a dollar as a tip and told him to share it with his friends. Navid and I went out to a food stand down the block -- the only place open that time at night -- for a snack. Pablo, Juan and Alberto walked by to say hello. I saw that they had already used my dollar on ice cream.

Crossroads of Ecuador

DAY 23: Whenever I'd walk around with Navid on the streets of Baños, newly arrived backpackers would always stand out with their big packs strapped to their backs and their smaller daypacks strapped in front. This is like trying to simulate being both pregnant and a camel at the same time.

Whenever I'd see one of these new people, I'd say "Oh look, a new arrival." Navid and I were sitting at breakfast when I said it again after noticing a man walk by.

I left Navid in Baños as he wanted to stay longer and see other things, and hopped on a bus for Riobamba. Inside was the "new arrival" I had seen on the street who was actually a new departee.

His name was Chris, an Indian-looking retired math teacher from Toronto, and he was making his way to Riobamba for the same reason I was -- and every backpacker on the bus for that matter, including an English-looking guy that I noticed in the cafe I had breakfast with Navid in.

RIOBAMBA ISN'T PARTICULARLY THE KIND OF TOWN you send a postcard from. To the Ecuadoreans, it is a mid-sized city at the crossroads of Ecuador, where the main mountain highway in the Andes meets the highway that goes to the shore. But to a backpacker, it is the starting point of Ecuador's famous scenic train ride to Alausi, where one gets to ride on the roof. Olf, who had done the ride already, told me to get to Riobamba by early afternoon the day before departure and buy a ticket by 4pm, which is advice not mentioned in my guidebook.

The bus arrived at 1:30 and dropped all of us pregnant camels off at the bus station. I split a cab with Chris and the guy I noticed in the cafe in Baños and we rode to the area near the train station.

"What's your name?" I asked the new guy.

"It's Pepijn, but in Spanish I suppose it's Pepe," he said.

"So...Pepe?"

"Pepe's fine. Where are you from?"

"New York."

"Ah, New Amsterdam. I'm from Old Amsterdam," the Dutchman said.

The three of us shopped around for a cheap hostel and settled on one two blocks from the train station that was recommended by Lonely Planet. The three-story walk up was decent with a nice common area with a skylight. Chris tried to get a private room but they were all out of them and just decided to get a dorm share with Pepe and me for just $5 each. Our room had a TV and a terrace. Next door was a German girl named Anna who had gotten there earlier and snagged one of the private rooms.

Later I discovered that Chris probably wanted privacy because he was having stomach problems and probably wanted to suffer from the normal case of the runs in peace.

PEPE AND I WENT OUT TO LUNCH at one of the usual almuerzos places where you get a whole lot of food for just a buck fifty. We chatted and learned we were both a part of the whole big internet rush at the turn of the millenium, having survived two more years after the bubble bursted. He too was just traveling for a long time before looking for another job to "see what happens."

We wandered around town, connecting the dots on the map in the guidebook which pointed out places of interest. We saw the Parque Sucre and the cathedral. We visited the Museo de Arte Religioso, which featured kitschy-looking religious artifacts including paintings and a sculpture of Jesus with a small cock. The museum's prized possession was a gem-studded gold cross monostance that, as Indiana Jones would say, belongs in a museum.

BY FOUR O'CLOCK, the line for train tickets was already starting to take form. Pepe ran into an Aussie named Andrew he met in Quito, and I ran into Anita from Spanish school who was with her friend. At the ticket window, we all paid the expensive $11 which, according to Hugo, is a jacked up price for the usual southbound tourists because the trip northbound is only $3.50.

When we found out a passport was needed for the ticket purchase, almost everyone in unison reached down their pants. Hidden pockets and money belts are a popular thing.

ANDREW, ANNA, PEPE AND I went out for coffee and afterwards, I just went wandering around some more by myself. Unlike Quito or Baños, Riobamba is just a regular working-class town with no tourist sidewalk cafes. I grabbed some beef on a stick at one of the nighttime food stands near the train station and then chilled out at the hostel, wondering how many people would giggle at my little "Jesus with a small cock" picture prank.