Ecuador!

I'm now in Ecuador and happy to be here. I came by road about a week ago and the mountains here are lush and green compared to the ones I saw in Peru. On the trip over I saw rainbows and huge trees covered in smooth green bark. I have three weeks left and am looking forward to the remaining adventures here: jungle, beach, volcanoes, and Galapagos Islands.

I started out in the very relaxing and tranquil little town of Vilcabamba, apparently the new home of several retired American couples. I took a couple of nature walks, one in a private reserve and another over someone's private property (oops!) in order to see a waterfall. It was pretty.

The last three photos are from the Podocarpus National Park, where I felt compelled to visit the cloud forest. I mean, how cool does "cloud forest" sound? As promised, there were clouds, and the forest was mucky and muddy in a lovely kind of way. It reminded me of BC a bit, except there was a lot more bamboo and less conifers. And luckily for me, no bugs!