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Sept 26, 2000: Contact - Quito, Ecuador
We finally made contact with Alfonso Aguavil, nephew of a Tsachili shaman. We will be visiting them tomorrow near the very quickly sprawling city of Santo Domingo which is west and south of Quito and 2000 metres lower. Breakfast´s freshly squeezed juice was great as always. Today was my favorite - jugo de tomate de arbe (juice of the tomato of the tree). Some of the other days´ great juices are papaya, orange, pineapple - always freshly squeezed. After loading our cooking fuel canister with white gas, I visited the vivarium. It was quite an interesting experience to see the many snakes of Ecuador (and other places). Some are poisonous and some are huge. Some of the snakes that I saw were the boa constrictor, vipers, king cobra, in addition to frogs, turtles and lizards. There was also an inguana who seemed to desparately want to get out of its terrerium and greet me personally - or chase me down the hall! A number of these amphibians are in danger of extinction. Poaching is part of the problem. More internet work was done by us today. Tad prepared a great meal this evening. I think that everything that we had in the hostel went into it. Here are the ingredients... garlic, onions, lots of curry, ginger, salt, pepper, tomatoes, eggplant (that´s the key), ketchup, and the occassional raisin on rice. I probably forgot a couple of things, but that´s the general idea. No peanut butter in this batch. I wonder if anyone is starting to notice a common food here, like garlic, curry, raisins and tomato. We invited Amy to eat with us and we still had enough leftover´s. Leftovers are not a common occurence when bike travelling, but right now in the luxury of the hostal, we have a refrigerator. Tad is a vegetarian so when share food it is meatless which is fine with me as long as I get an occasional fix. - If you are not in a hurry, you will have less to worry. |