changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes

Well, shit. It's been a while. Highlights of the past... almost month. Jesus.

-Panama: Robbie and I flew out of Quito after braving Latin American bureaucracy yet again (how did we think that everything was going to go smoothly?!?). Spent the night in glitzy Panama City, and watched the Sox game in a Colombian restaurant/bar. Next morning, we flew to Bocas del Toro, Panama, on the Caribbean coast, where my dad was hanging on a 82-foot catamaran owned by a friend of his. My dad thought he was coming down to help set up a charter business or something of the sort, but his ludicrously wealthy friend just kind of wanted a vacation buddy, apparently. So we hung out in Bocas del Toro, where it was gloriously hot and where there was endless water. My first time in the Caribbean, and I could totally get used to it. Made me even more sure that I have to spend at least a couple years of my life bumming around on boats. It's like the regular traveling we do by bus, but you have a safe place to keep your shit, a bed to sleep in every night, and a guaranteed mode of transportation. Swimming, snorkeling, sailing, lounging, chilling with my daddy... it was quite the fantastic weekend. Due to plane shit, we decided to delay our return by a day. Quito wasn't stacking up so well against living on an obscenely large boat in the tropics.

-We were in Quito for a grand total of 40 hours before hopping on a bus to the Amazon region. It was way cool, and made me hate oil companies even more than I already did. We saw these former oil pools operated by Texaco that are just oozing toxic shit into the environment because Texaco didn't fix them, just threw a bunch of grass and trees on top. Cancer rates are skyrocketing. The weirdest part is that within Parque Nacional Yasuní, there's an oil company drilling. All of the security going into the national park is for the benefit of the oil company. Not sure how oil exploitation and preservation of nature are compatible, but, hell, it's Ecuador, and nothing makes sense.

-Marcelina, the empleada in my house, went back to the Oriente. Apparently this was because her mother is going blind and needs extra help, or something. More like, as my host grandpa reminded me, "She was really young... not even fifteen yet." Uh, yes, I noticed; are you surprised that child labor backfired on you? The family is supposedly looking for another one, but good empleadas are hard to find if you want to pay them almost nothing and have them live in a closet attached to your house. This means that I've been getting hot dogs for dinner almost every night. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I even used to like hot dogs-- they were my favorite food as a little kid-- but these are horrible. The other option for dinner is Kraft macaroni and cheese, something I'd had maybe once or twice in my life before coming here (we're an all-Annie's family back home). The artificiality is a bit disconcerting, but it's a billion times better than those godawful hot dogs with french fries.

-Salsa lessons have been going spectacularly, and it doesn't hurt that our teacher is absolutely adorable. Last week we learned a bunch of slightly off-color pasos. Among the names: Yogurt, La Verde, El Blanco. Drug or sex references all, and hilarious. Salsa class is definitely a highlight of Tuesday nights.

Okay. Running out of blogging steam, so there's what's been up with me.