Ah! Ecuador

I have wanted to see South America, but I got distracted for several years by SE Asia. Now my eyes see the world differently and the long spine of the Andes looks great! Fantastic spires and walls (Patagonia!), and unlike other place it has villages at enormous altitudes - the spine of a whole continent (up to 22,834 feet/6960 meters - nominally the highest outside Asia)! To a certain extent Ecuador was a random place to start - Belize was the first in Central America (Guatemala next I hope) - and I never met anyone from there or who had ever visited there, but why not? No Galapagos Islands - I can almost imagine them (the ancient tortoises sound great) so I can't go there. Yet.

Patty invited me to experience an ultimate world class ecolodge (www.blacksheepinn.com, in Chugchilan, Cotopaxi, Ecuador) and explore small villages around there on foot; how could I say no? We would try to confine ourselves to a very small area for 10 days (around the volcanic crater/lake Laguna Quilotoa) and that's the best way that I know to avoid travel/culture overload.















Unfortunately, blogger is a cumbersome place to post magazine style travelogues - text and photos intermingled in an attractive manner. It won't kill me to do it, but it just takes a huge commitment of time to make it look good. In the meantime I want to show some great photos, just in case I never write more (I haven't for Belize so far - it was just a simple trip to an easy place), and here is the link to where some more are at my Yahoo photo site (and photos from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal, China, etc. too - good coverage of the places I have been, though China is weak for having spent that long there). http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/csellers42/my_photos
Not the best way to share, just one way.

Thanks to Patty for the E opportunity, and many of the best photos shown above!