Sunny Wednesday

Allan wrote ...

We're getting used to the early sunset and the sleepiness it beings much earlier in the evening than we're used to. Becky sacked out early last night and I wasn't far behind. We're not big night people, so it's not likely we'll be looking for the hotspots after dark.  So that leaves either early to sleep, or finding a DirecTV show in English.  Actually the apartment has HBO and Cinemax, so there are some good movies on in English (with Spanish subtitles).  But to give us a few more options we went out to a bookstore run by a North Carolina expat who has been here for several years. We stocked up on a few books to while away the hours between 6PM when the sun goes down and sleepy time.

Today, on Wednesday, we went out to Calderon Park and had a delicious lunch there on the square. Tomorrow we're meeting another couple who are visiting from Mexico for six weeks, and in the afternoon, heading out with Ana Loja to the orchid farm and further exloration at the University.

Still having little luck with wifi here and it's hard to get things posted and emails read/sent, short of going to an Internet cafe, which I am doing now. Our landlord is looking into a possible solution for us, but he did explain that Internet in Ecuador is not as fast and robust as in the States.  I ran a few speedtest.net benchmarks and we're getting about 800 kb download and 400 to 500 kb upload.  So we may be totally unable to post some of the fun videos we've made due to their large size.  Shucks.  However there are some new still pics at this Picasa address:  http://goo.gl/ngZcF

We signed up for a guided tour on Saturday to a couple of artisan villages.  Should be fun. It's an all day trip. Becky got her authentic straw hat today, so now she can keep the sun off her shoulders, which is important because she got sunburned the first day here.  I guess at 8200 feet the Andean sun can be a bit hotter than even in Hotlanta.

That's all for now.  I'll continue trying to get some pics and videos loaded up.  Ciao for now ;)