Pre-Chone

Well I finally found WIFI... not in Chone however. Part of the Quito group met Sam and I at a small Costal town on the southern part of Ecuador called Montañita. Its a pretty touristy type town but its still pretty laid back and I can still find my $2 lunches. The people here are pretty mellow and are always down to stop and chat in Spanish. Surprisingly there is a large population of northern Europeans here. The water is warm, the food is good, everything is cheap, and you can get an ocean-front hostel for $10 a person for per night. So if you can picture where i'm at in your head: Small internet café on a small quiet street, Ecuadorian music playing in the background, fresh fruit and fish vendors cruising by on their bikes, and the smell of food and ocean which is three hundred feet away.

I want to go back and touch on the Pichincha volcano climb. The climb starts at the top of the gondola which seems like cheating but it would take all day without it. The summit is 15, 413 with is a small rocky top. At 15,000 feet the concentration of oxygen is only 55%. It climb itself looks less than intimidating but the lack of oxygen makes it incredibly difficult. Toward the top we could only go for about a minute without stopping. It was a very humbling experience, I was really surprised how long it would take me to catch my breath. I'm really leaning towards climbing Cotopaxi, so i'll have to do it again after spending three weeks in Chone. The picture above is me reppin' OSU over 15000 feet up in the middle of the world!!

I know I know, this is so cliché especially because I bring my Powered by Orange shirt everywhere, but its just one of things you "can't not" do when you're that close to the equator. Its not that exciting there apart from the fact that you can stand on two different hemispheres, which is pretty cool, but theres really nothing else to do there unless you want to pay for cheesy tourist trinkets or weigh yourself on the equator for 50 cents..... Bob Marley just came on.... peeeerrrrfect!!!