Her recent dispatch from Equador.
A new way to drop weight!
When you get to the Ecuador and step on the scale, you will find you have dropped a kilo. There is less gravity there and therefore you weigh less. This was one of the many facts we learned at Telemundo, the complex that marks the center of the world where the latitude and longitude are both zero.
We saw a demo where on the Equator where the water dropped directly down the drain, 3 feet to the North and 3 feet to the south the water swirls in different directions. Also when you stand on the equator line your energy was zapped, and your balance is not as good. They also taught us about the natives and some of the history.
This was all on one of the 4 days we spent with our friend Eddie and his family. In Quito the only flat spots are the soccer field, the roads are not graded and are very steep. Quito is a massive city in a long thin valley where they have abandoned the old airport that ran through the center of the city and made it a park, from there everything goes up and down steeply, even side streets go up and down. It is a modern South American City where there are walls and steel gates lining the blocks, whats behind the walls is always surprising. Many of these walls are painted murals, the rest are gang tagged. The traffic is crazy and they stop when ever they want to let someone out of the car.
At Eddies behind the gate is a long thin driveway with 5 homes off of it. It started with the home Eddie and family now lives in. The grandparents continued to build condo type homes up the hill and toward the road.Every one has a car so the parking is tight. only a few inches between the wall and the other parked car or home wall.
Ecuador limits the number of cars by not allowing cars with the last number of their license plate not to drive on certain days, so if 4 is a no drive days, here they just borrow the cousins car. The home is 35 years old and they did not build them with central heat. They are stone and stucco. It does not really freeze here but it does get cold. There were 4 blankets on the bed. Every one wears a jacket or fleece all the time. It rains every afternoon, and really pours then stops for a while and starts again.
The family treated us wonderfully, every day they had a plan to take us somewhere and learn about their country. Moma cooked a big lunch with soup each afternoon. The soups are great and at each dinner there is potatoes and rice served and usually corn as well, a salad and piece of fried meat. Each morning Moma made fresh juice and one day a smashed green bananas with cheese and an egg on top for breakfast, also freshfruit.
Fruit is sold in long plastic bags for a dollar a bag and they walk through the lines of traffic at every stoplight selling fruit, fresh juice, cut fruit and a variety of things.
Some of the other activities were a trip to inside the crater of the volcano, a stop for traditional cookies with hot chocolate and a mozzarella style goat cheese that you dunk into the hot chocolate.
This is a country where I am actually taller than many, the natives are much smaller people. They have amazing black hair, and large smailes!
Today we left the homestead, they took us out of the city with the crazy traffic. We rode to a Hot Springs at 11,000 feet.
It was really cold with fog and wind. The biking is going to be difficult. We are able to get and send text messages when ever we are connected to WIFI (weefee) so keep us informed about the happenings at home.
