First times in Ecuador

It seems that Ecuador is a place for some firsts for myself. Here are a few (in no particular order)

My First Time....

• Riding a bike through the jungle with a helmet that looks like a baseball helmet
• Seeing multiple dead/skinned pigs hanging outside small shacks on the road
• Seeing a truck full of chickens drive by and a poor women sitting with the chickens looking miserable
• hitchhiking (safely!)
• swimming in a dique (river pool)
• getting bit by a dog on top of a mountain (which i was not petting!)
• rushing into a clinic and getting a rabies vaccine
• luckily meeting an emergency room doc who told me it most likely wasn´t rabid and the infection isn´t moving toward my heart
• playing a really fun new card game called eucher (i´ll teach it to clar, mel, jebb etc!)
• meeting a bachelor party who told us that baños was like the ecuadorian vegas 
• salsa dancing until 2 am!
• seeing a guy on the dance floor get a bottle smashed on his face and subsequently pass out in a pool of blood
• watching the american ER doc rush to the scene and stabalize the guy
• riding horses through the ecuadorian hills 
• going in hot baths at the base of a volcano
• chugging a bottle of gatorade on the bus only to realize that there was no bathroom and i had 3 more hours to go

We are now back in Quito. It is raining and I miss the carefree life of Baños. Tomorrow... to the middle of the world!!