Cloud busting

We´ve just got back from a few days in cloud forest, Mindo. It was A. Mazing. My eyes got stung with unbelievable, tropical beauty (not even Spielberg could make this stuff up) and my legs got stung by a million mosquitos (of course they did.) Sonia and Marcin joined us (they´d headed off to the coast on Thursday, but returned a few hours later after being mugged for the second time in a week) and within 20 minutes of our arrival we´d checked in to this hostel...



chatted some Spanish to Leonardo...



and fallen in love...



Days: wandering around the sleepy town, spotting massive butterflies, hummingbirds and lizards and cooling off in the river before the thick cloud and tropical rain set in. Evenings: watching the fire flies, making BBQ´s (thanks boys) and drinking Rum (of course.) And getting bitten. Badly. Did I mention that? Still it´s a (very) constant, itchy reminder of the great time we had.

The days before were less tranquil. Friday was Ecuador versus Poland in the World Cup. I hate football, but boys like it - and I like boys - so, naturally, we decided to head in to town. It was actually REALLY exciting. Quito was buzzing. Everyone had the day off work, kids were excused from school, taxis all had flags and everyone, even dogs, were wearing football shirts. Started watching it at a bar outside with Dunc, Sonia, Marcin, Dan and Ruth (we even got snapped and appeared in the local newspaper the following day) but as Ecuador scored it started to POUR.



Ran to the local English pub, where we watched the rest of the game soaked.



Bumped in to James, Si and the English guys from Cuenca and ended up drinking a fair amount. Thanks to Duncan for getting me back to the hostel.



An early rise (7am) for (what I could focus on of) the England game at the same pub - urgh - and the rest of the day was spent in a daze, eating, resting and playing with Rosie at Maria´s flat. A good time was had by all. Amen.