settling back in

well i arrived back to the heat and congestion of guayaquil yesterday. quite a slap in the face actually - the sweater i had been wearing was ditched a couple hours outside the city and the windows (which were thick with cloud dew) were shut for the ceremonial turning on of the air conditioning. after talking with nicola and julia i realized that i had the short end of the holiday stick - they went to national park sanguay and the orient respectively and had a blast. nicola especially, after less than a week ago saying she was not interested in going to see laguna amarilla did in fact treck up to laguna amarilla on horseback (ok, that part does not interest me) and said it was pretty cool. i tried to remind her of her intense loathing of such a proposition not 200 hours previously but she begged ignorance. she also got to ambato where all the action took place, and rounded up her vacation with a visit to riobamba (but thankfully did not ride the nariz del diablo train ride or i would have been distraught at the thought that someone else had the perfect carnaval). julia had a good time too, playing in waterfalls in the orient (rainforest). not sure if she did anything else but the pics sure were nice.

another kitten died while i was away. that leaves three. we're trying to help the survivors eat by mixing up interesting concoctions (the mom can't support that many). i'm gonna pick up some wet cat food today and hopefully that'll help them out. they're over a month now and the internet (wonderful perveyor of information that it is) says that they should be making the switch around three to four weeks (gradually mind you, and that's basically what we're doing). they chomp down on my finger all the time which is cute, but will probably become less cute as their incisors develop. the kitten with the back paws facing the wrong way (not really but she walks with them dragging behind her - but that has almost been remedied, she now walks ok with the one and half walks-drags the other) is doing pretty well and has put on a little weight. the biggest one, named bonsai (the only one with a name so far), is holding its own and regularly engages in big cat activities like scratching its ear with its back paws, the action of which inevitably knocks the cat over because it loses precious balance in the process.