under a day

well, it looks like my ecuadorian odyssey has finally come to an end. after more than 190 days wrestling with the heat, the office confusion and politics, south american bureaucracy and sometimes overwhelming hospitality, i will be making my way back to canada in about 18 hours.

i get to spend a couple days in calgary, potentially running from health centre to health centre trying to get my rabies shots, but hopefully i'll be able to relax a bit and enjoy the mountain air. kim (kozak) - or classic - is taking me in and has promised to show me some sites, as well as expose me to some much needed culture in a concierto performance tomorrow night - sounds sweet.

after that it's a few days camping it out in the b.c. interior with the gang, purging ourselves of that guayaquil smell of sun, exhaust and decaying plastic - but also revelling in our 6 months abroad and combing over what made life here so interesting.

once that's taken care of it's another few days in kimberley b.c. back at the college of the rockies putting together final reports and giving presentations before i fly back to the hopefully warm but not too warm confines of ontario (the east as it's called in b.c. - i find that amusing...).

will probably not be able to write much until i reach kimberley (where we get the computers at the college) so this will probably be the last dispatch south of the equator. it's been a fun run and while parts of it are not as much fun as others (i'm thinking needles) overall it's been a blast.

here's a few pics till next time.



the promised restaurant in quito...


the scenery outside salinas de guaranda


the cathedral in quito - i climbed up to the top of the big clock tower... pretty scary!


the trole system in quito - very similar to the streetcars in toronto... with their own designated stops and such... super cool


me biking - just before the dog attacked!