full of sound and fury: at long, long last

i know i have promised to post pictures from both of my trips this summer, none of which have ever appeared, doubtless leading many of you to doubt that i actually went to these far-off lands. well in this post i will dispel all your skepticism with some well-chosen photography. meaning some of it will even have me in it, to further assure your mind that i didn't get these from some more fortunate traveler's web site.

so, first of all, here are some from my Ecuador trip. later i will post my other trip pictures. sorry this has been a little un-coherent (hehe) and out of order. i'm not going to explain any ecuador stuff again. but here are the pictures, complete without clever or ironic or sarcastic narration, because i'm not capable of any of that.

this is right outside where we worked for the first week. the street is a typical residential street...the government doesn't care enough to keep it up, and neither do the residents. everyone has walls up to keep criminals and dogs and trash and general riffraff out of their yards.

this was taken in a town called Banos (which, strangely, didn't have very good banos). this is a Quechua family who was there for whatever reason. i think they were selling something. that is pretty typical traditional Quechua dress (at least for the quechuas in that area) although i think they generally wear long skirts.

this is right outside our little down-time camp close to the town of Shell. that's the jungle, right there. that tree, there, is a jungle-tree, and that's jungle-fog and a little jungle-dead-end-trail! isn't that amazing? we were in the jungle. this is still so cool.

this is your standard inspirational waterfall. all it needs is some mist and a fragment of a bible verse from the Living translation, and i could sell some calendars and bookmarks. i even probably hopped over this inspirational waterfall. that's not too reverent. (i'm not trying to be funny or cute, really...if it comes across that way, it's because it's like 2am and i'm listening to simon and garfunkel.)

this waterfall is a bit more dramatic. also, it has a cool wood-rope bridge next to it. we stopped next to the road to see it.

the little dialogue my brain goes through each time i look at this picture: oh look, a nice little squirrel, running on the phone wires in a forest. except, it's not a forest, it's a jungle. and it's not a squirrel, it's a monkey!!

this is mitchell holding a baby python. i held it too, but i looked bad in my python picture. that sounds like i'm making an i-didn't-actually-hold-the-python joke, but it isn't. :)

juan-phillipe, ben, elissa, and natasha on el trampolino.

this is a billboard at the site where the Inca indians surrendered to the spanish conquistadores in...15-something. right there, where we were. the spaniards told them they'd always be well taken care of. famous last words...