We are currently in the beautiful city that is Quito, Ecuador. We flew in Tuesday on a wonderfully uneventful flight. We are staying with my freshman year roommate, Ricardo Sanchez, and his family. They have been wonderful so far and we are having a great time. Ricardo has taken us out to see some of Cumbaya, the town in the valley just outisde of Quito that he lives in. We have also made some trips into the city to see some really cool things. On Wednesday, we went to one of the two Guayasamin museums. Guayasamin was a very leftist painter from Ecuador who is friends with Chavez and Castro, etc... Anyway, his paintings are incredible. Our favorite of his is ¨Lagrimas de Sangre,¨ a painting with a haunting face and tears of blood coming down the face. It is dedicated to Salvador Allende, Victor Jara and Pablo Neruda in 1973. Later that night we went to dinner for Ricardo´s father´s birthday. The restaurant was right across the street from the Presidential Palace. We got to walk around and see some of the old town, but we didn´t have too much time, so Ricardo promised us that we will come back next week. Later, we went to the greatest club I have ever been to. Everyone was in their early 20s and the music was almost all Latin American ska with a little US and European music thrown in. It was awesome.

On Thursday, we did not do too much during the day since it was pouring in downtown Quito and we didn´t have a car. I got my hair cut and then we went into Quito for a concert. It was three Cantautores or troubadours (I think that is the closest translation). Two of them, Fernando Delgadillo and Alejandro Filio, are from Mexico and quite famous. The third, Santiago Martinez, is from Quito but lives in Mexico now. All three were very beautiful singers and amazing guitar players. We were in the National Theater which held several hundred people and when they played a song that people knew, it seemed as though the whole theater was singing along. At the end of the concert, all of the cantautores came out and did what seemed like a 45 minute encore, taking turns playing more songs and playing some songs together. It was really cool even if a little long.

That brings us to today. We are about to leave the house to go to the beach in Esmeraldas, about a 4 or 5 hour drive away. And that´s it, I hope everything is well at home and we will update soon.

P.S. We know about the earthquake in Peru and we haven´t decided what plans if any we are going to change. But we are thinking that it might not be the greatest idea to still go to Lima. Cuzco, our next longterm destination was untouched, so we should be fine there.