Morning came to soon and I'd not gotten a lot of sleep. We also would be missing breakfast because we were leaving too early so I went out to find Internet and some emergency food and water for the bus ride. The Internet cafes were closed but I did find an assortment of rolls and water for the trip. We left anyway. The way I figured it we could go to Tena and either find Internet there or just rent a hostel and stay the night. Having gotten down the straight armed hand shake I hailed a taxi. He took a really round about way to the bus station which alarmed me for a second. His response to my pointing to the map was “No problema”. We rounded the corner and I saw the great statue on the hill and knew I was near the terminal. He pointed to the traffic going the other way and I understood. We arrived at the station 30 minutes early and headed for the shady restaurant on the bottom floor. We bought various types of chicken and a sandwich and headed for our gate. On the way the guy that sold us our ticket yelled at us and exchanged our ticket for a different one on a different bus company. I don't know why and couldn't ask because of the language barrier. He told us which lane to stand in and which bus number so we waited. When it pulled in we got on and waited another 30 minutes before it pulled out. During that 30 minutes he boarded the bus to tell us not to put our bags in the overhead racks and to hold them. Later in the trip I noticed that everyone else was holding theirs as well. Crime is rampant here. I sat on the side of the bus there our luggage was so I could see if anyone was trying to steal them which they didn't.

Breakfast time came and went before we got up the next day. Having missed breakfast we took to the streets figuring there'd be something there. The area that we were in is called New Town and the main street is Amazonas. If we headed south on Amazonas we'd eventually end up at Old town after cutting through two parks. Old town is the old Spanish built Quito and comprises of mostly colonial buildings. I've heard that old town Quito is very pretty and is on the UNESCO list of protected areas so I was anxious to see it. The weather was warm (but cooler than Guayaquil) and it wasn't raining. We found a small shop run by black ladies that offered Empanadas and yogurt with fruit. Mo stood her ground on not eating doughy things with meat in them so Natalya and I had empanadas and Jade and Mo had yogurt.

I woke to the sound of a rooster crowing before the sun even came up. When you go to bed shortly after sundown you wake up really early. I lay in bed for about another hour before getting up for breakfast. We had granola cereal, fruit and eggs. At 9:00 we headed out for our jungle walk. They said we needed rubber boots and they were right. They provided the boots and the Amazon provided the mud. It was raining again pretty hard but we were told that was good because when the sun comes out the water from the ground evaporates and it because unbearable humid. I'll take their word for it.

Today we went to the island where the Quichua people live. Their houses are built on stilts about 6 feet off the ground. Chickens run loose and there are things growing in the ground. On the island are plantain and corn plantations. It was neat to see bananas growing on trees and of course we'd seen corn before. We also saw and ate fruit that I can't pronounce nor did I recognize. We saw mangoes and papaya trees and yuka plants. The rain started again as we were trudging through the banana plantation but it was ok because the wide leaves make great cover form rain. After the walks through the plantations we returned to a Quichua family home.