Picture Book

Here are some pictures from the last few days. Rebecca played hooky on Thursday and we went to the old town to feed and terrorize the pigeons. They like to hang out in the plaza fronting Iglesia de San Francisco - shown here. The church is something like 500 years old. It really shows its age when you are inside. But it's kind of cool - walking on the bare wooden planks really makes you feel like you are being cultural.

Maya has taken to not liking crusts on her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She eats one every day, so the crusts accumulate pretty quickly. Every two weeks or so, we come to this plaza and feed them to the pigeons.

Here are Maya and Jonah plotting their next move.


And executing it.
The Ecuadorian soccer team has recently won some tournament. It seems everyone owns the shirt. Maya, Jonah and I wanted to be part of the "in crowd" too. Rebecca did not. She said she is going to make us wear these shirts on the plane ride home so she can keep track of us in the airport.

We also visited the Camilo Egas Museum. Camilo Egas is an early twentieth century Ecuadorian painter, famous mostly for his paintings of the indigenous women doing what they do - ceremonial dancing while naked. It was pretty good.

Rebecca and I tried to go this museum by ourselves one afternoon, but it was closed in preparation for an event that night. So, we were happy to make it on Thursday. Afterwards, we got to sit in the courtyard of the museum and make our own art.


Non-sequitor, but here's Jonah looking at some chicks for sale in one of the shops in the old town.
Today (Saturday) Rebecca had to work a half-day so she could take the day off on Monday, when we will be in Pappallacta. So, Maya, Jonah and I lit out for Parque Carolina. We were happy to stumble onto this fair . . .
. . . with everyone's favorite fair activities - bouncing on a rusty-spring trampoline.


There was also a platform about ten feet above a stretched out parachute. You can make out the parachute suspended above the ground in the background of the above picture. The objective was to jump into the parachute from the platform. Maya did it five times (it was a dime each jump). Jonah climbed onto the platform but ultimately would not jump. I only took a video and it won't upload.

The other fun thing was this fleet of Peg Perego battery operated cars. Both Maya and Jonah loved them. It cost a buck for them to take two laps around the sidewalks. The first time they went, Jonah was in this dune buggy type thing that was balls-out fast. I had to run to keep up with him to make sure he didn't steer into anybody. So I had no time for pictures. Maya was on a super-slow three-wheeler - so I had no concerns about her.

The second time they went I switched their vehicles. Maya lapped Jonah twice. And Jonah handled his hog like a veteran. I started to take a video of them but the camera memory card was full.

On the way home, we stopped to watch the Pinguino Ice Cream guys who ride around the park on bicycles with coolers welded to the front of them, play some volleyball. You can make out the front of one of the bicycles with white cooler to the right of the picture. We were rooting for them to win.

Anyway, we are leaving tomorrow (Sunday) for an overnight in Pappallacta. In the meantime, here's a picture of my smart, beautiful, and very sexy wife, Rebecca, hanging out with Jonah in the Plaza de Santo Domingo.