In the Andes Through the mountains

    The road from Cuenca to Saraguro is two way but wide with shoulders on both sides, coming and going. It winds up and over several large mountain ranges, in and out of valleys, over a few bridges, and, all the way, runs just below huge clouds scraping the top of the mountains. Part of Ecuador is on the Pacific coast where driving is flat, part is in the Amazon where there are few roads, and the remainder is in the Andes Mountains. If you get motion sickness you take dramimina because even a good driver is not going to take bumps and grinds out of this highway. Looking out you see a patchwork of green, some cultivated and some not. As far as you see there are mountains, clouds, green, and so many hills and valleys that it would take a road man centuries to level them out with his yellow Caterpiller. Today, Marcos drives. He is an Ecuadoran who worked in the United States and came home. Marcos can help you get a bank account, settle up with a Doctor, find you a good lawyer, or just explain how things work. Today, he gets Carol and I to Saraguro and back and that is worth a million. Today, I am feeling like a sailor on dry land after months at sea. Riding in the back seat is no positive. When you drive at the top of the world, vertigo is your companion. This must be what it feels like riding a bull in a Texas rodeo. Photos and words have a hard time doing justice to these vistas. It was Carol who put this trip together. When we first met, I was struggling up the stairways from the Plaza Otorango faint with food poisoning. She took the time to help a stranger. She gave me a few drops of Dragon’s Blood, a natural Ecuadorian remedy for the “grippa. ”  I recovered and  came back to say a proper  “Thank You.” Good people are close at hand but it sometimes takes food poisoning to find them.