Dear Mom and Dad,

A few things to end Ecuador...Charlie may come back with a mullet...not my idea! They are so prominent here followed  by the ever so fabulous rattail. I will do my best to NOT let this happen. KFC is the most popular restaurant. Not fast food, but restaurant. They are everywhere and everyone eats at them. They don't have mashed potatoes and gravy but rice and beans. Bummer for me. Everyone also answers the phone as "hello" and not "hola." I find this to be a little strange since the people immediately begin speaking in Spanish afterwards. Also, they sell milk here by the bag. It's so odd because once you open it, how are you supposed to use it without spilling it everywhere. This deeply disturbs Charlie, and everytime we see this, we have to have a dicussion about how stupid the design is.

We have saftely made it to Peru. The border crossing was super easy and we didn't have any problems except we were robbed AGAIN. It happened on the bus when Charlie and I popped a Nyquil in order to sleep and cure our stuffy noses. (We weren't able to sleep in the bus terminal and the guards didn't let anyone lay down until about 2 in the morning. By that time we had drank enough coffee and coke that sleep was out of the question.) The jerks stole our food bag. They managed to rob us of half a bag of doritos, 6 ritz crackers, cornnuts, a cookie, a full tube of toothpaste, two bananas, and two books that I was going to add to my teaching collection. The contents cost about $5 and the bag itself was probably three times that amount...You just can't trust anyone I guess even with food.

We first stayed in Tumbes, which was a decent size town that wasn't too interesting. The people were overly pushy and almost rude. We decided to travel to Mancora and have loved being here! Our hostel is a complete dive, but it's $9 a night, so completely worth it. We don't mind walking to the beach...The hostel in Tumbes had gross bugs crawling everywhere, so we basically slept the first day in Mancora from sheer exhaustion. Here are a few pictures from Tumbes. They did have a really cool statue of Jesus and two murals made out of tiny rock depicting his birth and death.

Here is a picture of us getting into Peru..There was a huge market going on and it took FOREVER to get through this. Highly entertaining to watch the bus driver stress out, and Charlie and I had front row seats.

This is a picture of Charlie and I enjoying some Sangria in Tumbes. Very delicious.

In Peru, the taxis look like this...A little nerve racking to say the least. They drivers are crazy and don't stop for anything. More or less..a Tricycle...

This next picture is of Charlie and I trying to act "gangsta." It the black community "Crystal" is a popular expensive drink. We were joking around and trying to act "thug" because the typical beer here is called "Crystal." The waitress caught us trying to take a picture of us and the beers, so she politely offered to take a photo for us. We had to smile in order to redeem ourselves.



Our hostel in Mancora is a dive hostel and like I said costs about $9 a night. It's super cheap and we have to walk a little ways to get to the beach..like we care.. More money for the $4.50 box wine they sell here. :) This is a picture that greets us everynight before we lay down....so classy...

And in case everyone does not already know this...There IS a HUGE difference between water resistent and water proof sunscreen. It's hott here and swamp ass may become a part of my daily life...

Love and miss you,

Matti Jo and Charles Dale

PS more pictures to follow of Mancora...we are finally rested up and back on our feet.