!Back in Baños!

Man it feels good to be back in Ecudor and specifically in my very favorite town of Baños. I arrived into Quito last night and after grabbing some breakfast headed straight to Baños this morning. Baños is the town in Ecuador where I lived for about six weeks during my last trip two here two years ago. The town is located at the base of volacano and is walled in by lush green mountainsides with waterfalls casading down. Its a pretty beautiful place to spend some time and its been a place I've been wanting to return to ever since I left back in 2006.

After checking into my hostel I quickly headed over to Geotures, the company where I worked before and also where most of my Ecuadorian friends still work. It was so great to see my friends again and I spent hours there just catching up. Later that afternoon I was walking down the sidewalk and happened to run into another old Ecuadorian friend, Alex, who I was told no longer lived in Baños. As it turns out, Alex is only back in town for the weekend, so I really lucked out getting to see him. He is an amazing guitarist and many of my memories from my last trip here involved hearing him play. I am excited to go listen to him play at a nearby resturant later tonight. After which I will be headed to one of the local bars with the Geotures gang for a little fiesta.

I am still not sure exactly what my plan is for the next two weeks, but no matter what I will be spending the weekend here in Baños enjoying the semena santa (Holy Week) festivities!

Ecuador Here I Come!

A view of the Tungurahua Volcano and the town of Baños that sits at its base

Well, the trip to the doctor today was a success and he gave me the go ahead to leave the country, so I'll be headed to Ecuador on Wednesday! I will be in the cast for another week or so and spend a couple more in a brace, but all in all he said the ankle was healing well and that I should be able to resume my normal activities within the next few weeks.

While I have enjoyed being home and spending quality time with my family, I am excited to get back down to South America. I plan to spend the next few weeks in and around Baños (the town where I lived during my last trip to Ecuador) studying Spanish and/or doing some volunteering. At the beginning of April one of my best friends Heather will be coming down to travel around with me for two weeks and immediately following that my mom is flying in for our trip to the Galapagos. I am really excited about the next six weeks and I have a feeling they are going to turn out pretty great. More to come once I arrive back in South America!

Ankle Update

Kiwi and I hanging out in my parent's house in Florida

On Monday afternoon I went to the Florida Orthopedic Institute to have another doctor check out my ankle. After taking off my cast and taking another xray, the doctor gave me the newest evaluation of my ankle.

Looking at the xray, he told me the same thing as the other doctors, that being that I have a fracture in my ankle that currently can be healed without surgery. He continued by saying that because my ankle was still very swollen and bruised, it was difficult to say just how stable it was and that there was a likely possibility that I had tendon damage. If tendon damage did occur, it would make my ankle less stable and increase the likelihood of reinjurying it to the point of needing surgery. He then gave me the option of putting another cast on my foot or putting me in a walking cast (basically a removable cast/brace). I quickly took the walking cast option and got fitted for my new boot. I am still using crutches, but can start weening myself off of them as I feel comfortable.

He wanted to see me again in 3-4 weeks to have a look at it once the swelling had gone down to have a better idea about the seriousness of the injury and what type of recovering plan would be best. I told him I had a flight back to Ecuador in two and half weeks and after a little coaxing he agreed to see in two weeks to see if he could tell me anything then. So as for now I am keeping my flight and hoping that in two weeks he is going to give me the go ahead to return to South America. Otherwise, I will have to move my ticket back again.

As for my life in Tampa, I am just trying to keep myself busy. Since it is my right ankle that is injured, I am unable to drive which leaves me pretty much helpless and stuck. I'm surviving by working for my mom's accounting firm part-time transferring general ledger trial balances into excel (not as much fun as it sounds), studying Spanish, working out my upper body, spending time with the family, playing with Kiwi and dreaming about my next adventures.

The Good News and the Really Bad News

Me paragliding off of the newly discovered "El Torro" launch behind Jon's cabin*

I have decided to start this post off on a happy note, before moving on to the oh so sad story of my travels...



The good news is that I spent the better part of the last two and a half weeks living at Jon's cabin and having an amazing time. The three paragliders (Paul, Ben and L.E.) arrived into Chile safely and almost immediatley they were flying with condors 5000 feet into the air. The week to follow involved lots of paragliding, mostly for them but they also each took time to teach me a good bit as well. I was so excited to learn a new sport, and loved being there while the group of experts explored the Futaleufu valley by flight. One of the main goals of them coming was to help Jon find new launches and paragliding possibilities in the valley, and that they did.

Jon working on his high wind kiting

Jon's neighbor, Moses, cutting grass with his oxen (notice the paraglider in the upper left hand corner)

Besides getting familiar with the wonders of paragliding, we also managed to squeeze some kayaking into the week. On one of the days that we all headed into the town of Futa to stock up on supplies, Jon and I split up from the group to paddle the Upper Canyon of the Rio Futaleufu. It was the final section of river that I had needed to do, and also the most challenging. After an easy class 2-3 paddle from town down the Espolon river, we hit the confluence of the Futaleufu and quickly entered into the canyon. The canyon section was awesome and involved lots of back to back class 4+ rapids.

A view of the canyon from above

After the canyon theres a good bit of flat water before arriving at Zeta, the most dangerous rapid on the river. Jon and I quickly decided to walk around this one and considering that all of the water narrows down and bounces off of multiple walls filled with undercuts and potholes, I think we made a wise decision. After a little bit more flat water, we arrived at one of the other big name rapids on the Futa -- Throne Room. We decided to get out and look at it and after some quick debating, Jon and I decided to fire it up. I was a little nervous, especially since due to some sketchy (to me, not Jon) rock jumping, I decided not to scout the entire rapid, and just take Jon's word on the line. In the end though, we both had great lines and were psyched to have run the rapid. Jon (knowing that it would have affected my decision), waited until after the rapid to tell me that it was only his second time running it. We both took a second to celebrate our succesful runs and finished the paddle back to his house.

Okay now the bad news....

During the excitement of learning to paraglide, I managed to hurt my ankle. I basically came down hard on my landing, due to a number of circumstances that I will refrain from going into, and my right ankle twisted. I didn't think it was that bad, but because I still could not put any weight on it by the next day (last Saturday), we decided it would be in my best interest to take another visit to the Futa hospital. The doctor there took an xray and said that I had a small fracture in ankle and that I would just need to wear a cast for 10 days. That was okay news for me- 10 days in a cast I could handle. They didn't have any crutches so Jon made me some really sweet crutches out of wood around his cabin.

Standing in front of Jon's cabin with my cast and crutches

After a few more days hanging out at Jon's place, the group decided that they would head to Argentina to do some paragliding exploration and I decided I would take that opportunity to get a ride to Esquel where I could catch a bus north. I took an overnight bus from Esquel to Mendoza (at this point I had ditched the crutches since they were impractical for city life and made carrying my stuff difficult). The doctor didnt tell me anything about not walking on my foot and since he sent me out of there without any crutches, I imagined he'd expected that I would have to walk on it.



My plan was to catch another overnight bus from Mendoza to Salta (a city in Northern Argentina) and the following day head into Bolivia. This is where the story really heads downhill.... While waiting in the Mendoza bus terminal for my next bus, a couple of guys snatched my bookbag (containing my passport, ipod, camera, etc.) and ran off. I couldn't believe that they had the audacity to steal from the handicapped, but they did. Had it not been for my leg being in the cast I would have ran after them, but instead I basically had to watch them run away. So after an afternoon in the Mendoza police station filing a report, I hopped an overnight bus to Buenos Aires to get a new passport.

After a 16 hour bus ride (it was supposed to take 12) involving a flat tire and a flooded interstate, the bus finally arrived into Buenos Aires (on my birthday of all days). I headed straight to the US embassy to try and get my new passport. Even though I arrived after what was supposed to be the cut off for getting a passport for the day, the people at the embassy saw the exhaustion in my face and made some phone calls and made it happen. I went pretty much straight from the embassy to the hospital to get my ankle looked at and my cast taken off. At this point I was thinking that they would just take the cast off and maybe I would get a walking cast or something and move forward with my plans to meet Brian in Bolivia to do some kayaking. Unfortunatley, thats not how it worked out.

The doctors in Buenos Aires removed my cast, looked at the old xrays and at some new ones and told me that in no way should I have been walking on my foot for the past week. They told me that they needed to put another, better, cast on my foot and that I needed to wear it and be on crutches for at least a month. I argued with them for a while, saying that I wanted a walking cast so that I could continue my travels (although no boating), but they refused. They told me that if I continued to walk on my foot I would probably end up needing surgery. That got my attention and I let them put the cast on my foot.

I left the hospital feeling pretty defeated and at a loss for what to do. After spending the next 24 hours thinking about the situation and talking with my parents, Brian and some other friends, I decided that traveling alone with two bags (my main bag and my kayaking gear) on crutches through South America would be close to impossible and probably not much fun anyhow. That said, I made the very difficult decision to book a plane ticket back to the states for two weeks to get another opinion about my leg, let my ankle heal a bit and lighten my load. I booked a ticket at 6:30pm Friday night, got on a flight at 12:40am Saturday and arrived into Tampa yesterday morning.

It was very nice to see my family, but I am still having a difficult time adjusting to being in the states and accepting the fact that I will not be able to see all of the places I had wanted to. As of now, I have a flight booked to return to South America on March 19th into Quito, Ecuador, which means that if I am going to see Bolivia and Peru like I had planned I will have to either extend my trip or save it for another time altogether.

Tomorrow afternoon I am going to see the doctor and will hopefully learn more about what to expect for myself over the next few months. Keep your fingers crossed for me....

The Outhouse at Jon's cabin

*Thats not actually me paragliding, its Jon, but I wanted to make my injured ankle paragliding story seem cooler than it actually was. In reality I was only about 15 feet off the ground when I hurt my foot -- although I must say being 15 feet off the ground is still really fun. I would also like to say that this has not at all hindered me from my desire to paraglide and I still plan to launch of "El Torro" one day!