We're here!

After a very long day of traveling, we’ve arrived at our hotel in Quito. It’s beautiful! Photos to come later, I promise; we’re only here for a few hours (just to sleep!) before we head into the jungle.

I spent the first flight (Boston to Houston) chatting with some fellow travelers and finishing Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut. Since I don’t have too much to say about the trip so far, I thought I’d share one of my favorite passages from the novel:

But then in 1832, one of the smallest and poorest countries on the planet, which was Ecuador, asked the peoples of the world to share this opinion with them: that the islands were part of Ecuador.

            No one objected. at the time, it seemed a harmless and even comical opinion. It was as though Ecuador, in a spasm of imperialistic dementia, had annexed to its territory a passing cloud of asteroids.

            But then young Charles Darwin, only three years later, began to persuade others that the often freakish plants and animals which had found ways to survive on the islands made them extremely valuable, if only people would look at them as he did—from a scientific point of view.

            Only one English word adequately describes his transformation of the islands from worthless to priceless: magical. (Chapter 4)

Here’s hoping for a priceless and magical experience!