Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

The next leg of our journey south takes us from Otavalo to the small town of Latacunga, en-route to the Central Highlands. We were hoping for the skies to clear and to catch a glimpse of the snow capped cones of Volcán Cotopaxi (5897M) and Volcán Chimborazo (6310M). We had thought about climbing Cotopaxi, a technical climb where we would need those big boots with crampons and other special snow climbing gear, but we were told by the guides that we'd need to do three prior days of climbs at 4,000 - 5,000M before the two day Cotopaxi climb. So with limited time, we opted to venture further afield to the Quilotoa Loop to see the beautiful vistas and Andean highland villages instead. We take a bus, loaded up with locals and chickens in feed bags stuffed into the overhead bins. We were just waiting for one of the chickens to hop out of the bin and onto people below, but weren't so lucky to be treated to such a funny sight. Rather, the chickens just sat up there doing erratic head-bobs the entire ride. It was a rainy, cloudy ride, and we never did get to see the volcanoes, but did get to see some snow capped mountains. We land in Latacunga for the night, ducking into the very hospitable Hotel Central, which is run by the most delightful older woman. Our room, situated right on Parque Central, is carpeted, toasty warm, with the most comfy bed (can you tell we haven't slept in a comfortable bed for ages) and view of parque central and the brightly lit old church through our huge wall of windows. We also score free wireless from someplace in town, through our killer parque-view pad, a pleasant surprise which allowed us to finally upload our Central America photos. I'm held up in the hotel lobby for over an hour with a really cool old man who is a local Ecuadorian, but has lived in NY for the past 20 years. He's just getting into computers, and is now keeping himself challenged with on-line stock trading. He's also got a brother who's discovered some type of plant in the Amazon basin here, that causes breeding mosquitos to be malaria free. He's looking for funding... says he'll give me a job when he gets his plant business/mission kicked off. He also gives me a great idea about the festivities we missed this past weekend... the big Mama Negra celebration... there were huge festivities throughout the town, rallying around the black Virgin.