Hiding under long sleeves in malarious La Mana

Hi everyone,

It´s our last night in La Mana, and I´m ready to go.

We had a great day in Latacunga first, a small town in the mountains, where we inquired with about 15 directionally-challenged ice cream men before finding a place that would sell us dry ice. We bought a block for 25 bucks and had a great night in town during a festival. Basically, during the festival, they get a bunch of pigs, cuy, chickens and rabbits, cook them, and make giant statues out of skewered cooked animals and liquor bottles, then carry these around town as part of a parade. As disgusting as that was, it was very interesting, and there was dancing in the streets!

From Latacunga we drove across the Andes for 2 hours before descending into the valley where we are studying, depositing traps along the way. We are staying at a small hacienda outside of La Mana, and are the only guests around. There is nothing to do at the place at night other than to hunt the giant venomless snakes or watch poorly pirated movies inside the main lodge with the couple´s little girl. We are getting a lot of larval Anopheles here... this place has a problem with malaria. We figured out that someone dammed the river upstream and here there are rock pools in the empty stream where Anopheles breed in huge numbers. I´m a bit freaked out about getting malaria or dengue as we are getting a lot of bites, despite our best efforts.

Interestingly, we had one of our traps removed by the police. The woman who we had left it with was apparently senile, and although we explained what the trap does, she called the police and told them that it was a bomb. We had to explain quite a bit to get our trap back! After that, the whole town did not trust us and sneered at us when we drive by. If you get the chance, don´t go to Tingo.

The technical problems with our traps are continuing. Despite the dry ice, the batteries are dying before we can get back to the traps... either a problem with the charger or the battery. We are trying to charge them for longer to see if it makes a difference. It is so frustrating....

Anyway, tomorrow we are getting up early and driving a long way, all the way to Baños. I am really looking forward to getting there, as the food here is terrible... we are eating crackers and tuna, since that is all that they sell in many grocery stores! I need to eat good strong meals to stomach my malarone and anti-parasite medication. Baños has some great restaurants with international food... I can´t wait.

Baños, here we come! When we arrive, the next day is the big vote on the new constitution. For safety, we are not going to be on the road working that day. Instead, we´ll have a nice Sunday in Baños to walk around town and rest! I´ll be sure to download some pictures then!