Maisa & I - One Year Together

Maisa & I With Views Of Quito

The months that followed really represented a period of time that Maisa and I spent growing as a couple. We would see each other at least every other day and be on the phone to one another pretty much all the time. It was nice. With Maisa's family having a second house in Banos, it was also a period of time that we spent many a weekend down on the edge of the Amazon Jungle. Banos basically became my second home in Ecuador.

On one trip down to Banos we headed back onto Maisa's farm where we bathed under the cooling waterfalls after a long hike in the jungle heat. Along the way we found a huge hornets nest which Mauri decided to play with. Unsurprisingly, he was stung numerous times which quickly became a fascinating thing to watch for myself, as both his hands swelled up like balloons. It was bizarrely abnormal. On a second trip down, we were invited to a family wedding. It was an amusing experience, primarily because the young boy in charge of the wedding rings consistently dropped them about once every three minutes. As the ceremony continued you would continually hear a 'chinking' sound and then a second latter a small boy would be running around the church trying to catch the run-away rolling rings. Each time he did it I laughed louder and louder. The party was an experience also. Actually, weddings in Ecuador are not too dissimilar as any where else. The bouquet is thrown, speeches are made and there is much eating, drinking and dancing. The odd thing, which is not just at weddings but any form of party gathering, is that the food is not served until very late. The reason I am told is that if the hosts serve the food at say 8 pm, then most people will have left by 9. Thus, the food is served at something like midnight to prevent people disappearing and leaving the place empty. It therefore means that a huge amount of the drinking and dancing takes place before the meal so that by the time the food does arrive most people are steaming drunk. Odd. Apart from that, the wedding was very nice and enjoyed by all.

In Quito, Maisa and I celebrated our one year together. We went out for a nice meal, in a great restaurant with an even better view - that engulfed half of the capital. We had done a lot together during the past year, which has included spending time with each other in four different countries and in between, about a million different experiences. I hope for an endless amount more.

Back at work, things were going well. Tungurahua was taking up most of my working day as the activity at the volcano continued. I was soon to be going down to Tungurahua for a two week field course with a group of students from the States. I didn't know it at the time, but it would change my future.........forever.