down but not out

ok fine, ill try again. i cant even remember what i had blogged about all those other times. i probably told you about the rest of our trip through ecuador, during which we retraced our footsteps until lima, taking about 47 16 hour bus rides, and then took one last long ass overnight ride to the northern peruvian beach town of mancora, where we finally saw the sun after 2.5 mths. we spent 3 days turning brown and eating ceviche (best yet there!). then we did a marathon day time bus trek to cuenca, passing through the unpleasant border between. honestly, it was a pleasure to return to cuenca. truth be told, though we had accepted a job teaching english here back in july, we werent sure we wanted to return to cuenca. we recalled it as a bit boring and blah, in comparison to many of the other dynamic, yet touristy, cities that we had visited. we even submitted our resumes here and there, and probably would be working somewhere else had the other schools not been crappy in comparison to CEDEI, the school in which we will be working. im really glad they were crappy, because now we are back here, and either cuenca has changed or my perspective is different now (i expect less???? surely this wasnt the change in life that i had hoped to accomplish by traveling through south america!). it has been great to be here - the city is a perfect size, we are living in a shared penthouse style apartment, the weather has improved, it is mango season, we have met some nice people, and we have acquired two cats!

more later. i am just building back my trust in Blogger, and am hesitant to post long blogs. baby steps....