Cumbaya, Ecuador

Yesterday I woke up at 3:30 AM to fly to Ecuador by way of Miami. Both flights went really well, but they charged me a $50 fee because my checked bag was over 50 lbs., so travelers beware. On the flight from Boston to Miami I became friends with a Brazilian girl named Silvana who is a geographer studying water quality in the Amazon. On the flight from Miami to Ecuador I became friends with a guy from the College of Wooster and we had some great conversations on biofuels.
David Poritz picked me up from the airport in a big truck that he drives. Along with his brother Aaron, we're staying at the home of Manuel Pallares, one of David's friends who is working on Gaia. He has a really nice family and I'm really enjoying being here. Manuel lives outside of Quito in Cumbayá, Ecuador. No relation to the song, Kumbaya, which comes from a slave ritual in the Gullah dialect from South Carolina, I learned. Cumbayá means "Land of Guava" in the indigenous Quichua language.
On the way back from the airport I was reminded of the extent of globalization--KFC's, Burger Kings, etc. A lot of the food is familiar, too; the Pallares' have the same brands of peanut butter and jelly that we do, hydroponic lettuce, Cocoa Puffs. Their son is a big fan of Star Wars and James Bond.
But the differences are huge. For one thing, the environment is totally different. Quito, although on the equator, is in the mountains, so it is actually quite cool, maybe like Florida would be now. The vegetation is completely different, too--I don't know what most of these plants are and some of them are huge. I even saw a Monarch butterfly (or maybe it was a Viceroy.) When I met Manuel's family, right when I was expecting the handshake I received instead a kiss on the cheek, which I guess is how you greet people in Ecuador, but it totally caught me by surprise.
I'm sure there will be many more surprises in store.