i wasn´t sure what i´d do this morning when i woke up, but breakfast is always the first thing on my mind, so i take care of that first before any decisions are made. unfortunately i often sleep a bit too late and by 11 or noon few places are still serving it. it felt a bit like a bad luck kind of day, nothing was coming easy. the first place i wanted to eat at wasn´t serving breakfast anymore and didn´t have lunches. i walked back to the hotel/cafe i was staying at before, knowing they served breakfast until 4. but as soon as i sat down and relieved myself of the weight of my backpack, the waiter politely told me that they were unable to serve any food at this time. so a couple more blocks and i settled on a cheap lunch of rice and porkchop. i spoke a bit with the lady at the restaurant. i told her i was heading to loja, which is a city similar to cuenca i think, but smaller. (i guess i´m working my way south down to the peruvian border now, unless i make a last minute decision to jump over into the jungle for a bit) and she told me that no buses were able to go to loja today. i couldn´t understand the words she was using to tell my why, but i got that i was going to have to change my plans. because my set lunch came with pineapple juice, i felt like i needed to sit and drink a good coffee somewhere and look into my guidebook for a different idea. i picked sigsig. i guess i just like the name, and i thought back to an hour earlier when a travel brochure tacked up on a bulletin board in the restaurant advertising a glossy sigsig caught my eye. so after that was settled, i walked down a couple flights of old stone steps to the river pathway to see if i could find my sweater on the rock that i had thrown it upon and forgotten the day before when i was sitting on the riverbank. it was gone. down one sweater. fortunately i don´t think i´m headed into any cold regions any time soon. so i hailed a taxi and, as i was sort of nervously predicting on the way there, the driver didn´t have any change for my 2o (this is a problem everywhere. i think trying to pay for something small with a 20 dollar bill here is a bit like trying to pay for a 75 cent candy with a 50 dollar bill at home. but it´s what the atms dispense! it´s such a hassle sometimes) so when we´re at the terminal i´m running from store to store (there are tons of little convenience stores selling candies and snacks and stuff inside the terminal area) trying to find change. finally on my 4th try i´ve got change, i think because of the helplessly desperate expression i gave the lady behind the counter, and i run back to my driver to pay for the fare.
i find a ticket booth for a company that goes to sigsig but i don´t understand what this lady is telling me and she´s really not being very helpful at all, but for some reason she´s not selling me a ticket, and i don´t know why. she apathetially answers my questions in words i don´t know. i´m standing there with this kind of perplexed smile on my face while she turns away from me to help the next person seemingly completely forgetting i am still standing there.
after a few minutes, perplexed smile still on my face, of staring at her and being ignored, i decide to hell with it i´ll just see if i can find the bus and get on it. then there is more confusion with the guy in charge of charging people the ten cents it costs to enter the lot where the buses depart from. now i am a little bewildered at how such simple things can be miscommunicated. i am so relieved when i see a bus with sigsig posted in the little destination window in the windshield.
i always sink into a kind of state of satisfaction every time i hear the engine roaring and feel the wheels turning and the scenery begin to roll.
the town is simple, has the standard central park with a statue at it´s centre, a fountain, a few gardens and a few benches scattered around. but it´s nestled in rich rolling hills, the view is beautiful, and i sense a quivering kind of mystery in the mountains . i think the elevation here is higher than in quito, but it doesn´t seem that way. the mountains don´t seem that tall.

i walk down a rocky trail with plenty of garbage and squished bottles caught beneath the stones, to the river. ah, hundreds of shades of green! there is a stillness about the place, despite the many sounds. there is a thick scent in the air. for a moment reminiscent of the familiar pine of canada, but then it changes. the trees are plentiful and long and thin, wearing tattered coats of bark.i like their character. there are many little picnic shelters at the bottom of the hill, a few boys peddle their bicycles in circles around a big empty shelter. to my right, a little ways down the river, i can see a woman in a brightly colored skirt, a large brimmed straw hat, with two braids flowing down her back, shaking out what looks like a bundle of grass. on the other side of the bridge, grazing cows bat flys with their tails. on the path to my left i see a little lamb throwing a tantrum in front of it´s mother, bouncing in such a way i wasn´t aware that sheep could, and kicking it´s legs in the air. as i walk, i can hear the faint salsa rythym of music being played in one of the surrounding houses. i think what i see being farmed here is corn. there is a lot of it, planted in neat rows on the dirt slopes. the sky is billowing with clouds but the sun has escaped them and everything glitters.
my body is completely calm, i think there might be a smile on my face. i walk slowly past a group of sheep with puffy dirty coats chewing grass on the side of the path, and i look them all in the eye. and it makes me happy to do so.
an answer begins to form in my mind, words now are creeping in and joining hands and i feel a bit of a dance around that question of what i want in life.
i will belong everywhere.
all space will welcome my being, the air will conform to my body, wrapping me in a silken shield that moves with me, breathes with me. colors will be vibrant, and they will all communicate with me. i will be able to sense the delicate vibrations in everything, not only plants and trees, but rocks, rivers, kitchen sinks. i will look into the eyes of another human being with no fear, and no self consciousness, and be both mystified and completely in loving awe of their existence. i will understand the language of energy. i will understand the language in which the sun speaks to the earth, and the language in which a lightbulb in a reading lamp speaks to the wooden desk it shines upon.
and i want no rules, i want to feel any emotion welling up in my heart to flow completely unguarded, whether it be joy or despair. i want to be a complete human.

i am beginning to visualize it, because i figure i might as well experiment with this power supposedly of visualization, but it´s a perception that i want to embody and bring into existence, and not anything material, and so the ´visualization´ of this perception, i think, is no less real than if it were, real. ah, well it´s hard to describe. but as i am walking i sense my body. and i try with great effort, to effortlessly be aware of absolutely everything in this moment. reaching for the deepest possible point i can find. it´s hard to describe.

and now the sun has set, the little boy spying on me through the glass doors has scampered away, and i should go find something to eat.
i don´t know why this torrent has ripped through me but it feels so good to write, so good. i know everyone is reading this and that i am sharing far more than what my family may have expected of a ´travel journal´, but...well, i don´t know. i don´t care. here i am.