and how did it end?

The last week was a whirl of bathrooms, doctors, tummy troubles, buses, ocean, spanish spoken rapidly with s's omitted, waves, hammocks, bathrooms, airport...we said good bye to Susane and Macarena, had our last afternoon with Julio and his family, and then we were in a taxi, rolling along as I talked with a german, the city of Quito coming to life and the sun rising to reveal the mountains. When we arrived at the airport I thought to myself, "rats, I spent my last moments in Ecuador speaking English and not even paying attention", but it didn't matter because, in reality, I was already gone- had been for days.

except that I wasn't. Our terrifically cheap plane ticket to Miami wound up not being so cheap after all, as we had to buy another flight, since the company had ceased to fly to the states, yet failed to tell us. About 28 hours later we rolled into San Antonio, Texas, blurry eyed and stinky, Cameron's backpack lost somewhere along the way. And here we are. It doesn't feel so strange, and yet I'm not sure I have completely made it here yet. Part of me is still in transit, flubbing around in terminals, caught between english and spanish, picking up more dirt, bouncing along breathing diesel fumes on the Ecuadorian coast, haggling with a Cuban taxi driver in miami, or just hiding in some corner in Panama City, nestled along with Cameron's luggage, just waiting to be discovered before agreeing to finally come home.