It was the fourth of July and we had no Barbeque!! Oh well we found other ways to celebrate......here are some good excerpts from my good friend Jim Stanley Who has been traveling with me since northern Brasil!

...We wanted to barbeque for July 4th, but were unable to buy any food in town, so we ate at the best restaurant. Actually, we started the night off with a few shots of snake liquor. This is a foul local liquor kept in big jar with several black and white snakes in the bottom. It tastes like a mixture of gasoline, battery acid, and tequila, and SNAKES!

After that, we had dinner, then on to the kareoke bar. Turns out, Matt does a good Bob Marley and I do a good Louis Armstrong. The Ecuadorians loved it though when I sang Van Halens JUMP! and jumped wildly each time the song said to. More friendly Ecuadorians showed up with a bottle of rum with predictable drunkenness. We had no barbeque and no fireworks, but we were still celabrating pretty well. Thats when I suggested that we should get the bikes and do wheelies around and around the town square.

Back at the hotel, one of our new friends, Rachel, said "I hate to be the motherly type, but is this a good idea?" I leaned over and whispered into her ear "OF FUCKINGCOURSENOT" and took off. While the wheelies around the plaza were entertaining, it was the stairs and curbs that were really nuts. We rode up the stairs of the church and back down, then the stairs of the courthouse, then some really long stairs in the park. Over curbs, down the sidewalks, down those stairs, and jumping the 3 foot drops back into the street. I was laughing so hard it hurt. Some of the stairs were pretty steep, but again, thats why we are on dirtbikes! The next day, we saw one of the guys from the bar. He saw the whole thing. We are his heroes.