In the spirit of mcSweeney's, and a lack of time for more full featured prose, here's a list of...

Things you can find at Ecuadorian markets

• Llamas (fuzzy, funny, little and running)
• Guinea pigs, both live and barbequed with spicy sauce
• Beetles, both live and deep fried and served with salt
• Warm beer
• Grilled sheep's heads
• Filthy clay statues of every imaginable sexual position involving up to four people.
• Teeny little beggar ladies no more than 4 feet high (not sure if the pleading for coins or the subsequent blessing if you cough up is more disconcerting).
• Crate upon crate of ripe mangos (there's a smell I'll never forget)
• An incredible cornucopia of animal shite (won't forget that one either)
• Babies that can sleep through point blank pig squealing while strapped to their mother's back.
• Convenient vendors of toothpaste and washing powder (thoroughly random)

Oh man - there's so much more - things I don't even have names for, and smells I hope never to encounter again. What a rush!