I’m not sure how much you’ve read our website, but from your response to this post, I’m quite certain that you’ve reached some conclusions about who we are without really knowing much about who we are.

Carrie and I lived in Ecuador for 3 months, and paid to take Spanish classes every day from 8:30 AM – 12:30 AM. We have good friends in Panama (American), Costa Rica (Costa Ricans), Ecuador (Ecuadorians), and in fact all over the world.

We spek German fluently, Spanish conversationally, and work hard to learn as much about each place we go in the short time we have on this planet.

We share what we learn via our website(s).

I’ve written posts about how important it is to ask for permission before taking pictures (elsewhere on this site, and on other people’s blogs as a guest poster).

No, I did not ask all of these people for permission to photograph them (the homeless man and the bartering Quechua women), but I did ask the old couple sitting on the street having lunch, as well as the vendors pictured here, and they were all fine with their picture being taken.

I’m sorry for whatever negative experiences you’ve had with tourists who do run-by-photography and drive-by-tourism.

I hope that you’ll take some more time to read the posts on our site, if you are interested in getting to know us better.

Whether or not you come back to our site, I wish you the best.

Kind Regards,

Jonathan Kraft