Hey yall.
So it's been a little over 3 weeks since I got back to the states, and I'm not gonna lie.. it sucks. I'm trying so hard to love my life again (not that I loved it last semester.. cause it was alright), and I've found myself still craving that spanish, my friends, my host family, my school (ha), and my traveling. I think it's going to be a good while before I get completely acquainted with my new life (cause it will be different and nothing like what I had before Ecuador). The first week I did not hang out with a single person.. only went to the college and 20 somethings ministry that I typically went to on Tuesday nights so that was good cause I got to get a lot of hugs and people telling me they love and missed me. I didn't want to lie to anyone, so I just told them I love them and that it was going to take me a while to be glad to be back. I'm not ready. I knew I wasn't. I've also tried to do some fun things like go out with friends, see my small group girls, go to the movies and beach, etc, and it's been great, but something always reminds me of the wonderful life I was just living. I know that the Lord had a plan for me to be gone for 5 months and then be back, so I know he's got some kind of plan for me here. Maybe if I spend some time with him again, he'll show me. I'm struggling getting into spending time with Him, and I think it's because i really withdrew from him while was in the 'dor. I have a lot of free time since I'm taking 1 class (but pretty much 2 with the lab) and only have something planned every monday and tuesday night. I should be using that accordingly, but all I've done is watch FRIENDS and movies. It's kind of sad really. I don't feel like myself being all bummed and stuff. I have come to accept that I'm not going to be fully happy yet, but I really don't love it. I don't love America yet (besides the luxury of always having toilet paper in the stalls). I'll get there. I need some prayers and I need to do something about my life.
I've continued to talk to my ecuanovio (ecuadorian "boyfriend") Fernando pretty much every day on the phone or skype, with my host mom and host sister a few times a week, and some of my american friends that I met there, so I don't think that helps me to get over my life that I had. I don't think I want to get over it. I don't want to forget it. I want to remember it for the rest of my life. The most amazing 5 months (so far) of my life. I guess I'm just gonna need a little help, a little time, a little Jesus, and some love.
miércoles, 11 de junio de 2008
lunes, 12 de mayo de 2008
more stamps in the good ol' pasaporte
I finished classes and all of my exams and final projects for university last week on Wednesday, which is super, because exam week actually starts this week! My friends Ryan, Josh, and I decided to go to Colombia for the weekend! (despite people saying how stupid we were and how dangerous it was and how we shouldn't) We left on Thursday at about 530 or so to go to Tulcan, which is about 3.5 miles from the border and stayed there that night. Actually when we got to the bus station, we took a taxi to what we thought was supposed to be a hostal, but apparently the guy didnt hear ryan include the world hotel, so he took us the the district of the town that had the same name. He couldn't find the hotel after that, so we gave him another name of a hotel in our travel book and he couldn't find that either, so we rode around in the taxi for about 20 minutes and all along he was saying this one is good and this one is good but a little expensive until we finally decided on one since he didnt know the other 2. He only made us pay $4 for the 30 minutes he was driving us around and then even got the price down on the hotel we were going to stay in. The room only had 2 beds in it so we pushed them together and I slept close to the crack while hogging a little bit of Ryan's covers.
We woke up whenever we wanted to on Friday (and Saturday and Sunday) and took a taxi to the border, where we were supposed to get our exit stamp and Andean card from Ecuador and our entrance stamp from Colombia, and our taxi driver drove us past the Ecuador border and right before we crossed over, he was like oh crap i forgot! haha So we got all the stuff we needed to, walked across the river (no man's land) and got our entrada in Colombia. We also got us a picture with the sign saying welcome to Colombia! Then we had to take a taxi from the border to Ipiales, which we were planning on stopping in on the way back, so we took a bus from there to Pasto. It took about 5.5 hours to get to Pasto, where we arrived and stayed in this cool inn called Koala. The people that owned it were very nice and the place was super cool and our room was HUGE! AND we each had a bed to ourselves!
We got our money exchanged at the border because they use their own pesos in Colombia and its 1700 pesos/$1 conversion which is kind of confusing and a little hard to get used to. We had a lovely lunch and walked around Pasto a bit, then when we returned to our hotel, we had some visitors knocking at our door, which so happened to be 2 girls from USFQ! how random but so cool, so we all walked around together to see the churches and centers and parks and stuff around Pasto then had a lovely dinner, in which we tried these things called Arepas, which were sooo good! Then we hung out the rest of the night in the hotel room drinking just a bit, cause you gotta try beer and alcohol from colombia! The next morning Ryan, Josh, and I woke up and went to this place called Laguna de la Cocha, which was this huge lake with an island in the middle that we boated to and hiked into just a bit for 1000 pesos. The town that is on the edge of the lake is the cutest town and the people are so nice and is known for their trout so we decided to eat some. We didn't have so many pesos left, so we were just hoping to be able to get back. The trout was delicious, but still had the head and the tail on it when we ate it!
We didnt have enough to get back, but we told them we'd pay the rest when we got to the Inn so we split the taxi with an older man. Then we had to try this other thing called something I don't remember and were very very good, but I'd had them before in Ecuador and already loved them. We watched Rumor Has It on tv and passed out that night and headed to Ipiales the next morning. There, the only thing we wanted to do was to see this huge famous church that sits on top of a river! (actually doesnt "sit" persay.. it has huge columns and an archway that are under it) It was so neat to see and so hard to walk up the steps to get to certain points and to get back up to catch the taxi, because it was down in a valley and so steep! My calves still are sore today. Then we took a taxi back to Ipiales, back to the border, got our exit stamps from Colombia, our entrance stamps and andean cards, took a taxi to Tulcan, had a yummy dinner, and headed back earlier than planned to Quito. (we almost didnt have enough money to do anything (pesos wise) so luckily josh and ryan had a little bit left, and I gave the money man a dollar to exchange for 1700 pesos just so i could keep them!)
We woke up whenever we wanted to on Friday (and Saturday and Sunday) and took a taxi to the border, where we were supposed to get our exit stamp and Andean card from Ecuador and our entrance stamp from Colombia, and our taxi driver drove us past the Ecuador border and right before we crossed over, he was like oh crap i forgot! haha So we got all the stuff we needed to, walked across the river (no man's land) and got our entrada in Colombia. We also got us a picture with the sign saying welcome to Colombia! Then we had to take a taxi from the border to Ipiales, which we were planning on stopping in on the way back, so we took a bus from there to Pasto. It took about 5.5 hours to get to Pasto, where we arrived and stayed in this cool inn called Koala. The people that owned it were very nice and the place was super cool and our room was HUGE! AND we each had a bed to ourselves!
We got our money exchanged at the border because they use their own pesos in Colombia and its 1700 pesos/$1 conversion which is kind of confusing and a little hard to get used to. We had a lovely lunch and walked around Pasto a bit, then when we returned to our hotel, we had some visitors knocking at our door, which so happened to be 2 girls from USFQ! how random but so cool, so we all walked around together to see the churches and centers and parks and stuff around Pasto then had a lovely dinner, in which we tried these things called Arepas, which were sooo good! Then we hung out the rest of the night in the hotel room drinking just a bit, cause you gotta try beer and alcohol from colombia! The next morning Ryan, Josh, and I woke up and went to this place called Laguna de la Cocha, which was this huge lake with an island in the middle that we boated to and hiked into just a bit for 1000 pesos. The town that is on the edge of the lake is the cutest town and the people are so nice and is known for their trout so we decided to eat some. We didn't have so many pesos left, so we were just hoping to be able to get back. The trout was delicious, but still had the head and the tail on it when we ate it!
We didnt have enough to get back, but we told them we'd pay the rest when we got to the Inn so we split the taxi with an older man. Then we had to try this other thing called something I don't remember and were very very good, but I'd had them before in Ecuador and already loved them. We watched Rumor Has It on tv and passed out that night and headed to Ipiales the next morning. There, the only thing we wanted to do was to see this huge famous church that sits on top of a river! (actually doesnt "sit" persay.. it has huge columns and an archway that are under it) It was so neat to see and so hard to walk up the steps to get to certain points and to get back up to catch the taxi, because it was down in a valley and so steep! My calves still are sore today. Then we took a taxi back to Ipiales, back to the border, got our exit stamps from Colombia, our entrance stamps and andean cards, took a taxi to Tulcan, had a yummy dinner, and headed back earlier than planned to Quito. (we almost didnt have enough money to do anything (pesos wise) so luckily josh and ryan had a little bit left, and I gave the money man a dollar to exchange for 1700 pesos just so i could keep them!)
those bare necesities..
We had a Thursday off of school 2 weeks ago, and even though everyone else in Quito had school off, stupid USFQ decided to go against the president and have Friday classes/work, so we skipped it. My friends from the Otavalo trip (pretty much my best friends here) and I decided to go to the jungle aka el oriente. We left on Wednesday night at 1130, got to a town called Lago Agrio at about 630am (which was supposed to be more like 8am), and had to wait a very long 4 hours for the few people that were arriving by plane. Then we took a 3.5 hour bus ride to Putumayo, and a 2 hour canoe ride to get to Cuyabeno which is deep into the jungle and stayed at a camp thingy. The place we stayed at had no electricity so we used candles at night to see in our rooms and outside and eat dinner and play cards at night! It was actually pretty cool. There was a monkey named Poncho that lived at the camp and was like 5 months old and the cutest thing ever. When Melanie and I got to our room on Thursday at about 6 something right when it was getting dark, we were unpacking a few things, and I saw this huge clump of something on our bed and it started crawling! We realized it was the monkey that our friends had told us about, who had gone to the same place the weekend before so we werent so freaked out. It climbed right onto my shoulder and hung out there! Poncho hung out with us all weekend and very often just decided to climb up us and sleep on our shoulders or in our laps and steal some food off our plates! haha
All of the trips we took while we were there were in canoe. We went on a few bird watches, a few walks through the jungle, and swimming a bit. We got to see a ton of toucans and lots of cool and ugly birds, the biggest tree ever with the biggest roots ever (probably 3 times me!), a sloth, the back of a manatee, some pink dolphins, monkeys, spiders, frogs, and snakes! I actually held a snake at one point and he bit me a few times, drawing a little bit of blood, but it's all good.. he's not poisonous! haha We also went fishing for piranhas! You're supposed to swish the pole in the water a lot and wait. Our guide Neiser and Melanie both caught one and the teeth in those things are so large and pointy! It was pretty sweet.
All the food we had there was soo good and typical Ecuadorian style.. soup first, a plate with a meat, some rice, and some veggies, along with a glass of fresh fruit juice (different every night), and then a dessert like fruit or somethin. You could never hear them making it and then all of a sudden they would ring the bell and come out with all this food! There was a group of about 50 high school students there so there were so many people there to feed. I also learned how to actually play spades there and Ryan and I won the first game that we played to 500 so we were pretty proud of that but then we got our butts kicked the next day when Melanie and Josh beat us so bad. It was such a great trip and the last thing we all definitely wanted to do while in Ecuador.
All of the trips we took while we were there were in canoe. We went on a few bird watches, a few walks through the jungle, and swimming a bit. We got to see a ton of toucans and lots of cool and ugly birds, the biggest tree ever with the biggest roots ever (probably 3 times me!), a sloth, the back of a manatee, some pink dolphins, monkeys, spiders, frogs, and snakes! I actually held a snake at one point and he bit me a few times, drawing a little bit of blood, but it's all good.. he's not poisonous! haha We also went fishing for piranhas! You're supposed to swish the pole in the water a lot and wait. Our guide Neiser and Melanie both caught one and the teeth in those things are so large and pointy! It was pretty sweet.
All the food we had there was soo good and typical Ecuadorian style.. soup first, a plate with a meat, some rice, and some veggies, along with a glass of fresh fruit juice (different every night), and then a dessert like fruit or somethin. You could never hear them making it and then all of a sudden they would ring the bell and come out with all this food! There was a group of about 50 high school students there so there were so many people there to feed. I also learned how to actually play spades there and Ryan and I won the first game that we played to 500 so we were pretty proud of that but then we got our butts kicked the next day when Melanie and Josh beat us so bad. It was such a great trip and the last thing we all definitely wanted to do while in Ecuador.
Lots of money and mud
So after Montanita and Guayaquil, me and 3 of my friends (Ryan, Josh, and Melanie) decided to take a short weekend trip to Otavalo. Otavalo is only about 2 hours away, but it took us about 3, maybe more, to get there because we always happen to leave at a bad time when there is a lot of traffic (but I guess there is always a ton of traffic in Quito)! Otavalo has one of the largest markets EVER (ha maybe not, but its fricken huge), and it happens every weekend so we went there on Friday night to stay (I actually tried huka for the first time.. never again) and went to the market on Saturday. I bought waaay too many things, but they are all pretty cool things and not all for me so I figured it was ok. We spent about 2 or 3 hours shopping (even the boys)! I bought a hammock and a cute bag and lots of other things. Then we decided to go to this place called El Lechero, which is a "lucky" tree that is supposed to bring health. We decided we might get healthier if we climbed up it, so we did. I still had some stomach problems (which actually lasted about a month, but stopped about a week later) so it didn't heal me! haha We could see the prettiest lake from the top of the tree and took lots of pictures. Then we decided to take a different route back. We had tried to walk there on the way there, but got a tad lost so took a taxi the rest of the way. We wanted to go down the other side of the huge hill thing we were on, so we did. We walked down a pretty steep hill, through some crops that were taller than us, down a dirt road, and then pretty much slid and fell down this steep hill that had a bunch of crevices where the earth has split and there was tons of rocks and mud cause it had rained all day so far. I fell soo much and it was the most hilarious thing ever. My pants were disgusting and so were my tennis shoes (which now smell horribly even after my sister washed them and I will be leaving them here!). We looked pretty rough by the end of that trek, but it was so worth the laughs.
lunes, 21 de abril de 2008
Montanita and Guayaquil.. oh the traveling
So, yet another weekend I traveled.. I could totally get used to this when I get back to the states.. but then I would lose all my money cause gas is so dang expensive and there's nothing that fabulous around. ha So me and some friends decided to go to the beach again.. best beach yet! It's called Montanita and it's about 12 hours from Quito! We took an 8 hour bus to Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecudaor, and then took another one at 5:30 am to Montanita. The town was so cute and the streets were covered in sand. It was so lovely and what a nice day! We went to the beach all day and looked around all the stands on the streets that people were selling.. I bought a bunch of jewelry, go figure.. but they are for friends! Our hostal was really cool only cause I got to sleep in a loft! They told us they had a room for the 5 of us, but when we got to our room there were 2 sets of bunk beds so I asked and they pointed up and there was a ladder leading to a top part with 2 beds and a fan! It was lovely as well. So we spent a little more time at the beach on Saturday morning and walked down past the 2nd part of Montanita, where we climbed over some rocks and found a cool kinda peninsula thing.. me ryan and josh decided that we'd make the trek over to the point and look around.. the process was kind of ridiculous because if you went at the wrong time, the waves would crash you against the wall of rock, so we had to spend a few minutes preparing and counting waves and seconds haha. We got to see about 20 dolphins all together and it was sooo cool! None of us 3 had cameras. dang. Then jen and taylor came over and taylor cut her foot then I put a big hole in my heel when I stepped on some sharp thing haha. On our way back to the beach, as we walked across the boulders and crevices, ryan and I got sprayed really bad with a wave that came underneath and through the crevice and shot up real hard. It was hilarious.
In Guayaquil, after our lovely less than 3 hour bus ride was along the beach, we got picked up by a friend of my host mom's friend, who drove us around and picked us up and took us whereever we wanted to go the rest of saturday and sunday! He took us to the LIGA vs. Barcelona soccer game (really big rivalry), where there were only about 100 LIGA fans and we couldn't cheer for them because we were surrounded by Barcelona fans (who get a little out of hand and become dangerous to the opposing fans). when we walked in, we were walking down the middle of the side section and 4 rows up and 4 rows down all turned their heads as we walked by.. pretty sure we were the only gringos in the stadium! Needless to say, it was a blast and very crazy, and a tie. ugh. I hate that soccer games can end in a tie. (But they played each other again this past weekend in Quito and LIGA won!! woo hoo!) That night we had to eat some dinner and went to this place down the road from our hostal where the menu was a dry erase board with a few things written on it that did not make sense. When we asked each other what we got, we had no idea because really we had no idea what we ordered. it was delicious though. On sunday, G (i cant remember the rest of his name, but i know it started with a G) drove us to the Malecon, which is a very very long boardwalk following a river. It was so pretty outside and we walked the whole thing. We started playing on a playground, but got kicked off (there were only 3 other kids so i know we weren't disrupting anything.. the big people playground isn't as fun.. just work out stuff!) We went to 2 markets and got a few things then went to the biggest and nicest bus station i've ever seen here. also had the best drink i've had in ecuador called a frozen. we got back on sunday night at about 1030 and i was so tired! what a glorious weekend. oh yeah and every where we went, the 5 of us rode i the bed of the truck to get there! ha it was typical ecuadorian traveling and so fun.
In Guayaquil, after our lovely less than 3 hour bus ride was along the beach, we got picked up by a friend of my host mom's friend, who drove us around and picked us up and took us whereever we wanted to go the rest of saturday and sunday! He took us to the LIGA vs. Barcelona soccer game (really big rivalry), where there were only about 100 LIGA fans and we couldn't cheer for them because we were surrounded by Barcelona fans (who get a little out of hand and become dangerous to the opposing fans). when we walked in, we were walking down the middle of the side section and 4 rows up and 4 rows down all turned their heads as we walked by.. pretty sure we were the only gringos in the stadium! Needless to say, it was a blast and very crazy, and a tie. ugh. I hate that soccer games can end in a tie. (But they played each other again this past weekend in Quito and LIGA won!! woo hoo!) That night we had to eat some dinner and went to this place down the road from our hostal where the menu was a dry erase board with a few things written on it that did not make sense. When we asked each other what we got, we had no idea because really we had no idea what we ordered. it was delicious though. On sunday, G (i cant remember the rest of his name, but i know it started with a G) drove us to the Malecon, which is a very very long boardwalk following a river. It was so pretty outside and we walked the whole thing. We started playing on a playground, but got kicked off (there were only 3 other kids so i know we weren't disrupting anything.. the big people playground isn't as fun.. just work out stuff!) We went to 2 markets and got a few things then went to the biggest and nicest bus station i've ever seen here. also had the best drink i've had in ecuador called a frozen. we got back on sunday night at about 1030 and i was so tired! what a glorious weekend. oh yeah and every where we went, the 5 of us rode i the bed of the truck to get there! ha it was typical ecuadorian traveling and so fun.
Lo to the ja and Cuenca
So the second part of spring break I flew to Loja to meet up with my friends Mark and Gaby in the south of Ecuador because they had been traveling Peru the previous week. When I got to Loja, which was only a 30 minute $80 plane ride, I didn't know that the airport was actually 3o minutes from the actual town of Loja.. I also didn't realize that Loja is a province so I was flying into the province, not the town. I actually hitched a ride with my airplane buddy, some older Ecuadorian woman who lived in Loja, in her daughter's truck! ha Then with all my decision making skills (sike!) I had to look around and find a hostal/hotel for the 3 of us. That took like an hour cause I couldn't decide and there weren't that many great ones, so I had to call my friend Taylor to help me! haha I ended up hanging out for almost 5 hours by myself waiting for them, because apparently something happened with their bus and all different transportation to get there (which definitely isn't uncommon). We walked around and saw a bunch of churches and bought a few things at a small market and headed out to Cuenca (a little farther north and the 3rd largest city in Ecuador) in the late afternoon.
In Cuenca, we stayed at this ridiculous hostal.. Hostal Orquidea.. because we lived in a suite for a few days. It had a spiral staircase leading up to our suite, a kitchen, stocked with everything but food and the blade to the blender, a dining table, a living room with a bar and tv in it, and 2 bedrooms with 2 beds in each and a full bath in each! It was crazy amazing. We attempted to make mora juice, boiling them and trying to strain them with many different devices (including a salt shaker, a bag with holes punches with a fork, a thin thin strainer, and maybe something else.. then decided we'd just drink it with the seeds (which really sucked)) and that didn't turn out so well. We also bought a ton of fruit, so we made a platter one evening to go along with some bread and it had cut up pinapple and grapes and we had strawberries as well. And 2 of the mornings Mark cooked some tortillas (which are pretty much omelets) and I made some strawberry batidos! It was lovely. While in Cuenca we walked around also to see the gorgeous churches and parks, bought some really good icecream a few times, and found some nice jewelry stores. One night we met up with a friend of Mark's, who was studying in Cuenca, from home in Cali!, and went dancing and I got to dance with a band member of the live band that had played earlier! It was fun. I've found that live music here is the best. We took a side trip the next day to a place called Ingapirca which was pretty cool. There were 3 sets of ruins and a bunch of llamas! ha And when we were at the highest one, I just so happened to drop my camera about 30 feet without knowing. Luckily, and not with my luck obviously, it landed in a patch of grass and didn't hit all the rocky steps it could have hit. Jeez. We wanted to go to either some markets about an hour away the next day or go to a gigantic park, but we did neither! ha I actually don't even remember what we did, but I feel like we just found a market or 2 and looked around Cuenca some more.
We decided on that Friday that we'd fly back on Sunday, so our last minute tickets only cost $63 or something which was glorious and were for row 9 which we thought was lovely because it wasn't in the front nor the back.. Deceivingly so, row 9 was the LAST row. This was, by far, the smallest plane I'd ever been on. I sat in a middle seat, the only one on the plane, with my legs propped up on my bag and 2 people on either side of me. It was glorious. I'm pretty sure though that the empanadas they gave me started my sickness, because my stomach has hurt for the past 3 weeks off and on since that Sunday afternoon! Ridiculous. Lovely trip though.
In Cuenca, we stayed at this ridiculous hostal.. Hostal Orquidea.. because we lived in a suite for a few days. It had a spiral staircase leading up to our suite, a kitchen, stocked with everything but food and the blade to the blender, a dining table, a living room with a bar and tv in it, and 2 bedrooms with 2 beds in each and a full bath in each! It was crazy amazing. We attempted to make mora juice, boiling them and trying to strain them with many different devices (including a salt shaker, a bag with holes punches with a fork, a thin thin strainer, and maybe something else.. then decided we'd just drink it with the seeds (which really sucked)) and that didn't turn out so well. We also bought a ton of fruit, so we made a platter one evening to go along with some bread and it had cut up pinapple and grapes and we had strawberries as well. And 2 of the mornings Mark cooked some tortillas (which are pretty much omelets) and I made some strawberry batidos! It was lovely. While in Cuenca we walked around also to see the gorgeous churches and parks, bought some really good icecream a few times, and found some nice jewelry stores. One night we met up with a friend of Mark's, who was studying in Cuenca, from home in Cali!, and went dancing and I got to dance with a band member of the live band that had played earlier! It was fun. I've found that live music here is the best. We took a side trip the next day to a place called Ingapirca which was pretty cool. There were 3 sets of ruins and a bunch of llamas! ha And when we were at the highest one, I just so happened to drop my camera about 30 feet without knowing. Luckily, and not with my luck obviously, it landed in a patch of grass and didn't hit all the rocky steps it could have hit. Jeez. We wanted to go to either some markets about an hour away the next day or go to a gigantic park, but we did neither! ha I actually don't even remember what we did, but I feel like we just found a market or 2 and looked around Cuenca some more.
We decided on that Friday that we'd fly back on Sunday, so our last minute tickets only cost $63 or something which was glorious and were for row 9 which we thought was lovely because it wasn't in the front nor the back.. Deceivingly so, row 9 was the LAST row. This was, by far, the smallest plane I'd ever been on. I sat in a middle seat, the only one on the plane, with my legs propped up on my bag and 2 people on either side of me. It was glorious. I'm pretty sure though that the empanadas they gave me started my sickness, because my stomach has hurt for the past 3 weeks off and on since that Sunday afternoon! Ridiculous. Lovely trip though.
martes, 1 de abril de 2008
Galapagos Islands = paradise and some Quito
So spring break=amazing! It started the 20th and that morning, really really early, me and 3 other friends, Taylor, Ryan, and Jason, left for the Galapagos Islands. The trip was a tad expensive, but covered pretty much everything and was soo worth it! We got there on Thursday afternoon with time to walk to Tortuga Bay (which actually took like an hour.. long, hot walk.). That was the most beautiful beach I've ever seen.. white sand all around, no shells, and clear blue water! We couldn't swim there because the current was so strong so we walked down to the bay area, where there were absolutely no waves at all! Then we saw a few sharks and decided it was time to get out haha We amused ourselves by taking jumping and shadow pictures and by drawing in the sand. glorious.
Friday we got up early to go to Las Grietas (were going to go kayaking, but this was definitely the better option!). It's 2 cliffs where you can jump from different rocks into beautifully clear blue water! It was amazing. Then we went to the Charles Darwin station where there were too many mosquitos, but got to see tons of turtles and very very small beach that also had too many mosquitos. On Saturday, we left early to go to Isabela Island, which took about 3 hours on a very large boat! We walked around the island a bit, went to the turtle preservation place (where we saw many many big big turtles! even got to see some turtles having sex. pleasant.), stopped by a large lake to see one flamingo (but still amazing since i've never seen one!), walked around a shark resting area of the island (but only saw one shark and then saw a family of sea lions just hangin out on the beach!), and then went snorkeling! While snorkeling, we got to see a few penguins, a bunch of pretty fish, and some sea lions! The sea lions are not afraid of humans and will swim right up in your face! We left the island about 4 pm, but didn't actually get back to Santa Cruz (where we were staying.. in the Red Booby hotel!) until 1 am! a 9 hour boat ride with a lot of black smoke, a pretty sunset, some napping, chilliness, a bit of rain, and moving about 5 mph! ridiculous, but it was pretty cool just hangin out on the pacific!
Sunday, we went with a tour group to Floreana Island, on yet another boat. The boat trip was about 2 hours and Ryan and I got to lie on top of the not very big boat while everyone else was suffocating below us inside the boat! We walked a bit to get to a beach/bay where we could snorkel and the beach was absolutely beautiful! We didn't see much while we were snorkeling, because it was kind of foggy under the water from stirred up sand. My friend Jason and I were some of the last people to come back in and when we got in we saw them yelling at us and didnt know why until we saw a male sea lion swimming about 5 feet from us.. those are only the most dangerous ones! ha Then we all had lunch at this "restaurant" where we were swatting mosquitos like it was our job.. kind of miserable while we were eating. So we got out of there and took our boat to another part of the island about 20 minutes away to do more snorkeling.. we swam with sharks, like a million sea lions, awesome fish, some rays, a few turtles, and lots of pretty coral. The best snorkeling I have and probably will ever do!
Monday, we took a tour bus, just us 4 and our russian lady friend that was traveling with us on all of our trips, to Los Gemelos, which are 2 huge craters from where there were once 2 volcanos that collapsed! Pretty neat. Then we headed to the airport that is the smallest one I've seen! I tried my first empanada there and it was pretty delicious, but it won't be my favorite food here.
Tuesday, Taylor, Ryan, and I went to the Mercado Artesenal which had about 9 rows (2 rows in each one) full of things to buy.. art, jewelry, clothes, bags.. you name it, they got it! I bought a few pieces of art and I don't really rememeber what else. Then we had lunch at a cute place called Coffee Tree and me and Taylor went back to my house to watch American Gangster. We tried to finish it on Wednesday morning, but didn't have much time, i came back and ate with my family for lunch and my brother Pablo took me to the airport...
to be continued.
Friday we got up early to go to Las Grietas (were going to go kayaking, but this was definitely the better option!). It's 2 cliffs where you can jump from different rocks into beautifully clear blue water! It was amazing. Then we went to the Charles Darwin station where there were too many mosquitos, but got to see tons of turtles and very very small beach that also had too many mosquitos. On Saturday, we left early to go to Isabela Island, which took about 3 hours on a very large boat! We walked around the island a bit, went to the turtle preservation place (where we saw many many big big turtles! even got to see some turtles having sex. pleasant.), stopped by a large lake to see one flamingo (but still amazing since i've never seen one!), walked around a shark resting area of the island (but only saw one shark and then saw a family of sea lions just hangin out on the beach!), and then went snorkeling! While snorkeling, we got to see a few penguins, a bunch of pretty fish, and some sea lions! The sea lions are not afraid of humans and will swim right up in your face! We left the island about 4 pm, but didn't actually get back to Santa Cruz (where we were staying.. in the Red Booby hotel!) until 1 am! a 9 hour boat ride with a lot of black smoke, a pretty sunset, some napping, chilliness, a bit of rain, and moving about 5 mph! ridiculous, but it was pretty cool just hangin out on the pacific!
Sunday, we went with a tour group to Floreana Island, on yet another boat. The boat trip was about 2 hours and Ryan and I got to lie on top of the not very big boat while everyone else was suffocating below us inside the boat! We walked a bit to get to a beach/bay where we could snorkel and the beach was absolutely beautiful! We didn't see much while we were snorkeling, because it was kind of foggy under the water from stirred up sand. My friend Jason and I were some of the last people to come back in and when we got in we saw them yelling at us and didnt know why until we saw a male sea lion swimming about 5 feet from us.. those are only the most dangerous ones! ha Then we all had lunch at this "restaurant" where we were swatting mosquitos like it was our job.. kind of miserable while we were eating. So we got out of there and took our boat to another part of the island about 20 minutes away to do more snorkeling.. we swam with sharks, like a million sea lions, awesome fish, some rays, a few turtles, and lots of pretty coral. The best snorkeling I have and probably will ever do!
Monday, we took a tour bus, just us 4 and our russian lady friend that was traveling with us on all of our trips, to Los Gemelos, which are 2 huge craters from where there were once 2 volcanos that collapsed! Pretty neat. Then we headed to the airport that is the smallest one I've seen! I tried my first empanada there and it was pretty delicious, but it won't be my favorite food here.
Tuesday, Taylor, Ryan, and I went to the Mercado Artesenal which had about 9 rows (2 rows in each one) full of things to buy.. art, jewelry, clothes, bags.. you name it, they got it! I bought a few pieces of art and I don't really rememeber what else. Then we had lunch at a cute place called Coffee Tree and me and Taylor went back to my house to watch American Gangster. We tried to finish it on Wednesday morning, but didn't have much time, i came back and ate with my family for lunch and my brother Pablo took me to the airport...
to be continued.
domingo, 30 de marzo de 2008
oops
so i meant to go back and fill in that blank about karaoke songs before i finished but, of course, forgot! ha The third ridiculous american song we did was Gangster's Paradise!
a slew of activities
so i have to make a correction. the week of pre-vacation/skipping school was the 2nd through the 9th. i was so confused when looking at what i needed to update yall on, so i'm pretty much just saying this for myself. great. thanks.
ok so a few weekends ago was relaxing and so great! i actually did not travel for the whole weekend.. it's been a while since that has happened.
On Friday, me and 4 friends decided we would try some random bars on Eloy Alfaro instead of going to the Mariscal where we typically go to dance or do whatever (all of the gringos go there and it's always hoppin haha). We ended up going to this karaoke bar and it was soo small, like the size of my mom's room here and it was completely full except for 5 seats at the bar, lucky for us. We listened and sang for a bit with the people that were already doing karaoke, and then we decided that we would treat the crowd to some gringo singing. We sang Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) , Don't Wanna Close My Eyes (Aerosmith) , and ___ ! It was ridiculous, and even some of the Ecuadorians were singing along! Then, Taylor and I decided that we weren't tired yet and wanted to go dancing so we went to a discoteca called Bungalow and after dancing with a few creepers found a fun random group to dance with until about 2:45 or so. It was glorious because it's been too long since I had last danced.
Saturday, my friends Taylor, Jen, Colleen, and I went to a zoo in a town about 45 minutes from Quito called Guayllabamba. This was only the 2nd time I had been to a zoo in my life and I was so excited!! (first one being when i was like 8 and pissed off.. or for what i can tell from the pictures!) So we saw a bunch of crazy awesome animals, including lions and tigers and bears, oh my! and some monkeys and the biggest turtles I have ever seen and probably will ever see in my life time! I got lazy that night and decided not to go out so I watched like 8 episodes of friends and ate in bed! it was fabulous.
Sunday, about 7 friends and I went to eat breakfast at this cute place in the Mariscal called the Magic Bean, and I had some delicious french toast and yummy batido! After, 4 of those friends and I went to the LIGA/Quito Deportivo soccer game, which is big because both teams are from Quito so there were SO many people there. We all bought jerseys to wear and support LIGA and they were only $5! For the first half of the game, we could see pretty much nothing of the game because there were so many people, we couldn't even squeeze down into the bottom of the stands, so we watched from the top of Sur Baja (where the crazy fans, "muerte blanca", sit) and since I'm only 5'2 1/2", that didn't work out so well for me! At halftime, we squeezed down to the bottom of the stands and stood happily while cheering with Muerte Blanca the rest of the game and LIGA won! (1-0).
That night I went with my brother Diego, sister Cris, and my mom to my oldest brother, Milton's apartment (married with a baby!) to have tea/coffee and cake. So since I don't like tea or coffee, but didn't want to have to ask for water and be a loser, I actually tried hot tea! Diego told me that if I put lemon juice and sugar in it it's not that horrible, so I did, and he was soo right! It was delicious. Pretty proud of that. Then, we all went to the airport to pick up my brother Pablo who had been gone for 2 weeks traveling in Chile and Argentina with a friend since he was on break from school. I was so tired when we were there, but we all decided to eat a 2nd dinner when we got back at like 11 pm, so I couldn't pass that up!
Overall, very lovely weekend, but very tiring!
ok so a few weekends ago was relaxing and so great! i actually did not travel for the whole weekend.. it's been a while since that has happened.
On Friday, me and 4 friends decided we would try some random bars on Eloy Alfaro instead of going to the Mariscal where we typically go to dance or do whatever (all of the gringos go there and it's always hoppin haha). We ended up going to this karaoke bar and it was soo small, like the size of my mom's room here and it was completely full except for 5 seats at the bar, lucky for us. We listened and sang for a bit with the people that were already doing karaoke, and then we decided that we would treat the crowd to some gringo singing. We sang Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) , Don't Wanna Close My Eyes (Aerosmith) , and ___ ! It was ridiculous, and even some of the Ecuadorians were singing along! Then, Taylor and I decided that we weren't tired yet and wanted to go dancing so we went to a discoteca called Bungalow and after dancing with a few creepers found a fun random group to dance with until about 2:45 or so. It was glorious because it's been too long since I had last danced.
Saturday, my friends Taylor, Jen, Colleen, and I went to a zoo in a town about 45 minutes from Quito called Guayllabamba. This was only the 2nd time I had been to a zoo in my life and I was so excited!! (first one being when i was like 8 and pissed off.. or for what i can tell from the pictures!) So we saw a bunch of crazy awesome animals, including lions and tigers and bears, oh my! and some monkeys and the biggest turtles I have ever seen and probably will ever see in my life time! I got lazy that night and decided not to go out so I watched like 8 episodes of friends and ate in bed! it was fabulous.
Sunday, about 7 friends and I went to eat breakfast at this cute place in the Mariscal called the Magic Bean, and I had some delicious french toast and yummy batido! After, 4 of those friends and I went to the LIGA/Quito Deportivo soccer game, which is big because both teams are from Quito so there were SO many people there. We all bought jerseys to wear and support LIGA and they were only $5! For the first half of the game, we could see pretty much nothing of the game because there were so many people, we couldn't even squeeze down into the bottom of the stands, so we watched from the top of Sur Baja (where the crazy fans, "muerte blanca", sit) and since I'm only 5'2 1/2", that didn't work out so well for me! At halftime, we squeezed down to the bottom of the stands and stood happily while cheering with Muerte Blanca the rest of the game and LIGA won! (1-0).
That night I went with my brother Diego, sister Cris, and my mom to my oldest brother, Milton's apartment (married with a baby!) to have tea/coffee and cake. So since I don't like tea or coffee, but didn't want to have to ask for water and be a loser, I actually tried hot tea! Diego told me that if I put lemon juice and sugar in it it's not that horrible, so I did, and he was soo right! It was delicious. Pretty proud of that. Then, we all went to the airport to pick up my brother Pablo who had been gone for 2 weeks traveling in Chile and Argentina with a friend since he was on break from school. I was so tired when we were there, but we all decided to eat a 2nd dinner when we got back at like 11 pm, so I couldn't pass that up!
Overall, very lovely weekend, but very tiring!
viernes, 14 de marzo de 2008
bad student
So last week was amazing.. kind of like a 1st spring break since we have our actual one coming up starting next thursday.
Sunday, the 9th, I left for another trip to Banos. I went with Ryan and his 3 friends, Van, Jordan, and Jacob, that came from VTech to visit for their spring break. We were only in Banos from Sunday until Monday, but it was awesome. So when we got there, we spent what seemed like an hour to find a hostal even though there are like 80 million of them there! We ran into my friend Danny, who is also our travel agent for the Galapagos trip, and he told us a good one to stay at so we went there and it was only $5.50 for each of us and we stayed in a room with 4 bunk beds! The things that happened in there were hilarious, including Ryan pushing Jacob's bed off of the platform with his feet from underneath and Jacob almost falling off.. the most hilarious thing was them trying to get it back in place.
After we got settled in to our hostal, we went for lunch at a restaurant called Explosion or something (which is appropriate because we were in the town next to the exploding volcano), and had a very delicious typical Ecuadorian meal (some kind of meat, rice, "salad", a dessert, and a juice). Then we went to this place called GeoTours cause we knew they were reliable and we went repelling down waterfalls! (2 30-footers and a 150-footer!) It was super fun and kinda nerve-racking. That night we went to the natural hot springs that was like a 2 minute walk from our hostal and there were 2 or 3 springs that each had sooo many people in them! It was a rule that you had to have a bathing suit on, but a group of guys that were right next to our little circle decided that they would take theirs off underwater and hang them in the air.. that's when we decided it was time to go! On Monday we went white water rafting on a level 3 and it was soo much fun and my first time ever doing it! (and only cost $30, including all the gear, the guides, and a meal afterward)
We got back on Monday night, I went to one out of two classes on Tuesday, had bible study, went to Finn's, and peaced out on a night bus to go to the beach! We went to a town called Atacames and were there from Wednesday morning (arrived at 6am) until Friday. Van was sick the entire bus trip on the way there and Ryan got sick on Thursday night.. miserable! We had pretty good weather and met the cutest kids that hung out with us every day and at the end made us copper bracelets from a spool of wire one had in his pocket so I gave him a dollar so that he could get some food. We also met up with our friend Melanie and her friend that came to be with her for his spring break as well (All 6 of them went to VTech!).
On Friday, my friends Taylor and Mark came to Atacames on a whim, so I decided to stay with them at the beach for the rest of the weekend! Ryan, Mel, and their friends left. We went to this beach called Same and I bet there were like 100 people there in total.. so small! It was nice to be at a beach that didn't have so much going on, but I really did like Atacames as well. There are only like 4 "restaurants" in the town and we gave everyone of them business, and the 3 little tiendas as well. We also, on Saturday went to this beach right next to Same called Casa Blanca, which pretty much only consists of a million condos that are painted white and cost about $1000 a night to stay in! It's private property, but we decided to do a little exploring and ended up swimming in one of the pools, but when we tried to swim in another one, some guy came and asked us what family we were with so we played the american card and asked him if he spoke English haha. So we had to peace out of there.
We went back to Atacames on Sunday at like 1 and tried to get a bus ticket for 3:30 in the afternoon, but the bus was full! We couldn't take a bus back to Quito until 11 pm! Not too bad having to be stuck at the beach for 9 more hours.. I had the largest, most yummy batido, took a nap on the beach, swam a lot, took a walk down the beach, had a yummy dinner, and played some cards! ha So we left for Quito and got back at 5:30 am, which was 30 minutes shorter than planned!
What a great week and I'm tan again! woo! Unfortunately we had to come back to rainy, cold weather, but that's Quito for ya in rainy season. I got home, took a shower, took an hour and 1/2 nap, and went to school! Amazingly was not tired at all and haven't been since! Talk about relaxing and napping at the beach.. I guess I caught up!
Sunday, the 9th, I left for another trip to Banos. I went with Ryan and his 3 friends, Van, Jordan, and Jacob, that came from VTech to visit for their spring break. We were only in Banos from Sunday until Monday, but it was awesome. So when we got there, we spent what seemed like an hour to find a hostal even though there are like 80 million of them there! We ran into my friend Danny, who is also our travel agent for the Galapagos trip, and he told us a good one to stay at so we went there and it was only $5.50 for each of us and we stayed in a room with 4 bunk beds! The things that happened in there were hilarious, including Ryan pushing Jacob's bed off of the platform with his feet from underneath and Jacob almost falling off.. the most hilarious thing was them trying to get it back in place.
After we got settled in to our hostal, we went for lunch at a restaurant called Explosion or something (which is appropriate because we were in the town next to the exploding volcano), and had a very delicious typical Ecuadorian meal (some kind of meat, rice, "salad", a dessert, and a juice). Then we went to this place called GeoTours cause we knew they were reliable and we went repelling down waterfalls! (2 30-footers and a 150-footer!) It was super fun and kinda nerve-racking. That night we went to the natural hot springs that was like a 2 minute walk from our hostal and there were 2 or 3 springs that each had sooo many people in them! It was a rule that you had to have a bathing suit on, but a group of guys that were right next to our little circle decided that they would take theirs off underwater and hang them in the air.. that's when we decided it was time to go! On Monday we went white water rafting on a level 3 and it was soo much fun and my first time ever doing it! (and only cost $30, including all the gear, the guides, and a meal afterward)
We got back on Monday night, I went to one out of two classes on Tuesday, had bible study, went to Finn's, and peaced out on a night bus to go to the beach! We went to a town called Atacames and were there from Wednesday morning (arrived at 6am) until Friday. Van was sick the entire bus trip on the way there and Ryan got sick on Thursday night.. miserable! We had pretty good weather and met the cutest kids that hung out with us every day and at the end made us copper bracelets from a spool of wire one had in his pocket so I gave him a dollar so that he could get some food. We also met up with our friend Melanie and her friend that came to be with her for his spring break as well (All 6 of them went to VTech!).
On Friday, my friends Taylor and Mark came to Atacames on a whim, so I decided to stay with them at the beach for the rest of the weekend! Ryan, Mel, and their friends left. We went to this beach called Same and I bet there were like 100 people there in total.. so small! It was nice to be at a beach that didn't have so much going on, but I really did like Atacames as well. There are only like 4 "restaurants" in the town and we gave everyone of them business, and the 3 little tiendas as well. We also, on Saturday went to this beach right next to Same called Casa Blanca, which pretty much only consists of a million condos that are painted white and cost about $1000 a night to stay in! It's private property, but we decided to do a little exploring and ended up swimming in one of the pools, but when we tried to swim in another one, some guy came and asked us what family we were with so we played the american card and asked him if he spoke English haha. So we had to peace out of there.
We went back to Atacames on Sunday at like 1 and tried to get a bus ticket for 3:30 in the afternoon, but the bus was full! We couldn't take a bus back to Quito until 11 pm! Not too bad having to be stuck at the beach for 9 more hours.. I had the largest, most yummy batido, took a nap on the beach, swam a lot, took a walk down the beach, had a yummy dinner, and played some cards! ha So we left for Quito and got back at 5:30 am, which was 30 minutes shorter than planned!
What a great week and I'm tan again! woo! Unfortunately we had to come back to rainy, cold weather, but that's Quito for ya in rainy season. I got home, took a shower, took an hour and 1/2 nap, and went to school! Amazingly was not tired at all and haven't been since! Talk about relaxing and napping at the beach.. I guess I caught up!
lunes, 3 de marzo de 2008
"Hell week" with a good ending
So I'm gonna have to say that last week was ridiculous and I'd rather not experience it again!
-On Sunday after we got back from Mindo I was so tired and went to sleep fairly early for me, but forgot to set an alarm and missed my tennis class for about the 1000th time on Monday! Not to mention, we haven't had it in about 2 weeks due to the rain!
-Tuesday I had a presentation that I was supposed to do for my conversation class about a month ago that never happened, and had to re-read the article for myself since I couldn't remember what I even wrote it on; I couldn't reach the top of the chalk board (we have to write new vocabulary for the class on the board) and apparently I suck at writing on chalk boards so I'm not even sure people could read it and were probably laughing at me while I was trying to start higher on the 2nd column but couldnt really go much higher due to being vertically challenged ;)
-At Finn McCool's on Tuesday night I beleive we placed 2nd to last in the pub quiz. Sucks. I had a horrible few games of pool as well.
-Wednesday, I had an essay due in my grammar class and wrote it about an hour before class and forgot to correct my other one for a better grade. go me. I also had a midterm in photography, which you might not think would be so bad. Me and my friend Ryan are the only gringos and we are pretty sure our professor thinks we are a burden and doesn't like us very much so we've got that goin for us! We decided to study 2 hours before the test, after I got out of class, but we found out the book cost $36 and didn't want to pay that, so we borrowed a friend's computer for like 15 minutes to look at parts of the camera just so we MIGHT know something on the test. Then we got tired of doing that and decided to get some sun since it was a nice day and we were sitting by the pond. So the exam sucked and I'm pretty sure I knew ONE question and maybe 1/2s of ones. ha ridiculous.
-Thursday I had a midterm in Panaderia, which kicked my butt as well. I read the 4 chapters that the 10 questions were going to be on during the 2 previous classes so that probably wasn't very good preparation. The written part took me about 40 minutes (only short answer, nothing else.. 10 ?s from 4 fricken chapters) and I feel like I knew maybe 3 of the questions. For the practical part me and my partner Laura made some pretty good bread, but the first one didn't have enough water in the dough and the 2nd one had too much. We felt like we couldnt do anything right already and at the end when our professor was grading our bread, he was like error #1 is.. #2 is.. and #3 is.. ha. oh man.
-Friday I had a grammar midterm which really wasn't terrible.. it just sucked that I had 3 midterms in a week! I didn't study very much for it, so I hope I did alright. I finished class at 11 and had to finish a project to turn in to my photography professor which took about 40 minutes to do, and then I came to find out, I payed $3.20 on some thick paper for nothin cause it was the wrong kind! So I was already annoyed cause I had to get that taken care of THAT DAY since I was leaving to go on a trip, and also had to find someone to bring it to school for me on Monday since I wasn't going to be there. Then I stayed at school for like 18,000 hours working on amplifying 2 pictures for a different project for photography and could not get the 2nd one to save my life so I finally left at like 4:30 or so.
-To end my day/week right, I decided to get a pedicure with my friend Taylor really near our houses, which only cost $5, and looks pretty good. There were actually no massage chairs to sit in, they didnt massage all the way up to the knee with the lotion, and were not very precise with their painting! ha But worth the $5!
-On Sunday after we got back from Mindo I was so tired and went to sleep fairly early for me, but forgot to set an alarm and missed my tennis class for about the 1000th time on Monday! Not to mention, we haven't had it in about 2 weeks due to the rain!
-Tuesday I had a presentation that I was supposed to do for my conversation class about a month ago that never happened, and had to re-read the article for myself since I couldn't remember what I even wrote it on; I couldn't reach the top of the chalk board (we have to write new vocabulary for the class on the board) and apparently I suck at writing on chalk boards so I'm not even sure people could read it and were probably laughing at me while I was trying to start higher on the 2nd column but couldnt really go much higher due to being vertically challenged ;)
-At Finn McCool's on Tuesday night I beleive we placed 2nd to last in the pub quiz. Sucks. I had a horrible few games of pool as well.
-Wednesday, I had an essay due in my grammar class and wrote it about an hour before class and forgot to correct my other one for a better grade. go me. I also had a midterm in photography, which you might not think would be so bad. Me and my friend Ryan are the only gringos and we are pretty sure our professor thinks we are a burden and doesn't like us very much so we've got that goin for us! We decided to study 2 hours before the test, after I got out of class, but we found out the book cost $36 and didn't want to pay that, so we borrowed a friend's computer for like 15 minutes to look at parts of the camera just so we MIGHT know something on the test. Then we got tired of doing that and decided to get some sun since it was a nice day and we were sitting by the pond. So the exam sucked and I'm pretty sure I knew ONE question and maybe 1/2s of ones. ha ridiculous.
-Thursday I had a midterm in Panaderia, which kicked my butt as well. I read the 4 chapters that the 10 questions were going to be on during the 2 previous classes so that probably wasn't very good preparation. The written part took me about 40 minutes (only short answer, nothing else.. 10 ?s from 4 fricken chapters) and I feel like I knew maybe 3 of the questions. For the practical part me and my partner Laura made some pretty good bread, but the first one didn't have enough water in the dough and the 2nd one had too much. We felt like we couldnt do anything right already and at the end when our professor was grading our bread, he was like error #1 is.. #2 is.. and #3 is.. ha. oh man.
-Friday I had a grammar midterm which really wasn't terrible.. it just sucked that I had 3 midterms in a week! I didn't study very much for it, so I hope I did alright. I finished class at 11 and had to finish a project to turn in to my photography professor which took about 40 minutes to do, and then I came to find out, I payed $3.20 on some thick paper for nothin cause it was the wrong kind! So I was already annoyed cause I had to get that taken care of THAT DAY since I was leaving to go on a trip, and also had to find someone to bring it to school for me on Monday since I wasn't going to be there. Then I stayed at school for like 18,000 hours working on amplifying 2 pictures for a different project for photography and could not get the 2nd one to save my life so I finally left at like 4:30 or so.
-To end my day/week right, I decided to get a pedicure with my friend Taylor really near our houses, which only cost $5, and looks pretty good. There were actually no massage chairs to sit in, they didnt massage all the way up to the knee with the lotion, and were not very precise with their painting! ha But worth the $5!
lunes, 25 de febrero de 2008
Mindo!!
This past weekend I went with some friends and a few other people I didn't know. There were 8 of us staying in this awesome hostal that had one big room at the top with bunk beds and a few separate rooms with a neat little island in the middle to sit at, 3 hammocks on our balcony, and hot-ish showers! ha They also made us the most amazing breakfasts which only cost $2 so it was $7 per night including breakfast.. pretty sweet!
So on Friday when we got there, we just hung out around town for a bit and at night we played jumprope with some kids of the town. I figured out I suck. On Saturday we went ziplining (probably 12 or so ziplines) above the rainforest (called the Cloud Forest). It was super super cool, but I wore capris like an idiot (but so did a few others) and got eaten alive by mosquitos! They itch sooo bad and they are all over both legs from the knee down!! Then we went back and had a yummy lunch and went "rafting" down the river. The "raft" consisted of about 8 intertubes tied together and we have the ropes to hold on to! We had 2 ecuadorian men with us that would jump off at random times to push away from rocks and stuff so at least that was kind of comforting! The ride was a tad dangerous and I'm not sure that kind of rafting would be legal in the states! ha and the water, I'm sure, was about 30 degrees! It was FREEZING!! So fun though and only cost $5 including a driver that picked us up from the hostal and drove us back!
That night we searched the town for some things to make smores with because there was a patio thing in the back of the hostal. Me and Theo found some cookie things that were squares so we figured that would be our graham crackers and Ryan, Paula, and Taylor found some marshmallows, but there were seriously only 3 bags in the entire town so they bought 2, but the best part is they had strawberry flavored and orange flavored. Made for some very interesting smores, especially since it took like an hour to start our "fire" with wet wood and a candle with toilet paper and pieces of a magazine! ha
Sunday Paula, Ryan, Taylor, and I got up and walked for about an hour and 1/2.. probably about 5 miles there and back and saw some sick horses and cows, 2 big rivers (might have been connected), a nice "ranch", and lots of mud! I love how cheap everything was, but they want you to pay for everything! If we had gone to the waterfalls (which I will one day) we would have paid $3 just to see these natural things that no one owns! ha I had to mooch a little bit of money, but it was a wonderful trip! I'm still really really itchy though!
So on Friday when we got there, we just hung out around town for a bit and at night we played jumprope with some kids of the town. I figured out I suck. On Saturday we went ziplining (probably 12 or so ziplines) above the rainforest (called the Cloud Forest). It was super super cool, but I wore capris like an idiot (but so did a few others) and got eaten alive by mosquitos! They itch sooo bad and they are all over both legs from the knee down!! Then we went back and had a yummy lunch and went "rafting" down the river. The "raft" consisted of about 8 intertubes tied together and we have the ropes to hold on to! We had 2 ecuadorian men with us that would jump off at random times to push away from rocks and stuff so at least that was kind of comforting! The ride was a tad dangerous and I'm not sure that kind of rafting would be legal in the states! ha and the water, I'm sure, was about 30 degrees! It was FREEZING!! So fun though and only cost $5 including a driver that picked us up from the hostal and drove us back!
That night we searched the town for some things to make smores with because there was a patio thing in the back of the hostal. Me and Theo found some cookie things that were squares so we figured that would be our graham crackers and Ryan, Paula, and Taylor found some marshmallows, but there were seriously only 3 bags in the entire town so they bought 2, but the best part is they had strawberry flavored and orange flavored. Made for some very interesting smores, especially since it took like an hour to start our "fire" with wet wood and a candle with toilet paper and pieces of a magazine! ha
Sunday Paula, Ryan, Taylor, and I got up and walked for about an hour and 1/2.. probably about 5 miles there and back and saw some sick horses and cows, 2 big rivers (might have been connected), a nice "ranch", and lots of mud! I love how cheap everything was, but they want you to pay for everything! If we had gone to the waterfalls (which I will one day) we would have paid $3 just to see these natural things that no one owns! ha I had to mooch a little bit of money, but it was a wonderful trip! I'm still really really itchy though!
Banos y Cotopaxi
I went to two volcanos two weekends ago. The bus ride wasn't too bad, but we stayed in it for too long during the days, stopping only for 30 minutes, if that, at a time to see different places around them and such. First we arrived in a town outside of Banos and got to see Volcano Tingurahua and the beautiful landscape, but also where the past 6 or 7 erruptions has effected. Tingurahua has erupted those 6 or 7 times since I've been here! Kinda crazy and it's all over the news. So we walked up Tingurahua a little bit and saw a bunch of different kinds of rocks (I was with a class of some friends so they were kind of learning). The little town of Banos was really cute and we stayed in a hostal there (Those are the cheapest always and pretty sweet to stay in). We were going to go to see Tingurahua at night because it was clear, but there was no action. boo! We even went dancing in the small town which was fun because it was like the whole town was in there!
Sunday we went to Cotopaxi which is the 5th most dangerous active volcano in Ecuador! We took a bus pretty far up the mountain and got out at one of the refugee places. It was beautiful and there were no people (inhabitants), no animals, and absolutely no vegetation!.. Just a beautifully snow-capped mountain/volcano! We walked down one part of it which was a slope like this -> \ so we practically slid down since it was really loose rock/soil/mountain/whatever it was. It snowed really hard while we were at the bottom in the crevice between two parts of the volcano. I haven't seen know in like 2 years! Not like this anyway. It was so cool. Then I had to pee really bad and decided that I would take the opportunity to say I've peed on the 5th most dangerous volcano in Ecuador.. so i did! haha It was rather cold. Then we all had to go back up that dang slope -> \ and it was probably one of the hardest things I've done in my life. We were 18,500 feet above sea level (= no oxygen) and about every 4 or 5 "steps" up, I had to stop and take a break. It took about 10 minutes to get back up.. some people took longer. So hard! Still really worth it. Everyone was coughing on the way back to Quito and I kind of lost my voice (I think because of that and the quick change in weather.. maybe.)
Overall the bus trip sucked since we were in it so long and I don't ever feel very good on buses I've learned; the snow was amazing; i peed on a volcano; and got to see a volcano that has been erupting actively! Pretty sweet! Oh yeah.. while we were on the way there and back we saw a few movies and I'd recommend The Bucket List! We also saw 10.5 which had really bad acting and Feast of Love which was kind of strange, but sweet by the end :)
Sunday we went to Cotopaxi which is the 5th most dangerous active volcano in Ecuador! We took a bus pretty far up the mountain and got out at one of the refugee places. It was beautiful and there were no people (inhabitants), no animals, and absolutely no vegetation!.. Just a beautifully snow-capped mountain/volcano! We walked down one part of it which was a slope like this -> \ so we practically slid down since it was really loose rock/soil/mountain/whatever it was. It snowed really hard while we were at the bottom in the crevice between two parts of the volcano. I haven't seen know in like 2 years! Not like this anyway. It was so cool. Then I had to pee really bad and decided that I would take the opportunity to say I've peed on the 5th most dangerous volcano in Ecuador.. so i did! haha It was rather cold. Then we all had to go back up that dang slope -> \ and it was probably one of the hardest things I've done in my life. We were 18,500 feet above sea level (= no oxygen) and about every 4 or 5 "steps" up, I had to stop and take a break. It took about 10 minutes to get back up.. some people took longer. So hard! Still really worth it. Everyone was coughing on the way back to Quito and I kind of lost my voice (I think because of that and the quick change in weather.. maybe.)
Overall the bus trip sucked since we were in it so long and I don't ever feel very good on buses I've learned; the snow was amazing; i peed on a volcano; and got to see a volcano that has been erupting actively! Pretty sweet! Oh yeah.. while we were on the way there and back we saw a few movies and I'd recommend The Bucket List! We also saw 10.5 which had really bad acting and Feast of Love which was kind of strange, but sweet by the end :)
domingo, 17 de febrero de 2008
canoa
My friends, Ryan, Mark, Melanie, Josh, Blaine, and I went to a beach called Canoa for Carnaval (a celebration in the beginning of february that everyone celebrates and everyone gets 2 days off of school or work or whatever they do.. pretty much a pause on life for ecuadorians). We took a night bus so we could get there at a good time on Friday and have all of friday, sat., sun. and monday to soak up the sun and relax. Well the trip there was interesting enough.. the first bus trip took about 10 hours to get to Porto Viejo and on the way there we stopped at this place to use the bathroom. I was thinking yay a nice gas station and good time to get off this stupid charter bus and stretch. not a gas station. not nice. raining outside. so we got to the place at 3:45 in the morning and when we got off the bus, about 1/2 the town was there (families too) eating full meals and people cooking and just hangin out listening to music! i then went into the bathroom and there were 3 "stalls", no lights, no toilet paper (which you really have to get used to in ecuador), no handle to flush, a little bit of water in the toilets, a sliver of light from the top of the door to the "stall", no soap or toilet paper and possibly no water (cant remember). the entire trip from quito to canoa took like 15 hours. maybe 17.yes.
then we took another bus to get to Canoa, that broke down in some small town, we waited for about 45 minutes to see if they could fix it and they told us we needed to catch another bus. we finally got to canoa and we were supposed to be staying in a house that could fit all 6 of us in, meals provided and only the maid and brother live there. not the case. we were passed off by the lady that takes care of the "house", to another old lady and then again to an old, sketchy man. it was not a house, but a hostal (or hotel.. not sure and it didnt have a name). the first night was fine (me and mel, josh and mark, ryan, and blaine had rooms), but then we had to move to another room for the rest of the time (one that had 2 rooms in it). there was no floor.. it was dirt. our bedrooms were very small but fit a bunk bed and a double bed in it, so ryan, mel, and i slept in one room and the other 3 guys in the other. the bathroom was probably 4 feet long, and consisted of a toilet about 5 inches from the door that the lock was broken on, a sink that was half on the floor, half into the shower, and a shower that sometimes didnt have much pressure and was always cold. ha. and we were supposed to pay $5 a night but we payed $10.
the streets were all dirt and mostly muddy cause it had rained pretty good before we got there so we walked around barefoot a lot since that was what the townpeople did. we went to the beach every day (even the first day we got there at about 5 we went swimming right away because we were so nasty and then some ecuadorian guys we met invited us onto their small boat to put out some nets) and all got burnt even though we put 45 on 18 times a day (the most sunscreen i've ever put on in my life). every day we would sit on the beach and watch the most amazing sunsets, we'd get dinner (always delicious food and outside in the sand and cheap!), go out to a bar and dancing and walk back to the beach to relax (i, along with ryan, fell asleep 3 out of the 4 nights on the beach). we met some pretty cool people.. we met 2 jorges and one of them had a world's greatest dad shirt on so that's what we called him and the other one was kind of annoying, but nice too. all the young people there talked like they had been smoking weed (which was true of some of them) and everyone was soo relaxed.
it was fun and awesome in general. a few things didnt make for a good trip but we didnt let them ruin it. one of the friends was a little crazy emotional and had a few anger problems so that made for some interesting times. as we were about to go walking down the beach like always during sunset, ryan and i BURRIED our rainbows in a sand hill, and when we got back they were not there! we spent about 30 minutes tearing apart the sand hill and also looking around the beach restaurants and on people's feet for our flip flops but they were nowhere to be found! bummer. the way back back took about 13 hours i think. needless to say, we were all totally exhausted, but had school the very next day. yay.
then we took another bus to get to Canoa, that broke down in some small town, we waited for about 45 minutes to see if they could fix it and they told us we needed to catch another bus. we finally got to canoa and we were supposed to be staying in a house that could fit all 6 of us in, meals provided and only the maid and brother live there. not the case. we were passed off by the lady that takes care of the "house", to another old lady and then again to an old, sketchy man. it was not a house, but a hostal (or hotel.. not sure and it didnt have a name). the first night was fine (me and mel, josh and mark, ryan, and blaine had rooms), but then we had to move to another room for the rest of the time (one that had 2 rooms in it). there was no floor.. it was dirt. our bedrooms were very small but fit a bunk bed and a double bed in it, so ryan, mel, and i slept in one room and the other 3 guys in the other. the bathroom was probably 4 feet long, and consisted of a toilet about 5 inches from the door that the lock was broken on, a sink that was half on the floor, half into the shower, and a shower that sometimes didnt have much pressure and was always cold. ha. and we were supposed to pay $5 a night but we payed $10.
the streets were all dirt and mostly muddy cause it had rained pretty good before we got there so we walked around barefoot a lot since that was what the townpeople did. we went to the beach every day (even the first day we got there at about 5 we went swimming right away because we were so nasty and then some ecuadorian guys we met invited us onto their small boat to put out some nets) and all got burnt even though we put 45 on 18 times a day (the most sunscreen i've ever put on in my life). every day we would sit on the beach and watch the most amazing sunsets, we'd get dinner (always delicious food and outside in the sand and cheap!), go out to a bar and dancing and walk back to the beach to relax (i, along with ryan, fell asleep 3 out of the 4 nights on the beach). we met some pretty cool people.. we met 2 jorges and one of them had a world's greatest dad shirt on so that's what we called him and the other one was kind of annoying, but nice too. all the young people there talked like they had been smoking weed (which was true of some of them) and everyone was soo relaxed.
it was fun and awesome in general. a few things didnt make for a good trip but we didnt let them ruin it. one of the friends was a little crazy emotional and had a few anger problems so that made for some interesting times. as we were about to go walking down the beach like always during sunset, ryan and i BURRIED our rainbows in a sand hill, and when we got back they were not there! we spent about 30 minutes tearing apart the sand hill and also looking around the beach restaurants and on people's feet for our flip flops but they were nowhere to be found! bummer. the way back back took about 13 hours i think. needless to say, we were all totally exhausted, but had school the very next day. yay.
frickin keys
so i'm just trying to tell yall of a few adventures i've had since you've missed out on a lot of them.
this past thursday night i went out dancing with a few friends and didnt want to bring a coat and had a casual dress and leggings on so i had no pockets. i decided before i left that i was probably going to get in late (my brother normally takes me places and picks me up whenever) and diego probably wouldnt want to pick me up at 2 so i put one key in my left high heel and one key in my right one. i had two keys because there is one for the outside gate and one for the door to the house. the key in my left shoe, which happened to be the one to get into the house, fell out at some point before 12:30 and i didnt realized it until i was dancing and realized i didnt feel it. I looked around the club, and of course with my luck did not find it.
i sent a few texts to my sister and 2 of my brothers but none responded so i called my brother diego to tell him i lost my key and to please leave the door unlocked so that was no problem and i could enjoy the rest of the night. when i got home i got into the gate and then tried to open the door but, of course also with my luck, it was locked.. i'm guessing my sister locked it when she came in from her valentine's date with her fiance. super. so i decided to try to get in through the kitchen cause i knew that door was always unlocked. it's a sliding door so luckily it didnt make a lot of noise but then i realized the gate was locked inside the door so i still couldnt get in (i thought i was about to get lucky). i remembered that there was a key rack right inside next to the door so i tried every one of those like 20 keys in the lock (which was hard enough because one, i'm short and the lock is at the top of the gate and two, because the only light i had was from the moon so i could not see anything) which of course didnt work, and then i tried a few in the other door that was locked, but did not work either.
i decided i'd see if there were any way to get onto the balcony and come in through someone's window so i climbed onto a metal trash can to get onto my mom's balcony but there was like a mountain of poop.. maybe not a mountain.. a field! and i decided it would freak my mom out if someone was coming into her window! so then i looked around for a hidden key (some people keep those in the states.. why not here!?) and there was none. i sent diego and my sister cris a text to come open the door but neither of them answered after 5 minutes so i HAD to call my diego cause i had no other options and it was about 3 in the morning. i went to bed about 3:30ish and had to wake up at 6 in the morning to get up and take a shower (cause i leave for school at 7 since it typically takes about 45 minutes for the process of getting to school and sometimes i have to wait a little bit for a bus that goes to rio coca (the bus station). what a night.. and next day.
this past thursday night i went out dancing with a few friends and didnt want to bring a coat and had a casual dress and leggings on so i had no pockets. i decided before i left that i was probably going to get in late (my brother normally takes me places and picks me up whenever) and diego probably wouldnt want to pick me up at 2 so i put one key in my left high heel and one key in my right one. i had two keys because there is one for the outside gate and one for the door to the house. the key in my left shoe, which happened to be the one to get into the house, fell out at some point before 12:30 and i didnt realized it until i was dancing and realized i didnt feel it. I looked around the club, and of course with my luck did not find it.
i sent a few texts to my sister and 2 of my brothers but none responded so i called my brother diego to tell him i lost my key and to please leave the door unlocked so that was no problem and i could enjoy the rest of the night. when i got home i got into the gate and then tried to open the door but, of course also with my luck, it was locked.. i'm guessing my sister locked it when she came in from her valentine's date with her fiance. super. so i decided to try to get in through the kitchen cause i knew that door was always unlocked. it's a sliding door so luckily it didnt make a lot of noise but then i realized the gate was locked inside the door so i still couldnt get in (i thought i was about to get lucky). i remembered that there was a key rack right inside next to the door so i tried every one of those like 20 keys in the lock (which was hard enough because one, i'm short and the lock is at the top of the gate and two, because the only light i had was from the moon so i could not see anything) which of course didnt work, and then i tried a few in the other door that was locked, but did not work either.
i decided i'd see if there were any way to get onto the balcony and come in through someone's window so i climbed onto a metal trash can to get onto my mom's balcony but there was like a mountain of poop.. maybe not a mountain.. a field! and i decided it would freak my mom out if someone was coming into her window! so then i looked around for a hidden key (some people keep those in the states.. why not here!?) and there was none. i sent diego and my sister cris a text to come open the door but neither of them answered after 5 minutes so i HAD to call my diego cause i had no other options and it was about 3 in the morning. i went to bed about 3:30ish and had to wake up at 6 in the morning to get up and take a shower (cause i leave for school at 7 since it typically takes about 45 minutes for the process of getting to school and sometimes i have to wait a little bit for a bus that goes to rio coca (the bus station). what a night.. and next day.
oh my knees
another stupid day of mine.
Ryan and I were walking back from lunch with some friends on our way to photography class. There was a truck backing to the bank parking lot (and apparently they dont look behind them to see if people are there) so we tried to speed up a bit and i tripped on god only knows what (probably myself) and fell onto my knee. (not sure what the truck was doing at this point.. possibly about to run me over cause i fell behind it) I always have a lot of stuff with me and that day i was holding my tennis racket and either my box for photography or tennis shoes and i had a ton of stuff in my book bag which went flying over my head about making me do a face plant. so it hurt pretty bad for a second and then the pain kinda went away. I looked when we got to class and i had a huge i dont even know what to call it.. strawberry? my skin was kind of ripped away and it was bleeding just a bit. i was wearing leggings that day so it was really thin protection. my mom and sister kind of freaked out when i showed them and my brother's girlfriend bandaged me all up. they put the most painful stuff i've ever felt in my life on my knee (worse than alcohol).
the next day i kind of felt sick on the way to school so i told my professor when i saw her at school that i wasnt coming to class. that was a great start to the day. so i relaxed for about an hour on a couch and when i was leaving to go to my next class i was walking up like 3 stairs and tripped on those and fell again.. on the same knee. holy cow that hurt. definitely didnt help the healing process. then when me and my friend Jen were on the bus on the way to quito from cumbaya, my foot got stuck in the door that shut and holy cow that hurt. i somehow managed to wiggle my foot out but those doors are really heavy. my flip flop was stuck in the door for about 5 minutes until the bus stopped to let some people on and it was like folded in half at the top! haha luckily it didnt ruin the flip flop because it was my gray rainbows. my knee is just now better.. no scab but definitely going to be a pretty big scar.. at least i'll have a battle wound from ecuador!
Ryan and I were walking back from lunch with some friends on our way to photography class. There was a truck backing to the bank parking lot (and apparently they dont look behind them to see if people are there) so we tried to speed up a bit and i tripped on god only knows what (probably myself) and fell onto my knee. (not sure what the truck was doing at this point.. possibly about to run me over cause i fell behind it) I always have a lot of stuff with me and that day i was holding my tennis racket and either my box for photography or tennis shoes and i had a ton of stuff in my book bag which went flying over my head about making me do a face plant. so it hurt pretty bad for a second and then the pain kinda went away. I looked when we got to class and i had a huge i dont even know what to call it.. strawberry? my skin was kind of ripped away and it was bleeding just a bit. i was wearing leggings that day so it was really thin protection. my mom and sister kind of freaked out when i showed them and my brother's girlfriend bandaged me all up. they put the most painful stuff i've ever felt in my life on my knee (worse than alcohol).
the next day i kind of felt sick on the way to school so i told my professor when i saw her at school that i wasnt coming to class. that was a great start to the day. so i relaxed for about an hour on a couch and when i was leaving to go to my next class i was walking up like 3 stairs and tripped on those and fell again.. on the same knee. holy cow that hurt. definitely didnt help the healing process. then when me and my friend Jen were on the bus on the way to quito from cumbaya, my foot got stuck in the door that shut and holy cow that hurt. i somehow managed to wiggle my foot out but those doors are really heavy. my flip flop was stuck in the door for about 5 minutes until the bus stopped to let some people on and it was like folded in half at the top! haha luckily it didnt ruin the flip flop because it was my gray rainbows. my knee is just now better.. no scab but definitely going to be a pretty big scar.. at least i'll have a battle wound from ecuador!
bus incident
so i thought i'd tell yall about a day that was a few weeks ago and was ridiculous.
My friends, Ryan and Taylor, and I were leaving school one day and we always have to take a green bus back to Quito (because our school is in Cumbaya). We asked the guy that collects money on the bus if he was going to Quito and he kept saying El Sur and sube, sube (get on) so we got on of course. We realized about 10 minutes into the trip that we were NOT going the right way. We decided maybe we could get off and take a bus back to Cumbaya, so we stared out the window for a good 5 minutes and saw no buses passing by.. only charter buses and cars. Crap. So then it started raining and we knew we were going to have to get off at some point because we really didnt want to go all the way to downtown Quito because it's like 45 minutes from our houses. We decided to get off at a stop that a ton of people were getting off on, but disappeared after (and i have no idea where they went).
Of course like 2 seconds before we got off the rain started POURING. Probably the hardest rain I've seen here so far and it rains a lot. Our clothes were soaking wet as soon as we got off the bus. We asked the bus driver of a blue bus if we could get back to Cumbaya and he told us we needed to cross the road and there would be a bus coming from the other way. We didnt realize it until we stepped onto the road that it was a fricken RIVER. Our shoes and our pants almost up to our knees got even more soaked than they were before and we continued to cross the road. Taylor was wearing high-heeled boots and Ryan did not have a rain coat. I decided I would pull out my umbrella (cause that was going to help us get dry? i dont know) and of course it was at the bottom of my bookbag underneath the set of clothes that were in that section. I also had a tennis racket, a box for photography and some tennis shoes that i was holding.
We heard some laughing and turned around to see 2 kids standing underneat a trashbag laughing at us. so we waited there for a few minutes while it was still pouring down rain and then, just like in any movie where unlucky things happen, a car drove by pretty close to us and a wave of water came onto us. ridiculous. we waited a few more minutes and there certainly was not any buses coming so we decided to take a taxi and we'd just split the taxi (even though they are cheap already). so we told the guy we wanted to go back to cumbaya and he was like get in.. we were soaking wet with all of our stuff and decided to take some pictures so we could capture the moment and were talking in english the whole time (which is typically not smart because they will charge gringos more). we did not recognize where we were a few times and had to make sure the taxi driver knew we were still going to cumbaya (he probably thought we were idiots) and of course we still were.
Then, we started going through a random neighborhood and decided that the taxi driver was going to take us to his house and kill us so we started plotting (ryan suggested i use my tennis shoes to knock him on the head and i decided i would use my umbrella because it was harder). we finally got back to cumbaya and the cab ride (which was really on like 10 minutes) cost $8 which is way too expensive but we payed it anyway. then we ran to catch another green bus that was actually going to rio coca (the bus station we have to go to) and stood up the entire way because we were so wet we didnt want to get anyone else or the seats wet and it would feel real nasty to sit down. the bus ride to quito is about 25 minutes and i still wasn't very good at standing up on them so i bout fell a few times.
ha what a day.
needless to say, we were laughing the entire time and probably looked liked the biggest idiot gringos ever. it was even more interesting trying to tell this story in spanish to my family, but i always have some kind of adventure to tell them (they probably also think i'm an idiot). ridiculously amazing, funny, stupid, wet hour (or more) of our lives here in ecuador.
My friends, Ryan and Taylor, and I were leaving school one day and we always have to take a green bus back to Quito (because our school is in Cumbaya). We asked the guy that collects money on the bus if he was going to Quito and he kept saying El Sur and sube, sube (get on) so we got on of course. We realized about 10 minutes into the trip that we were NOT going the right way. We decided maybe we could get off and take a bus back to Cumbaya, so we stared out the window for a good 5 minutes and saw no buses passing by.. only charter buses and cars. Crap. So then it started raining and we knew we were going to have to get off at some point because we really didnt want to go all the way to downtown Quito because it's like 45 minutes from our houses. We decided to get off at a stop that a ton of people were getting off on, but disappeared after (and i have no idea where they went).
Of course like 2 seconds before we got off the rain started POURING. Probably the hardest rain I've seen here so far and it rains a lot. Our clothes were soaking wet as soon as we got off the bus. We asked the bus driver of a blue bus if we could get back to Cumbaya and he told us we needed to cross the road and there would be a bus coming from the other way. We didnt realize it until we stepped onto the road that it was a fricken RIVER. Our shoes and our pants almost up to our knees got even more soaked than they were before and we continued to cross the road. Taylor was wearing high-heeled boots and Ryan did not have a rain coat. I decided I would pull out my umbrella (cause that was going to help us get dry? i dont know) and of course it was at the bottom of my bookbag underneath the set of clothes that were in that section. I also had a tennis racket, a box for photography and some tennis shoes that i was holding.
We heard some laughing and turned around to see 2 kids standing underneat a trashbag laughing at us. so we waited there for a few minutes while it was still pouring down rain and then, just like in any movie where unlucky things happen, a car drove by pretty close to us and a wave of water came onto us. ridiculous. we waited a few more minutes and there certainly was not any buses coming so we decided to take a taxi and we'd just split the taxi (even though they are cheap already). so we told the guy we wanted to go back to cumbaya and he was like get in.. we were soaking wet with all of our stuff and decided to take some pictures so we could capture the moment and were talking in english the whole time (which is typically not smart because they will charge gringos more). we did not recognize where we were a few times and had to make sure the taxi driver knew we were still going to cumbaya (he probably thought we were idiots) and of course we still were.
Then, we started going through a random neighborhood and decided that the taxi driver was going to take us to his house and kill us so we started plotting (ryan suggested i use my tennis shoes to knock him on the head and i decided i would use my umbrella because it was harder). we finally got back to cumbaya and the cab ride (which was really on like 10 minutes) cost $8 which is way too expensive but we payed it anyway. then we ran to catch another green bus that was actually going to rio coca (the bus station we have to go to) and stood up the entire way because we were so wet we didnt want to get anyone else or the seats wet and it would feel real nasty to sit down. the bus ride to quito is about 25 minutes and i still wasn't very good at standing up on them so i bout fell a few times.
ha what a day.
needless to say, we were laughing the entire time and probably looked liked the biggest idiot gringos ever. it was even more interesting trying to tell this story in spanish to my family, but i always have some kind of adventure to tell them (they probably also think i'm an idiot). ridiculously amazing, funny, stupid, wet hour (or more) of our lives here in ecuador.
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