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!