This River is Wild

So, as many of you know, I spent last weekend in the rainforest. What many of you don’t know (and I only have myself to blame on this one), was how much I loved it. As I told the MG, it was an experience so far removed from my life back home, which is exactly why I came to this country.

We left Saturday morning and after a quick stop at Papallacta, a volcanic hot springs where Liz enjoyed her first warm shower in this country, we arrived at a small town where we traded in our sneakers for rainboots and hopped into the canoe that would be our main mode of transportation for the weekend as we were staying on a river (not the Amazon…we asked). We stayed in cabins that were far more luxurious than we had imagined and ate like kings, two things that we had not expected given the preparation of our program director, who had led us to believe that the great outdoors would be our bathroom and that we may have to kill our own food.

Nghiem and I at the hot springs

The crew on the canoe.

Ryanncita outside the girls cabaña

The days in the jungle were jam-packed with activities so I’ll just give you some of the highlights. We had a spirit-cleansing performed by the villages Shaman and the next day went to see where he lives with his family and while there we were treated to a typical meal (I’ll explain this shortly). There was a night hike in which we saw a mondo tarantula and I almost cried. Not really, but I did run away which is hard in the dark when your flashlight is borderline dead. We also visited an animal rescue site where we saw monkeys strange birds. It was also Matt's 21st while we were there so we celebrated with cake and wine.

Here's the group inside one of the biggest trees I have ever seen

I’m really just trying to rush through these highlights to get to the following: While there we played Survivor because, honestly, conditions were too perfect not to. It didn’t last that long (we voted out the creator in the second tribal counsel and things were downhill from there), but it was one of the funniest things I have ever been a part of. The threat of being voted out became the motivation behind everything we did. Therefore, we did not question:

- eating ants we had found in leaf stems and that tasted like lemon

- building a raft together and rowing said raft back to our campsite

- participating in a blow dart gun competition (in which Brianna won immunity)

- painting tribal figures on our faces while visiting the indigenous family

- forming alliances and backstabbing friends

Ten minutes later, once cooked, these were part of our lunch (Mom - remember when I boycotted sandwiches for a year after finding a worm in the bread?)

Game faces.

Our river bath. By Day 3 cohabitation was becoming difficult with the amount of dirt that was clinging to us.

So although the game didn’t last long and I was/still am more bug-bitten than I ever have been in my life (Mom I’m taking the Malaria pills, have no fear), I loved the jungle and the four days we spent there and think it was one of the most hilarious and amazing weekends of my life.

Who Knew? Volcanoes

This weekend the group was pretty split up for different reasons (3 to the Galapagos, 2 on a trip for their hiking class) so 6 of us decided to visit the gorgeous volcanic crater, Quilotoa, about 4 hours from Quito by car. We left Saturday morning and got there around noon, it was colder than we were used to and raining slightly but we suited up and set out down the crater toward the lagoon by foot, practically sliding down the sand at times we had a good time posing for pictures and acting like we knew what we were doing.

Here we are at the top. Note: this is around the time that I decide I no longer want to smile in pictures.

And this is when we made it to the bottom and thought that our mules were leaving without us

On the way up we rode mules. This is not something about which I want to go into further detail (Dad, please note that I did not put the preposition at the end of this sentence), because I absolutely hated my mule and it was mutual. Let’s just say that for every 5 steps we took I probably had to wait 10 seconds to start back up again. Also, knees were buckling and I don’t mean mine. That’s alright, we survived.

The rest of the afternoon was kind of quiet as it was raining and cold and we had to snuggle by the fire to keep warm. Not all was a bust, though, because Emily and Jess decided to rescue the cutest dog of all time. We played Go Fish with the kids whose parents run the hostel and were in bed (we had booked two rooms but ended up just using one and having everyone share beds we were so cold) by 9.

The next morning was beautiful and our guide, Milton, took us on an incredible hike through the tops of the mountains that really can’t be captured by camera, but I tried. Milton didn’t think that we were going to be able to handle the 3 hour round-trip hike but we sure showed him.

Ryann, Brianna and I looking royal in an ancient Incan cave

Miss Yoga wanted to kill me for photographing her during this.

Brianna, Emily, Ryann and I on the hike

Anyways, I’m off to school in a minute but other updates real quick:

- Today is one of the girl’s birthdays so we made her a cake yesterday and tonight we’re going out to karaoke in Spanish which should be interesting

- Salsa lessons are going swimmingly. By that I mean I have not progressed in the two weeks we’ve been taking them but this past class I got to be the girl instead of the boy so things are looking up.

- This weekend we are headed for 4 days in the Amazon Jungle. Spiders and monkeys and anacondas, oh my.

- Shirts in English I have seen people wearing this past week:

• An 80-year-old man’s that says “Cage Fighter in Training”
• A son walking with his mother, her shirt read “I only go to school for the girls”

That’s all for now, un beso!

Living For the Weekend

This weekend was just fabulous. I’ll let the pictures do the talking as I haven’t had any in quite some time.

So we didn’t go out Friday night because we had to be up bright and early (6:30am) to go to Otavalo on Saturday. It was totally worth it though because it turned out to be one of my favorite days here so far.

On the way there we stopped at one of the many equator lines in the area.

Otavalo is a huge market where you can find anything you would ever want and then some (eg. blow-dart guns, indigenous masks, guitars made from armadillos)

Ryann and I in the market. She didn't end up getting that hat despite strong persuasion by me and the vendedora.

After the market we stopped for an indigenous lunch that left us all ridiculously full and may or may not have also left Ryann and Jungen slightly ill.

Sunday some of the girls decided to climb the Basilica, one of Quito's largest and most beautiful churches. Here's Leila crossing over, more than a little nervous.

And here's Emily, oh so excited about climbing the steepest and scariest ladders of all time.

Girls at the top of one end. We later climbed up the clock towers you can almost see in the back (I would apologize for the blurry quality of this one but that's what you get when you ask an 8-year-old Ecuadorian to photograph you).

Bueno, this week I have a very important list to leave you with.

Things I wish my best of friends Drin (who turned 21 yesterday!) could have been here for:

• The world of scarves, shoes and purses that is the indigenous market.
• We visited a waterfall after Otavalo and were already running behind on time but our bus driver, Santiago, persuaded us to literally sprint away from our screaming director, Amanda, and hike up to the top of the waterfall. Very vale la pena (that’s for you, Daddio).
• As soon as we got to the bell-tower of the Basilica I rang the bell as hard as I could, scaring the other girls a bit and perhaps misinforming some local residents of the hour.
• Catching up on Grey’s Anatomy in my bed. Erin Marie MacNeil would have been, without a doubt, the perfect person to cuddle with. Miss you baby girl.