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!