Carnaval

This past week/weekend we had Monday and Tuesday off for the Ecuadorian holiday Carnaval. Nobody has really been able to explain to me the real exact point of Carnaval, but what it ends up being is 2 days with no school and lots of foam and water and eggs and stuff being thrown around. Aka, a great excuse to go to the beach. Thursday night we headed out. Our bus left Quito at 10:30 pm. We didn't really know how long of a trip it was going to be but we had chosen Same (pronounced Sah-May) because it was one of the closer beaches. Aka, the trip would probably take 4 hours by car and probably 6 hours by bus. Nope. We arrived in Same at approximately 7:00 in the morning. The crabbiness we felt from being on a crowded and uncomfortable bus the whole night was somewhat stifled by the fact that we were on the beach and on vacation and didn't have to worry about school or homework or anything except enjoying ourselves. We had two apartments for what ended up always being the 11 of us even though some people left early and came late. One had the jankiest kitchen I've ever seen and the other one was completely and totally bedazzled. It was pretty much an awesome combination. And we had balconies that overlooked the "Iguana Club" which was basically just a bunch of iguanas who hung out in the trees across the street from us. That was pretty sweet too. So our days basically consisted of going to the tienda to get breakfast food whenever we woke up, putting on our suits and going to the pool, eating lunch, chilling, going to the beach, showering and/or napping, back to the beach for dinner, back to the apartments for hanging out times, then back to the beach for swinging in hammocks and walking down the beach and going to bars and such. The openness of the coast is amazing. You never feel like you're inside which I love. All the bars and restaurants don't really have walls at all. It's just such a unique place. Oh and it didn't hurt that it was like 20-30 degrees warmer than in Quito. We were just living the idealistic perfect life. How amazing our 5-day vacation was made coming back to rainy work-filled Quito that much harder. Especially after another much more miserable bus ride back home. We left Same at 10:30 and hopped on the bus which would prove to always be the wrong temperature. First of all when I got on the bus I already felt a teensy bit sick to my stomach and was trying to keep the mental images of me huddled over a plastic bag in a moving bus for 10 hours out of my head. Second of all within the first hour I had to pee and was sweating. But about an hour and a half in we were stopped. At a complete standstill. In a line of probably 50 other buses. We had no idea why we were stopped, just that we were stopped and that the driver had turned the air vents off and it smelled a bit like urine. This was disheartening. And made it all the more difficult to sleep. About an hour later we realized we were in a line waiting to be searched by the police. About an hour later we actually made it to this police check point. We all had to get off the bus, present identification, and be patted down by the police, the guys with their hands against the side of the bus and the girls just in a line. Then we had to walk back on showing our faces to the video camera that one policeguy was holding. Now this wasn't entirely unexpected since on the way to the coast we were stopped and a policeman came on and took video of all of our faces, but still it was weird and uncomfortable. We finally got moving but were stopped another few times by the police just so they could talk to the bus driver and take video of everyone one more time. Ridiculous. Now I was smart in my planning and knew that it would be colder on the way to Quito so although I was wearing a skirt, I had sweatpants in my bag. As soon as it started to get chilly, I went to get them out, but alas, my water bottle had spilled all over them. So for the rest of the ride I shivered. Due to all this nonsense and the utter uncomfort the bus seats are, I did not sleep. For 10 hours. I was pretty darn crabby the next morning when we got into Quito and we arrived too late for me to actually go to my first or second classes so I took a two hour nap, then got up and went to school. I've been recovering ever since and I think I've come to terms with the fact that I no longer just get to chill on the beach every day and just have fun, but still. If my whole life could just be a huge long vacation, I would be so incredibly happy.

-EM