Conversations

The little things make my days here wonderful. One of the little things that always makes my day interesting and lively are the conversations I have with my host family. Not only are they funny or intruiging or contemplative or fascinating, but the thing that really gets me is that I'm having these conversations in Spanish. Regular, normal conversations, and I am able to fully grasp them and talk about them all in Spanish. It's amazing. For example, the other day we were talking about Pico y Placa (how on Tuesdays we can't drive between 7 and 10 and 4:30 and 7:30 because our license plate ends in 5) and about how one time my host mom left in the car to go get bread at 7:15 without realizing it was Tuesday. Pico y Placa fines are immense ($80 and they impound your car for a day...after your first offense it gets worse) so you don't want to get caught driving when you're not supposed to. So anyways, my mom leaves the house in the car when she's not supposed to. Isabel, my sister, realizes this and calls her to tell her to come home. She catches her on the phone when she's at the corner. If she goes around the circle drive thing to get back to our house she'll pass directly by the police and get caught. So she has to put the car in reverse and get back to our garage. So she puts the car in reverse and starts backing up and all these people are yelling at her and yelling at her and saying things like, "why are you out of the kitchen?" and "shouldn't you be at home cooking?" obscenely sexist things like that. And all the while she's just backing up the car. Maybe you had to be there but it was SUCH a funny story. Isabel, Marcia, and I were just cracking up. Joaquin was oblivious of course. Jaja. But it was amazing to me that we were just chilling, chatting, and it was all in Spanish and I felt totally comfortable. :)

Some other conversations we've had are about fairy tales, which ones are the same in Ecuador and the U.S. and which ones they have that we don't and vice versa, how one of my friends looks super-Latina but she's not at all and that makes for some interesting encounters with the locals, how my madre accidently insulted one of her friends and how hilarious it was, and how Joaquin always coughs (even when he's not sick) because my madre always does that and he learned it from her.

Conversations are amazing in general because they allow you to really connect with other people. It is spectacular to me how at home and comfortable I feel here in Ecuador and with my host family and I love the interesting conversations I have both with them and with the people I've met here.

-EM

P.S. I hope you have an amazing conversation too this week. :D

The Past Little While

I know I haven't posted in a while and for that I am sorry. But I do have a reason. Last Saturday I wasn't feeling so great (don't worry, it was far from terrible, my throat just hurt and I was completely exhausted) and thus I literally laid in bed all day and watched old episodes of The West Wing. I quite enjoyed this little respite, bu I didn't think it worthy of a blog post and I didn't want to get your hopes up when you saw I had a new post and it just turned out to be me regaling the faux white house adventures of 1999. But now, of course, I have far too many adventures to tell you about. Ah the conundrum. Well let's begin.

Thursday/Friday (3rd/4th of February) was kind of awful because I had a quiz in both of my history classes. Boo. And we've been getting our grades back on stuff. Turns out the first one went horribly and the second one went alright. Again, boo. I'm not a big fan of getting bad grades because a) that means I'm either not working hard enough or b) I'm stupid. Or you know, a combination of the two. But either way I end up feeling like a horrible human being and I don't like that (hint as to how this week is going...)

Friday afternoon we went to this really cool photo exhibit in Centro Historico called World Press Photo. It is an exhibit for photo journalism that travels around the world and has already been to EE. UU. (USA). We ate lunch at a cute pizza place and then I went home and fell asleep at like 7:00, basically until the next day where I laid in bed all day. Definitely a necessary respite, but I felt so lazy considering I'm in a foreign country and I'm supposed to be adventuring.

Sunday we went to the La Liga vs. Barcelona soccer game. Both of these teams are Ecuadorian, but they represent different parts (the Sierra and the Costa) and thus are HUGE rivals. The game was crazy. There were an amazing amount of police there to keep the crowds in check. The game was very cool. I'd never been to a big soccer game like that so it was all very interesting, and although it rained, we had a ton of fun.

Then starts the week.

Last week was definitely a roller coaster (montaña rusa). The beginning of the week started off badly. I had to watch this movie for one of my classes and then write a 3-page paper on it, all of which was due Tuesday. When did I start watching the movie? Monday afternoon of course. So that was my Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday were both pretty wonderful because my classes weren't awful and Tuesday night we went out for Vicki's 21st birthday (and I had a super-wonderful piña colada) and Wednesday we went out for Ladie's Night at Bungalow 6 (a club where on Wednesdays ladies get in free until 10). Those were both very fun nights although I was quite sleepy in class for the rest of the week.

Friday night we went out to the clubs which was fun. We even met some backpackers from Argentina! Although they both spoke Spanish, they would talk to us in English. We wanted to practice our Spanish though so we would respond to them in Spanish. Conversations definitely work like this (and happen more often than you'd think) but I kind of wish people would just speak to us in Spanish since they know we're here to practice and learn.

Saturday we went to Papallacta which is a resort place about 2 hours outside of Quito. This is one of the trips that is included in our study abroad package so we didn't have to pay for anything which was very nice. They have thermal hot springs that are supposed to be super good for you. There are all sorts of things that being in the water is supposed to do for your health. It was amazing. We were sitting in Ecuador, surrounded by mountains, in hot water from a volcano. Crazy. We had the MOST amazing lunch and then some people got massages while others went on a little walk/hike. I was one of the people who went for a little walk and it was amazing. We walked past an organic garden, some llamas, some sheep, cows, little rivers, etc. It was quite the fun little excursion. And the view on the way there and back! Amazing. Everyone always says they're going to take a nap on the bus but we never do because there is just too much to see out the window.

On Sunday Becky, Rebecca, and I took the bus to Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world). On the bus on the way there it was raining, but luckily it wasn't when we arrived! Oh and there was the most adorable little sleepy puppy in the lap of the woman next to us on the bus. So cute! So Mitad del Mundo is (I believe) technically a city, but there is basically this park area with a monument in it that you pay to enter. $2 gets you inside where you can go to the monument and take a picture of you straddling the Equator. There are also tons of little shops with food and souveniers, it's almost like it's own little town. There are playgrounds too so it is a popular Sunday destination for Ecuadorian families. We took tons of pictures then met up with Emory and her host sister and host sister's friend. Now this Mitad del Mundo is not actually technically the Equator. The guy who made it was about 300 meters off. This we knew, but we didn't know how to get to the smaller park with the actual Equator. But Emory's sister did so we got to go see that too! More of a cultural/sciency park than a touristy one, we still had a lot of fun taking pictures and looking around. Then they asked us if we would want to go to a lake that was about an hour and a half away. We didn't really have anything else to do but homework so off we went! What a crazy adventure road trip. The four of us were squashed in the back seat as we wound through the Ecuadorian countryside. It's not everyday that you get to see a volcano while you're on a road trip. We finally made it to the city of Cotacachi (famous for their leather) about 2 hours later and headed up into the dark and cloudy mountain to see the lake that is actually in the crater of an inactive volcano. GORGEOUS. The water is all tourquise-y and beautiful and even though it was raining we could tell just how clean and fresh and beautiful what we were seeing was. We made our way home, all of us nodding off slightly as we were heading back to start yet another week of school.

The more I see of Ecuador, the more I love it and the more I am in awe of what God created for us to discover.

Monday I wasn't in the greatest mood because I had gotten some bad grades back and was feeling like an idiot and a failure and found out that I'm going to have a really hard midterm on Monday. But I made some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for my family for Valentine's Day! That was really fun. And it was also interesting shopping for some of the ingredients that I needed that we didn't have. They don't have baking soda here. It doesn't exist and nobody knows what it is. That was interesting to discover. And I was also going to use applesauce instead of butter in the cookies (galletas), but they don't have that either. Interesting, no?

Today is another day. I ate a mango (25 cents at the supermarket) and had hot chocolate for an afternoon snack and now I'm about to embark on another adventure. But this one is not going to be fun. HOMEWORK. Yuck. But I know that I have to focus more and try harder if I'm going to be able to reach my academic goals. I'm learning so much just from living here that it feels very hard that I have to be tested on stuff I'm learning in the classroom. I'll remember my experiences here and what I learned from living in a foreign country so much more and so much more fondly than the things I'm learning at school. But it is important to me to not feel stupid, and thus I am going to begin going above and beyond in my schoolwork. Hopefully.

Anyways, I sent out some love-vibes yesterday for the day of love and friendship/el día de amor y amistad (as it is called here). I hope that all of you are doing well.

Besos y abrazos,
EM

Pics: Facebook Album #3

One Month

So I've been in Ecuador for an entire month now. HOW WEIRD IS THAT. Super weird. One part of me feels like May 16 is really really far away, and the other part of me feels like it's just around the corner.

Anyways, that's all. :)

-EM

Baños de Agua Santa

Baños is a small touristy town a 3.5-hour bus ride from the Southern bus terminal in Quito.

Spoiler Alert.

[Side Story: Yes, you are right. Your first grade Spanish has gotten you far. Baños does mean bathroom. But the town of Baños is technically named Baños de Agua Santa, or Baths of The Holy Water. Quote from some tourist website: "Banos draws its name from the 5 sets of thermal baths fashioned into concrete pools."]

Okay back to the story. So Baños is a small touristy town a 3.5-hour bus ride from the Southern bus terminal in Quito. Which is a hectic/tiring 2 hour bus ride through Quito from my house. Which we didn't really realize when we hopped on the Ecovia on Friday. Rebecca, Emory, and I had quite the time of trying to figure out where the bus terminal actually was and how we were supposed to get there. But we made it, met up with Megan (another girl who was going with us), bought our tickets, and were on our way. The Southern part of Quito felt like an entirely different country, and it wasn't even in a different city. I don't really know how to explain why, but it did. And the bus terminal was just as nice/legit as most airports. Super clean and big with all sorts of buses going everywhere.

And bathrooms. That you have to pay to use. This is actually not an uncommon thing here, and in my opinion it seems quite intelligent. Women have to pay 15 cents to use the toilet, and after paying they receive a small section of toilet paper. There is no toilet paper in the actual restroom. Men pay 10 cents to use the urinal and 15 cents to use the toilet. How embarrassing would that be. "Oh you gave me 5 extra cents sir." "Nope, I didn't." "Oh but yes you did, here's your 5 cents." "No, really, I don't need change. Can I just have my toilet paper?" "Ohhhhhh... [pained silence where both parties know that the man has to poop] Yeah, here you go sir, sorry about that." Anyways, I think this is a good thing because a) it helps out the economy which is always good b) it's less messy if you don't have extra toilet paper to get all over the floor and such and c) much of the time, and especially in less developed areas, you can't flush toilet paper down the toilet, you have to throw it away in the waste basket, but if you only have a little square, it can't get clogged and such!

Anyways...

I really love the introspection that long bus rides through a new place bring. I like road-tripping in a car as well, but when you're in a bus your mind is completely free to wander and wonder because there's nothing you can do to make the trip go any faster or slower, your plans are completely up to the bus driver. We left in the early evening so as we were driving the sun set on many sleepy nameless towns. We picked up local families and travelelers as we wound our way through the mountains. The sun set and as the lights passed I listened to music and let calm wash over me.

You know how people always say that they wish their life had a soundtrack? While when you're on a bus in the middle of the Ecuadorian countryside and you're listening to your iPod, your life does have a soundtrack and it is a completely soothing and existencial experience.

Anyways...

We arrived in Baños in the early evening and basically wandered around until we figured out where our hostel was. The streets of the town at night are not like Quito. In Quito when you walk around at night, even in a group of people, you feel like you must constantly be on the lookout for suspicious behavior. Cops hanging around and doing who knows what, other drunken tourists, people who look like ladrones (robbers), perritos, etc. In Baños the main street/area was super well lit and there were tons of people everywhere. I had been told by a girl I met who had already been there that it would feel a lot safer than Qutio but I was struck by how different it really did feel. Part of the reason for this is that the town functions because of tourism. They are used to tourists and they aim to please them. If your town is rumored to be unsafe, the tourists don't want to come. At least that's my idea.

We checked into our hostel, set up camp, and went out to find food.

[Side Story: Ecuador has a change/money problem. Don't know if I mentioned this before or not. But yeah, they do. If you pay with anything that is not a coin or a one dollar bill they will inspect it to see if it is counterfeit. If you try to pay for something with a 20-dollar-bill the cashier will give you a look of death. Unless your total is like $18. If it's not, be prepared to feel guilty for the rest of the day. Coins are like gold. And I mean, okay Sacas (Sacajewaya is just too hard to say or spell so we always just abbreviate it) are gold-colored, but you get my point. If your change is $3.50 you will be getting 3 Sacas and a 50-cent-piece. You want to have coins. You need them to pay for bus rides and taxi rides and just about everything else. And don't even go thinking you can pay for anything with a credit card. Unless it's at the grocery store and you want to pay a lot of tax.]

So we ate at a restaurant on the main street. Then we decided to wander around and check out some of the stuff they had around. We of course ended up at a little store with Ecuadorian goods. They had tons of scarves and shirts and purses, etc. etc. It was super cool because we all ended up getting things we wanted and we got to talk to the store owners for awhile. Again, everyone in Baños is super nice. They were playing Avril Lavigne so we talked about that for awhile and other American music and all the tourists who come into their store, etc. etc. It was great and a fun way to practice our Spanish.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to rainy and dreary weather. Not exciting. We got a good Ecuadorian breakfast for $2 then headed off to find the tourist information center to figure out the day's activities. We wanted to go horseback riding, mountain bike, and take a nighttime tour of the volcano.

[Side Story: There's a volcano in Baños. Tungurahua Volcano. It was too cloudy on Saturday to see it very well but on Sunday our taxi driver stopped on the way to the Aquarium and let us take some pics...my camera was dead of course...but still it was quite cool. Photo.]

Anyways, we only really ended up doing the horseback riding. We had a super amazing guide who took us up some streets and then up this path up through some mountains and then on this super trecherous path and then to some waterfalls. I had never been horseback riding before, thus I was a bit scared. So I got an old, slow, nice horse [Luchita] who the guide led down the trecherous part. Pics or it didn't happen... The very small portion of time where I had my camera out while on the horse and then immediately regretted it.

We got some AMAZING food at Café Hood, an extremely well known and well recommended restaurant, and then decided to go to the zoo.

The zoo was just a short taxi ride away to the small town of San Martín, but apparently it was far enough away/small-town enough that gringas were an exciting sight to see. While inside the park, 2 different groups of Ecuadorians asked to take pictures with just me (the blond hair...) and then all of us. It made me feel famous. Anyways, this zoo literally cost us $2 a piece and we saw a jaguar, turtles from the Galapagos, pumas, condors, parrots that talked to us, other turtles, tonnnnnns of monkeys, and bears. WHAT? It was awesome. Here are some pics: Mono 1 Mono 2 Tortuga Puma Chica Paisaje

That night we went out for dinner at this fancy little Italian place. And by fancy I mean it had a bottle of wine on the table and tableclothes and candles but it was still like $8 a person total. Then we went to the thermal baths that the town is famous for. We suited up and headed out to the baths that we heard were a mix of super crowded and cool. Well first of all they were right next to a waterfall, so that was pretty cool. And they were also packed full of people. The water is known to have therapeutic/curative powers and there are 3 pools (too cold, just perfect, too hot) and so people like to come to just hang out in the just perfect pool and get cured of everything. Very fun and relaxing. And the walk back to the hostel wasn't as cold as we thought it was going to be! Although we did seeing a drunken man peeing against a wall.

The next morning we went to the aquarium that was in the same town/across the street from the zoo we were at the day before. After we ate some great pancakes with fresh fruit on them first of course. At first the aquarium was just kind of strange. All sorts of fish that creeped me out and literally FIFTEEN boa constricters that we're thinking they just went out to the jungle and caught. But then we discovered the exotic birds portion of the exhibit. Flamencos & Natalie Portman & Ostriches.

Heading back home on the bus to the South terminal was great. The rest of it not so much, although it did go quite more smoothly than the way there. :)

Anyways, I think that's all I have to say about Baños. Very good weekend.

Today I worked on a paper that's due tomorrow while sitting next to the school's lagoon in the sun and ate a blackberry popscicle. It was quite heavenly. Minus the paper-writing part. But I wrote it! It's done! And it's not even due until 14 hours from now. Now that's studiousness.

Also, MSU has a snow day for tomorrow already. WHAT? How am I not there for this epic-ness? Being away has been very much a learning experience. About Ecuador and life and Spanish and culture, etc. etc. but also a lot about myself. Introspective post to come. :)

It feels like I have an exorbitant amount of time to spend here at the same time that it feels like I'm already running out of time. Strange, no?

Anyways, I love you all. At least I assume I do because if you're reading my blog you probably like me a little tiny bit and if you're willing to do that then I'm pretty sure I love you. :)

-EM

Cómo se dice "to complain"?

Quejarse. That is the verb, "to complain."

But see the thing is...here, they really don't complain. This was something I noticed after being here for about a week and a half. Maybe it's just my host family, but even the other individuals I've interacted with from Ecuador just don't really seem to want to complain. Maybe it's part of the culture. Maybe they have a feeling of felicidad (happiness) just because they're alive and relatively healthy. Maybe they have just been taught that complaining is a waste of time. I really don't know...

But the thing I do know is that I like how mostly kind words, words of happiness, peace, excitement, contentment, etc. are spoken in my house.

All food is rico (yummy) and all days are lindo (beautiful).

Taking afternoon naps is also commended as doing one of the awesomest things you can do. Por ejemplo (for example), this afternoon I woke up from a nap and came out of my room. My sister was in her room and she asked, "descansaste bien?" (did you rest well?). I said yep, definitely, and laughed a little bit at myself. To this she said (repeated here in my broken version of Spanish), "a descansar en la tarde es el mejor cosa, es rico, no?" "To nap in the afternoon is the best, isn't it?"

I hope that this is one of the things I can learn from the culture of Ecuador, because I think America would be a much happier place if everyone complained just a little bit less.

-EM

A Week in the Life

Hola mundo!

I know I haven't written anything in like a week, bad Emily, but really it just consisted of school, just like every normal week at MSU.

A normal day consists of: I wake up, get ready, cross the terrifying street, hop on a bus, go to class, hang out outside/do homework, go home, do homework, hang out with my host family, watch some TV online, and go to bed by 11:00.

Not necessarily normal, but not quite exciting enough to blog about daily. But now I have a whole week and weekend's worth of observations and conversations and events that I need to write about. Aye.

Exciting school thing of the week! I actually raised my hand and asked a question in class. Yes, I rehearsed it in my head before raising my hand, and it wasn't a complicated question, but I still asked a question in class. Not something you'd think I'd congratulate myself on, but being in a non-Spanish-studying class that all speaks Spanish and is taught in Spanish means that asking a question for the first time is cause for a little celebration. :)

Non-exciting school thing of the week. One of my classes apparently has pop quizzes. I'm not really loving on this. First quiz wasn't so bad, I understood what she was asking and had read the material BUT I mixed some things up in my head and probably only got half right. Second quiz was bad. I didn't understand exactly what she was asking for all the parts of the quiz. I also thought we were supposed to read the second chapter before coming to class, so I had spent a good two hours the night before reading the second chapter. Apparently not. Apparently we were supposed to read the third chapter. Hence, I did not do so well and am not excited about future pop quizzes.

Alright so yesterday. Yesterday was Friday. I went to my 2 morning classes, chatted with Rebecca for awhile (I love just chatting one-on-one with Rebecca because it's calm so we can talk in Spanish and not feel like we're not able to get our whole point across and we help each other learn at the same time), then went and got some ice cream at my favorite ice cream place near campus, Kicos. As I was sitting there, enjoying my delicious $1 mango ice cream, who happens to walk by? Two guys in full camo military get-up with huuuuuge guns. Waltzing around like they own the place. Why? I have absolutely no idea. I was actually talking to someone about that today. The police here don't seem like they're here to protect you, same thing with these scary camo guys, they seem like they're there to shoot somebody if they do something wrong. Or like something is going wrong, someone's in the mafia, or running a secret drug operation, and they're there to catch it. I've been here like two weeks and I can't count the number of times I thought I was in a place where there was a secret drug operation going on.

So yesterday I took the bus home, right? And a guy hopped on selling DVDs (as has happened before). He hands out DVDs (usually really new ones, like some that are still in theatres) in plasticy covers and then comes back and picks them back up if you don't want to buy them. Usually I just ignore the guy and don't even take them when he hands them out, but I wanted to check out which ones he had. I ended up getting 3 of them for $2 (even though they're supposed to be $1 each). The Tourist, Gulliver's Travels, and Never Let Me Go. I've heard they're usually in English with Spanish subtitles and I'm hoping they work in my computer! (Because I've heard somewhere they don't. This seems incredibly sketchy and illegal, right? Well I mean it probably is, but here they really don't care. Like there are actual stores that sell these kinds of copies of DVDs. Interesante, no?

All of the children who go to school here have to wear uniforms so you'll be getting on the bus or walking around town and there will be tons of kids of all ages in uniforms, but something I noticed yesterday was that most of their uniforms don't seem to be weather appropriate. Like yesterday it had to be 70 degrees and most of the children I saw were wearing uniform gray sweatpants and sweatshirts. But they don't seem to find it out of the ordinary or uncomfortable.

In the afternoon I was supposed to meet up with some of the girls at a market near Plaza Foch. I got there and started walking South, because I was relatively sure I had seen a map and that was where the market was. I was wandering around for awhile, saw no market, and was realizing how sketchy I felt wandering  around somewhere by myself and having no idea where I was. I ended up at this intersection where there was a mall and a CoffeeTree and some statues so I felt more comfortable there. Then I got a call that my friends had gotten robbed on the bus and so I should probably come back to Plaza Foch seeing as they didn't really want to go to the market anymore anyways. I went back and they explained to me what had happened. We were given all sorts of instructions on how to not get robbed, but even though they were following all of those instructions it still happened. They were on an incredibly crowded bus and even though they were holding their purses close to their bodies, a 20-something old girl and her 50-something old mom/older woman friend slit open their bags and stole their wallets and one girl's camera. They all felt incredibly violated and upset, because replacing ATM cards and Censos and change was going to be difficult. But we were all also very impressed with the skill of these robbers. How they did all of that on a crowded bus without hurting anyone and without ANYONE noticing was kind of incredible. Another thing that was interesting is that it was two women. Christina commented that that was probably the things that shocked her the most, was that it wasn't two able-bodied young sketchy men like you would expect, but it was an overweight older woman and a woman our own age. This was all very interesting to me, obviously, but I have yet to critically unpack the ideas this implicates. We needed a little American time so after this we went to Emory's host family's apartment and ate pizza and watched a movie. :)

Today we went to Centro Historical (the Old Town area of Quito) to wander around and sort of explore.

A photographic tour of our journeys will be updated shortly. :)

-EM

P.S. Photographic Tour

Las calles

Mas

Ecuadorian White House, but the president has elected to not actually live there.

Plaza Grande

Bonito

Chevere

Plaza San Fransisco

Basilica

Mindo es Lindo.

Lindo means beautiful in Spanish. If it also meant ridiculous, adventurous, dramatic, terrifying, extremely terrifying, janky, unreal, and crazy, then the phrase "Mindo es Lindo"would accurately describe this weekend. This weekend was en serio (seriously) one of the most adventurous and ridiculous weekends of my life.

Mindo is a very small touristy town in Ecuador about a 2-hour bus ride through the mountains from Quito. We left on Friday around 4:00 luckily making it to the correct bus station and correct bus in time for our bus's departure. We were thirteen MSU/USFQ students who had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. The bus ride was...frightful to say the least. Our bus wound through the Andes mountains and through the ventanas (windows) we could see the absolutely beautiful paisajes (landscapes) around us. We passed an orchard reserve and tiny farming houses and it was incredibly gorgeous. We could also see the extreme likelihood of our deaths if our bus driver made a tiny little mistake. The road didn't exactly have barriers to keep us from toppling over the edge of the mountain and into the abyss. I was a little nerve-wracked. But we made it to Mindo! Success. The owner of the hostel we had reservations at (thanks to Allison!) met us at the bus station and walked us over to our hostel. Ah to describe our hostel experience in one word: Chévere (really cool in Spanish, a colloquial word of Ecuador). Casa de Cecilia. We had a whole house to ourselves, with lots of rooms and bathrooms, outfitted with linens and towels and mosquito nets. We ate a $2.50 breakfast that she made us while looking out at the river and the hummingbirds that always fluttered around. For all of our activities we just paid her and she called taxis for us and/or told us where to go. For only $6/night! Words cannot describe the great experience we had there. There was a reggae bar down the road that was also super cool, with rocks suspended from the ceiling and tables made of what seemed like trees. The bar was actually a three-story, open air, bar/restaurant/house where the owner's family lived. The first night we walked into "town" (really just one street with restaurants and stores on it) and found a restaurant to eat at. The owner was this adorable old man and the food he served us was delicious. We would soon learn that what we ordered at this restaurant was basically what all the restaurants had in Mindo, Pilsener (a very popular Ecuadorian brand of beer), Coke, Rice, this tomato and onion "ensalada," papas fritas (french fries) and some variety of fried sea food (fins & head included of course :/). While it is annoying to have to go out to eat for every meal when we go on excursions, it is amazing how much cheaper food is here compared to the United States, and it especially helps that there is a service tax that includes tip, so you don't have to worry about that and it's often included in the price of your food. For example, over the whole weekend (2 breakfasts,  2 lunches, 2 dinners) I spent a total of about $23 on food, something nearly impossible to do in the United States. Whenever we would go out to dinner or go out to bars (where liquor and beer is also much cheaper than in the U.S.), without fail someone would say, "I really don't want to go back..." :) We went out for a while Friday night, but we were all exhausted and wanted to have energy for the next day, so we went to bed at around midnight.

Hostal

River behind our Hostal

Then we get to Saturday. The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast by the river and started our day in a flurry of bug spray and sun screen. Our plan was to go "tubing." Now there are different kinds of tubing, and as usually happens to us, we all expect a specific experience (and our ideas of what our activities will be like differ) and usually none of us are right. Now there's the kind of tubing done behind a boat (this one we weren't thinking of, because we knew we'd be going down a river), the kind of floating down a calm river tubing (affectionately called "floating down the river with beer"), and apparently there's the kind of tubing where you need 2 guides, you're in 6 tubes all attached to each other, and you need helmets and life jackets because there are a RIDICULOUS amount of rocks in the river that you're attempting to tube down. Yep, that was the kind of tubing that we did. On our way to tubing we were in a taxi (a.k.a. a pickup truck with room for 3 in the cab and the rest of us standing up in the bed of the truck) and I kept seeing a river to our right. It had a lot of rocks in it so I kept saying, "guys is that the river we're going down?" And everyone kept responding, "well, probably, but we're probably not going down that part because there are too many rocks." Oh how we were wrong. We got out of our taxi, put on our lifejackets and helmets and were introduced to our guides. Given quick instructions in Spanish about how to maneuver the tubes if we were to get stuck on rocks, we were ready. We split up in two groups, got into the icy water, and we were off. What exhilarating and crazy fun. "Cuidados" were heard loud and clear and Mateo's girlish screaming was quite humorous. The chill of the cold water was no longer our greatest concern. $6 can buy you quite a bit of fun in Mindo.

Tubing

El Grupo

We went back to our hostel and changed clothes, immediately ready for our next adventure, ziplining. $10 buys you a ziplining tour of the cloud forest with 2 trained guides over 12 different cables. Needless to say I was terrified. My fear of heights was not the greatest thing for zooming on cables hundreds of feet above the ground. But it was an experience I am so glad I did not miss out on. The first and last trips were the worst, the first because I was terrified and I didn't know exactly what it would be like, and the last because it was the highest, probably 1000 feet off the ground. There were fancy tricks you could do with the guides (Mariposa y Superhombre), but I elected to not do those. Simply ziplining was enough of a challenge for me already. :) While you were "zipping" you could see everything around you and it was absolutely incredible. We talked about how in the United States you couldn't do something like that. A) because there is nothing as cool as the cloud forest in the U.S. B) Because it would need to be incredibly regulated, and C) Because it would probably cost about $200 to do 2 cables instead of $10 for 12 cables.

Tengo miedo de alturas

Cuidado

Éxito

Mindo Ropes & Canopy

What a crazy day. On the way back to our hostel (in the back of a pickup truck of course) we were talking about how we had never done so many ridiculous things in one day.

That next morning we took a taxi to this thing called terabita which goes to the waterfalls. It is this little cart that goes along this cable and brings you to this other mountain so you can hike around and go to the waterfalls and swim in them and such. This was also terrifying, you'll understand when you see pictures. I kept saying, "this is the craziest, most dangerous, jankiest thing I have ever done in my life." But we made it. Little did we know that we had to hike on paths in the mountains that were covered in incredibly slippery mud to get to the waterfalls, but it was a great experience. Beautiful waterfalls, some janky stairs, even sketchier bridges, etc. It was incredible and also extremely tiring. We went back on the Terabita, got back to our hostel, ate some lunch, and then everyone slept on the bus back to Quito.

Terabita

Sketchy Bridge

Una Cascada

What a weekend full of craziness and fun, I'm glad to be back in Quito because this weekend was culture shock for me with so much adventurousness. This afternoon I'm ready for a nap for sure!

-EM