Laguna Quilotoa

On the drive back, we got to see Cotopaxi, the snow capped mountain outside of Quito. I´ve been here for six weeks and still haven´t seen it yet so at least something good came after getting pooped on. Usually there are too many clouds to see it but we got lucky that there were no clouds at the time we drove back. This is a picture of me with the guide and two other travelers in our group. I´m wearing the hippie pants I had to buy after the donkey incident.

After hiking down, we rode donkeys back up the same trail. While I was getting on my donkey, I accidently hit another one in the face with my foot. As we started back up, my donkey kept getting really close to the other one that I had hit. All of the sudden, I looked down, and the donkey that I had kicked in the face, was pooping all over me! I didn´t have any way to getting away and I had poop from above my knee down my leg and covering my shoe. The worst part was that I had to ride the whole hour back with poop all over me. The guides were all laughing at me along with all the people that were hiking down. It was so gross. I must have had bad karma from kicking the donkey and he decided to get back at me. Thankfully, at the top there was a market and I was able to buy a new pair of pants so at least I didn´t stink for the three hour car ride back to Quito.



We had a steep hike down to the Laguna where at one point we had a traffic jam with some sheep who were trying to make their way up.


We finally got to the Laguna Quilotoa and it was so pretty. The color of the water is so blue from all the minerals in the water. The dark spot in the center is a reflection from one of the clouds above.


This is a picture of one of the beds that is more or less just a bunch of blankets and hay in the corner. In the house are also little chicks running around and guinea pigs which they eat. It´s really dark inside and they just have one little light for the house. Because we were so high up, it was really cold outside but once we walked into the house, it was a lot warmer. The way that the house is built and the materials they use keep it warm when it´s cold out and also keep it cool when it´s hot outside. There are also so many people in one small room that that seems to keep it pretty warm inside too.


After the market, we visited the home of an indigenous family. This hut in the center is where they live and on the drive to the Laguna, you can see various houses scattered along the fields. The house is just one room where they eat and sleep and although it doesn´t look like it, the roof is actually waterproof from the smoke that they burn so that the rain doesn´t get in.


Yesterday, I went on a tour with a couple friends to the Laguna Quilotoa which is a lake inside a volcanic crater. A few hundred years ago, the volcano errupted and now there is this laguna where the volcano used to be. On the drive there, we made a few stops along the way. This is a picture in Pujili where there is an indigenous market every Sunday. The people from the surrounding villages come to buy and sell food and other goods. Bananas are the second highest export after petroleum and there were tons at this market.

Baños

The next day I went ziplining across this really pretty river. It was scary at first but also really fun and the views were so beautiful.

At the end of the bus ride, we didn´t know there was going to be a 45 minute hike to go see another waterfall and we were all really unprepared. I was wearing flip flops and it was raining on and off. It was also starting to get dark so on the way back we ended up having to hike in the pitch black. These are my friends Kelly and Andres attempting to hike in the dark.


We took this bus around and since we were surround by a bunch of mountains we had to go through a lot of tunnels like this which were pitch black and kind of scary.



A couple weeks ago I went to Baños for the weekend which is a small town about 3 hours from Quito. It´s called Baños because of the warm thermal baths they have there that occur naturally from the Volcanos close by. The area is really pretty and there are a ton of waterfalls. The day we got there we went on a tour to see all the waterfalls and made a couple stops along the way. This is a picture of one of the waterfalls.

Otavalo

This is a picture of the Laguna de Cuicocha. We hiked up a small trail to eat lunch at the top of this mountain that overlooked the lake. It was a great view.

To get to the Laguna, we had to take a truck where we squeezed nine of us in the back bed. This is a picture of Kelly, who I had met a couple weeks ago and randomly ran into in Otavalo, Sarah who is from Canada and volunteering at an orphanage, Sarah, the girl I live with from Sweden, and me in the truck.

On Sunday, we took the bus to Cotacaci, a town about 20 minutes away to visit the Laguna de Cuicoha which is a really pretty lake. It was also the celebration of El Sol which is kind of like a celebration for the summer solstice. The is a picture I took from the bus of two little girls who were walking down the steet.

There´s also a food market at one end of the Plaza de Ponchos which sells all sorts or fruits, vegetables, etc. This is a picture of some of the grains that were being sold. There´s also all sorts of animal heads laying out but I decided to skip the pics of those cause I didn´t really feel like getting too close.

Last weekend, I went to Otavalo with some friends. Otavalo is about 2 1/2 hours from Quito and has the largest indigenous market in South America. The biggest day for the market is Saturday when Plaza de Ponchos is completely filled with vendors selling jewelry, blankets, clothes, amazing hammocks that I unfortunately had no room for in my bag, and lots of other crafts. There is lots of bargaining and things are pretty cheap. It´s one of those places that is pretty cliche and touristy but also one of those places that you kind of have to visit if you´re near Quito.

Fishing and Whale Watching

We whale watched for a couple hours which was really cool. With all the time I´ve spent around the water, I´ve never seen a whale before so it was really crazy to see them up close cause they were so huge. It´s just the beginning of whale watching season here, usually it´s from June to August or September but we did get to see them. Most of the sightings we had were somewhat far away so after a couple hours, we were ready to go back in. Nicki wanted to stay, thinking that we might so one more and sure enough a couple minutes later, one came right next to the boat and Jesse got a great picture of it so we were all pretty glad we stayed out to see this last one.

Nicki and Jesse with some of the fish that we caught. After trolling for about four or five hours we started to get kind of bored cause we had only caught four fish. We were gonna go scuba diving but the guy driving the boat didn´t bring the tanks so we decided to go whale watching instead.

While I was in Montanita a couple weeks ago, I went fishing one morning. We left from Puerto Lopez, the town where I will be teaching. We had to wake up at 4 AM to get to Puerto Lopez by 5 and since we had gone to bed around 2 AM, we were all pretty tired. It was also kind of cold cause it was really early in the morning and pretty overcast most of the morning. This is a picture of Jesse and Jessica, I think, sleeping on the boat before we got to our spot where we started trolling.

I got robbed

Last Sunday, on my way to Papallacta, a town about 2 hours from Quito, I got my money, credit cards, drivers license, and most importantly my camera, taken. Jessica another friend, Joline, and I were on the bus and the guy who took our tickets also took our bags and put them above our heads where everyone else´s bags were. Mine fell down when we turned a corner about ten minutes later and I kept in the my lap the rest of the time. Papallacta was really pretty so when we got off the bus I went to get my camera from my bag and realized that all my stuff was gone except for my sweatshirt. Jessica and Joline also realized they had a bunch of their stuff taken too. Thankfully, I had ten dollars in my pocket which was the only money we had between the three of us and my phone was also in my pocket so I was able to cancel my cards. Apparently, whoever took my stuff tried to charge a car for $4,500. We got home fine and thankfully, Jesse and Nicki didn´t leave until the next day so I was able to borrow money and Jesse lent me his camera. It was a shitty feeling cause I thought I was really being careful and felt really taken advantage of. Everything worked out and at least I have a camera now which is what I was most upset about.

Epic FAIL

FAIL. I look too happy to be participating. You can´t really tell cause it kind of blends into mine but I´m holding Jessica´s hair in my left hand.


After dinner, we decided to go to a club where Jessica tried to spit out her gum, got it stuck in her hair, and I had to cut it out. The bartender got a pair of scissors out right away, as if this kind of thing happens all the time.
Last night, I went out to dinner for some sushi with my friends Jessica, Vivi, her boyfriend Juan Pablo and their other friend Pedro. I never expected such delicious sushi in Ecuador but it was great. This is a picture of us at the restuarant.

Futbol

It was a good thing we stayed cause we ended up winning 2-0! I don´t have many pics of the actual game cause I didn´t want to get my camera wet once it started raining but this is a pic of the stadium.

We met up with our friends Juan Pablo and Mario and a bunch of their friends were there too. We got to the stadium around 1:30 and it was so hot. About an hour later, the clouds started to come in and it started pouring down rain. The rain was so cold but we waited it out and stayed the whole game even though I was really tempted to leave after no one had scoured for a while.

On Wednesday, Jessica and I skipped class to go to the futbol game against Argentina. We didn´t have tickets but we bought some from a lady selling them outside the stadium.

Montanita

This is the bar we went to on Saturday night. There are a bunch of little drink stands set up along one of the road with chairs around them so we just sat outside this bar most of the night. We had some good, fruity, beachy drinks and then went home early, which for Montanita was around 2 AM. We had to wake up at 4 AM the next morning though to go to Puerto Lopez to go fishing. I don´t know how I fell asleep cause it was so loud. I felt like I fell asleep in a club and woke up again in a club cause everyone was still out partying when we woke up at 4. I forgot to bring my camera on the boat when we were in Puerto Lopez but I´ll steal some pictures from Jesse when I can and post them up.
This is a photo of Erica, Kelly, Dani and Jessica. Erica is Jesse and Nicki´s friend from school, Kelly is another volunteer I met in Quito and Dani lives in the house where Jessica is staying. It was a big mix of people and we just kept inviting more and more along.

Jesse, Nicki and I at the beach. The sun was really strong there but it was pretty cloudy in the morning. The sun came out by the afternoon though which was nice. The water in Montanita was perfect. It wasn´t too cold and felt really nice to go in since the sun was so hot.

This is a picture of the town. It´s all sand/dirt roads and no one walks around with shoes on. Jesse came to meet us at the bus stop without shoes which I didn´t really get until I got there and realized that no one was wearing shoes. There are a ton of hostals, restaurants and bars. It´s so loud at night and people don´t go out until late so the party lasts until really early in the morning.

Last weekend I went to visit Jesse and Nicki with a bunch of other friends on the coast in a small little surfing town called Montanita. I never expected to see so many hippies in one place in Ecuador. It was really fun though. Friday night we took a night bus to Guayaquil, left at 11 PM and got in at 7 AM. Then we took a more local bus from there to Montanita. When we got there about 3 hours later we went out for breakfast then went to the beach all day. This is a picture of the outside porch area at the hostal where we stayed. These hammocks were great.

TeleferiQo

This is the view of Quito from the top.
Tourists! Woohoo! On Wednesday, I went up the TeleferiQo, to see some great views of Quito. You get into a little gondola type thing and it takes you up to the top. This a a picture of Jessica and I with Quito in the background.

La Virgen de Quito

The views from the top were pretty and you could look over the whole city.

This is a picture of La Virgen de Quito, that looks over the city. It´s located on a hill called El Panecillio and as I found out yesterday, pretty difficult to get to. You pretty much have to take a cab there and the cab driver was crazy. We went the wrong way down a one way street then rolled back down cause all the cars here are stick. After that, we had to wait in the middle of the street while a group of guys finished a game kind of like volleyball, then we tried to pass a bus while going around a corner.

El Jardin Botancio

In one of the greenhouses in the gardins they had what are called carnivourous plants which are kind of like venus fly traps. Apparently they eat insects and bugs and apparently even rats. Some of them were huge, it was pretty gross. This one looks a lot nicer than the other ones.

You can´t see the sign in front of this plant but it´s says coffea arabica, a coffee plant. Coffee here mostly comes in the form of instant which Georgia, you know I don´t mind, especially when I´m feeling lazy. In my house though, my host mom always offers me leche (milk) or tea. You´re supposed to put the instant coffee in the warm milk which is not really that appetising to me so I usually just have tea. At school though, we boil water and put the instant coffee in that which I just drink with a little sugar cause there is no milk. Oh well, coffee is coffee!

Yesterday I went to El Jardin Botanico in Quito which is a Botanical Gardins. It was really pretty and they had some pretty cool plants and flowers but i would have to say I´m spoiled by the Botanical Gardins in the Bronx. The gardins here is located in a big park where there were a ton of people hanging out on the lawns and a ton of kids running around. Quito is a pretty polluted city and you have to cover your mouth when they busses pass by in order to protect your face from all the exhaust so it was nicee to go somewhere a little less dirty for the afternoon. There are also a ton of orchids there which, mom and dab, I´m sure you would have appreciated.

La Mitad del Mundo

This is the view from the top of the monument. You can see the big N and S seperating the northern and souther hemispheres and you can can of see the orange line again that seperates the two.

Vivi, Jessica and I in front of the statues of the scientists who contributed to locating the equator.

These are some ladies dancing at La Mitad del Mundo. You can still see the orange line that they are dancing next to. The whole place is set up like a little town with stores and restuarants and the line goes throughout the whole town.

This orange line shows where is equator supposedly is. It´s crazy to think about how they figured all this out so long ago with no gps or satellite technology, etc. The monument in the background is where you can go up to the top and see some pretty cool views. You would think it would be really hot there but it´s up in the mountains so it not as warm as you imagine the equator to be.

On Saturday I went to La Mitad del Mundo, aka, the middle of the world. It´s pretty touristy but something you have to do if you´re here. It´s about an hour drive from Quito. Jessica, one of my friends here, met a girl Vivi, who lives in Quito and goes to school in California so her dad drove us there which was so nice of them. We went back to her house and had ceviche for lunch which was my first time having it. It was so delicious!

A night out!

This is a picture at the restuarant where we ate dinner. On the right is Jessica, the girl who is also taking classes at the same time as me and Nicki, Jesse´s girlfriend who is from Ecuador and lives outside the city.

Last night after class, Jessica and I decided to go out and meet up with my brother, his girlfriend and their other friends. This is a picture of Jesse and his friend from school.

Centro Historico

My favorite part of this picture is probably the guy in the Ozzy Osbourne tshirt. Flash back to Senior year at Loomis.

More protestors.

There was a protest outside of the president´s house while we were there. In this picture you can see all of the policemen lined up and the protesters walking toward the house.

While we were walking down the street, my teacher pointed out this porch of an artist who lives in Quito. He created these figures as a re-enactment of a scene from Don Quixote. This is the angel that is said to watch over and protect the city of Quito.

I have Spanish class everyday from 2-6 PM and sometimes it gets a little boring to sit one on one with a teacher for four hours straight. Yesterday we decided to go to El Centro Historico for part of class which is an area of the city where there are a lot of pretty churches and some touristy things to see. This is La Iglesia San Francisco.