Por Fin! CUENCA!

About 3 weeks later, here it goes! Sorry about the wait, I was feeling the pressure as tons of people emailed, facebooked, and twitted me to get another post up. I was going to try to get out my You Know You're In Ecuador When... post, but I never even had the time to do this one. Here goes nothing:

When we decided to go to Cuenca, Ecuador's third largest city (Guayaquil - 1, Quito - 2), I was a little bit preoccupied over how bored I might be. One of our teachers told us that “yes, you can have fun and party with the women there, but you’ll have to go to church with them the next day, and marry them the next year.” With this, I wasn’t entirely excited to take the 8 hour overnight bus (a whole different story in itself. So uncomfortable that I ended up sleeping for an hour and a half, an hour of that being in the isle) to head to the religious capital of Ecuador. But, we got a really cool hostel for $9 per night (a little spendy) with this view:

 It reminded me of the It’s A Small World ride at Disneyworld, am I the only one?

Being the religious capital of Ecuador, there are TONS of churches, all of them dating from around 1600, after the inquisition (I am learning something here!) This is the first one we went to, with such an amazing plaza outside, and architecture on the inside:

We ended up sitting in the pews for a little while, watching the locals do their thing. I started to get a little scared that I would be spited by some being inside the church, because I clearly stuck out like a sore thumb: I don't belong in churches. So, we left the church quickly amongst all the Hail Marys to go somewhere better: a cafe to get some beer:

Apparently here in Ecuador, it's customary to serve beer on a silver platter, so I had to take a picture.

Next stop: Chordeleg, which is known for it's "Market" of gold and silver, but when we asked for the Mercado, they led us to this:

This was the real Market, full of fresh fruits, vegetables, and pigs a'roastin'. The best part was that our whole group took part in the festivities, we all tried the pig. We got crispy pig skin, fried pig fat, and fried pork. That poor thing was sacrificed for our benefit, but it was tasty! Thanks, piggy!

After further investigation, we discovered the silver and gold jewelry mecca of Ecuador was a little further down the road. This was one of the only churches in the small town, and the shops were to the left, right, and in front of the church. With no shopping success (except for some inappropriate pens that I can't wait to give to my friends), we decided to head back to Cuenca. After in Cuenca for a few minutes, we were off to one of the largest Incan Ruins in Ingapirca.

These ruins were really fun to walk around and traipse about with the llamas who were hanging out in the ruins with us. The biggest part in the far background was a sun temple, where all the people went to worship the sun and pay their tributes to the sky. All the stones were parts of aqueducts, homes, baths, and tombs. Speaking of tombs, here's a picture of us desecrating the ruins:

Supposedly, these are ancient tombs, in which some of the most important Incan Leaders were buried. After sitting in them and pretending that they were hottubs. The guard (with a machine gun) ran up to us to quickly tell us we disrespected the culture of Incan descendents. After that, it seemed like we could do nothing more to ruin the ruins, but we made sure to be careful and follow the path from then on to prevent being shot. Although maybe I could sell this picture on eBay as the only people to sit in these tombs? Hopefully there's some money in this, because I'm quickly running out down here.

Another picture of us at the sun temple, the whole group (minus Justine). We all think it would be a perfect album cover if we ever put out a CD together, which will never happen. Nonetheless, I really like the fact that I'm smack-dab in the middle!

Back to Cuenca, we went to a really cool museum that happened to have a whole bunch of birds in a (semi) hidden area. The best was this toucan, maybe the first I've seen in such close proximity? We were about 5 feet away from it (granted, they were in a cage, but still...)

Looks like that's it from Cuenca, finally! The weekend after that we stayed in Quito, and I'll post something about that on Wednesday. Off to class!

Best,

Blair

Too Much!

This week has been beyond busy, between classes, my volunteer work, and Tuesdays (all pizzas are buy one get one free, and movies are $1.85 at the theater!) I found it really hard to balance my life with school, social, and blogging time. Thus, I regret to inform you that I failed again, and am now 2 weeks late on my next post.

Two weekends ago we went to Cuenca, a beautiful city full of parks and ancient churches, it was amazing. While there, we visited one of the most complete Incan Ruins, and a small town that specializes in gold and silver working. It was all really cool and relaxing at the same time, even though on that day, we took 10 busses for about 6 hours total, kind of madness. You'll get all the details when I get the post up (I'm halfway finished as it is) on Monday.

Last weekend we decided to stay in Quito and do all the touristy things that we had never had the chance to do. We visited an amazing church in which we climbed up to the tallest belfry, an amazing view. All capped off by a BBQ at my friend's building. That was a whole different story in itself, charcoal is not my forte.

All is going to be posted later, with pictures of course. This weekend we're headed to a little town in the middle of the Amazon Jungle, should be quite the experience. Wish me luck, and I'll get my ass in gear next week to get those three posts up.

Best,

Blair

NO ROBAR. NO MENTIR. NO SER HARAGÁN.

The title of this post is the Incan "Moral Code" from when they dominated South America in the 1400s (ish). It means "Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't be lazy." Pretty good code if you ask me, pretty much sums up what it takes to be a decent human being. The last part is the most important to me, although there should be another one added to the end "NO SER ESTÚPIDO." Hope you can translate yourself, seems a bit straighforward.

Another highlight in my day: printed off a color copy of my passport at school today, but it came out on 8 pages, measuring about 2 feet by 3 feet when all taped together. Definitely going to keep that bad boy, also going to show it to the security checkpoint officers when on busses, can't wait for their reaction.

Anyway, on to the good stuff, the pictures from Canoa. I had a hard time choosing only a few, so here goes nothing:

THE BEACH. The water was so warm, I could't believe it. Actually the first time (Mom, help me out with this) I've ever swam in a warm ocean; sad but true. Another amazing fact about this beach is that it stays really shallow for a really long time, so you feel like you're about 300 feet off the shore, yet you can still touch the bottom in-between waves.

Canoa's main drag. The beach is directly on the left, our hostel on the right, and all of the bars and food places on either side. It was really cool because you could basically just leave your flip flops and shirt at the hostel, and you could go anywhere without feeling weird or out of place (but with a nice sunburn!)

Don't know why this picture is so small, but I'm already frustrated from trying to adjust it for the last 18 seconds. I'll just let it be. This is the "lobby" of our hostel, and the big shaded canopy on the right was my home for all of saturday. The hostel was really cool, every wall made of bamboo, and the owners let us plug our own iPod into the speakers, which was really nice to relax and drink a bit after a long day surfing and jumping the waves.

The view from outside our rooms at the hostel with the ocean in the background. Honestly, I didn't even realize we could see the ocean over the trees until just now. Glad I really soaked everything in.

Our group at the first restaurant we ate breakfast at- fried eggs and rolls: the go-to Ecaudorian breakfast.

Another picture of the beach, with the huge cliffs in the background. We could have gone tandem hang-gliding from them for about $40, but we spent it on surfboards and beer. (Aren't you glad, mom?)

Saved the best for last: Saturday night's sunset. Wish I could say that's me on the surfboard, but I didn't dare go into the water after my burn, because the warm water would have felt terrible. Also was the first time I left my shaded canopy all day.

That's about all of the mom- (and grandma) approved pictures to put up, so I think my time here is done (thank god!) Well not God, but you know what I mean.

Best,

Blair

Canoa - pt. 1

While I normally wait for other people's facebook pictures to write about a weekend, there were too many things that happened this weekend to wait any longer. We went to Canoa, the most beautiful beach town on the coast. Here's a recap of the ridiculous things that happened, starting in Quito; before even boarding the bus.

I went to pick up my friend Chelsie at her host mom's condo, where I was immediately greeted by her psycho, hormonal (and tiny) dog who charged at me and bit my leg so hard her teeth pierced my jeans, and she drew blood in my leg. Supposedly, the reason she bites everyone is because she has a mental "disorder" that makes her think she had puppies (she didn't) and that whoever is walking around the condo isn't being careful, and is stepping on her invisible puppies. Needless to say, I sure hope she doesn't have rabies, because I didn't spring the $900 for the  vaccine. If I die before I return to the states, someone should probably look in to it.

After that great start to the weekend, I was hoping things would look up. Quite the contrary though; we couldn't get a taxi for 30 minutes, he overcharged us, and asked "Ay, son valientes, ¿no?"
when we told him the name of the bus company we were taking. (Means, "wow, you guys sure are brave.") Then, he promptly showed me a picture of a bus flipped on it's side, right after driving off a cliff. Then, the picture of 30+ body bags lying side by side, as if that would cheer me up. I quickly learned that a bus of the same company drove off a cliff, killing all the passengers less than 2 months ago. GREAT! This led to us taking the bus that could kill us, of which we opted for the most dangerous - the midnight bus from Quito, so we'd arrive Friday morning at 7:30am, wasting no time.

Sure, it looks and sounds like an amazing idea on paper, except for the fact that sleeping on busses that are driving through the jungle on Ecuador's "roads" is just short of impossible. Think of the last red-eye you took, and imagine constant turbulence over the 8 hour flight, combined with 6 stops. Again, just short of impossible.

Keeping with our tradition of riding in the most sketchy modes of transportation, we decided to throw 7 of us with luggage into a truck that was promised to be around the corner. As we turned the corner, we caught glimpse of our ride: the smallest "truck" I have ever seen. We took it anyway, and crossed the newest, and one of the longest bridges in Ecuador: 1.2 miles long. (shorter than the I-90 bridge, and 1/4 the length of the Astoria bridge). Quite the feat, eh? Anyway, 35 minutes and another thrilling ride later, he had to charge us extra because we weighed too much for the baby truck and made his tires rub against the hubs. I guess the $12 was worth it for him, and the $1.75 each was definitely worth it for me for another truck-ride.

After some time to orient ourselves in Canoa, we went straight to the beach - at 8:30am. We swam in the (WARM!) ocean for hours, then my friend Kellen and I rented surfboards for the day - only $12 each, a steal for sure. Many hours (and some success on the surfboard without lessons) later, I could start to feel my arms approaching a burn, so I cleverly decided to ignore it and stay out for a few more hours. That night, I realized I had never been burnt as bad as that in my entire life. The combination of SPF 20 spray-sunscreen at 8am, and my malaria pills' warning of "AVOID prolonged or excessive exposure to direct SUNLIGHT," and "may cause an axaggerated sunburn reaction" really did me in. SO MUCH PAIN, and no fun in the sun the rest of the weekend (it happened Friday afternoon). After gallons of aloe, I'm finally approaching restful nights of sleep. While hiding in the shade and reading the only book available: Ecuador and The Galápagos Islands, (I learned A LOT!), I overheard a couple talking about me in spanish "Hay, ¡mira al camarón! ¡jajaja!" (look at the shrimp, hahaha!) 'Camarón,' literally 'shrimp' is the slang and semi-dirogatory term for sun-burnt gringos. Needless to say, they were a little embarrassed to learn that I also speak spanish and heard exactly what they said.

Fast forward to Sunday, at which point we were running late (surprise, surprise) for the bus out of a nearby town of San Vincente to get back to Quito. We had no money left because we already bought the ticket home, so if we missed this bus, we'd effectively be stuck eight hours from home. After catching the (also late) connecting bus to take us to San Vincente from Canoa, we had to run, with all our luggage, in the pouring rain, over 10 blocks to El Mercado, which was in some unknown location. All we knew was: we were already late, I was still suffereing the sunburn (then just forming blisters on my shoulders), and that El Mercado was "más allá" ("farther that way."). FINALLY, we made it, before the bus, thankfully.

At the Mercado, we boarded the Quito-bound bus, complete with two live chickens in a bag (with their heads poking out for air, obviously), a puppy in an open box, and multiple frogs in a cup, all being held by their completely unphased owners. Just another day in Ecuador, right? The bus ride wasn't complete without: baby vomit! Two of my poor, unsuspecting friends sat directly behind a baby that clearly didn't like behing held in such a position that he was forced to look at gringos. Best solution: vomit on the gringos! My friends survived (barely), but their luggage took a brutal hit. Oh, and the bus smelled terribly for the remaining few hours we had.

FINALLY, after 12 hours of travelling from point A (beautiful Canoa) to Point B (home-base Quito), I made it back to my house, to discover a great look for my ankles. From all the bug bites, my (now) KANKLES were so swollen I couldn't even put on  my mocassins: The biggest disappointment of the trip!

You made it! Hope that was entertaining (and LONG) enought to satisfy your curiosity until I get some pictures of Canoa up, by Thursday at the latest.

Just wait until you see the pictures,

Blair

¡Baños!

Last weekend, our destination of Baños was sold to us as the "tourist destination" of Ecuador. And it was just that. Every block had multiple Ecuadorians yelling in terrible english to "come with us on jump off bridge. Will be real fun, I promise this." I'm not sure about you, but this seemed a little sketchy. So, we did it anyway. A picture of the bridge I jumped off (I'm the farthest on the right on the platform), about 500 feet above the small stream below:

The way this worked was similar to bungee jumping, but not quite. the ropes that we were connected to were connected on the other side of the bridge, so you have to jump out, not down, until the rope catches you and swings you back and forth. So, right after jumping, I swang down to the left, then back and forth. The next picture is one of the swings.

After each weekend in somewhere new, I keep saying that I did the most extreme thing in my life to date. Well, last weekend I topped myself again with this jump. I literally jumped into oblivion, and just waited until the rope caught me, so insane! Next steps: bungee jumping, then I can't wait to go skydiving.

Another really interesting thing we did: played with monkeys. Again, I'm not sure this is allowed in the states, but we walked through an electric fence, and were immediately met by a ridiculous amount of monkeys that climbed on us, bit us (just barely) and stole my soda! I couldn't believe what was actually going on, these monkeys have all the room in the world to roam and to pick our hair, which was pretty cool. Afterward, the only thing I wanted to do was shower, but that wasn't an option; we had another hour bus ride back to our hostel in Baños.

Before the bus back, though, we stopped by "La Casa Del Arbol," (literally treehouse) by recommendation of the taxi driver. At the treehouse, we each paid $2 to enter, of which we thought would just get us into the treehouse. However, to our surprise, we were led through batcaves, in the pitch black, crawling on hands and knees, all while feeling the sleeping bats glide along our back. This was the point where I almost lost it. It's not that I'm afraid of the dark, or particularly cholstrophobic, but the thought that went through my head as the tunnels got smaller and smaller was "If this Ecuadorian is leading us to our deaths, nobody in the world will know where we are. We'd never be found." This was because nobody knew we left Baños for Puyo (city of monkeys and this treehouse), and especially no one knew we went to a damn treehouse. (Mom, I'm sure you're loving this right now!) After a while in this stupid tunnel, we were told to stand up, and a light turned on. Turns out, joke was on the gringos, and it was fake the whole time. Even the bats were fake; they hung belts from the ceiling. This was a bit too much for my friend Caitie, who couldn't hold herself from crying. Thankful to be done with that horrific experience, we were very ready to see the treehouse, which turned out to be 11 stories tall:

The view from the top was absolutely amazing.

Currently my profile picture on facebook: the view of Baños from a café that we hiked all the way up to. The hike started with a 700 stair climb to a Virgen Statue, then across the hill to this café, then straight down the hill, pretty much in the middle of the jungle. The hike was really a lot of fun, despite the girls whining the whole time!

At the end of the hike, there was a nice house being built with this nice sign in front of it. Translated: "Theif.... if captured, you will be BURNED!!" Not messing around in Baños!

The end of our hike. If you're lucky, you can see the Café on the ridge, and the last part of our hike was pretty much straight down that hill. Such a good workout.

Also that weekend: Went to the natural hot baths (literally "baños," what the city is known for). A little weird, because there were only locals and we were definitely feeling the stares.

This weekend, off to the coast (finally!) where the forecast is calling for 90 degrees and sun. Should be a nice getaway from this chilly 65-70 degree weather in Quito!

Go Dawgs, time to turn things back around with another W!

Blair

Otavalo

LAST weekend (21-23 January) we took a group trip to Otavalo, a small-ish town known around the world for its handcrafted goods made by all the locals. This picture is one of the biggest churches in the town, with a block-size plaza in front. One thing that I have noticed is that every city, no matter how large or small, has something exactly like this. The plazas always have fountains in the middle, and apparently it's common for the people to approach the fountain and wash their heads/hair in the water, which was a little strange to see.

This was from the first night, of a different church, lit up by lights. Don't know much more than that, but a cool church nonetheless, even though the photographer was a little "shaky" after the discotech we took over earlier that night. Speaking of the discotech, this was the fateful night I "accidentally" drank two glasses of tap water, which later led to the worst day of my life: that Sunday. I had never felt so terrible, vomited so much, nor had less control of my bowels. I'm telling you, it was TERRIBLE.

A picture of our hotel, which was surprisingly nice. This was and will be the only weekend trip that we are doing with the WHOLE group of 32 students. That made everything a little hectic, but it was fun taking over the whole hotel. The activities for the day of Saturday got absurdly boring, while they were trying to teach us how to "guard" our belongings while in the market, and how to barter like a local. (Hint: if the merchant is offering $32 for something, I refused to pay more than $20. And it always worked!) You kind of start to feel bad for the poor merchants, but if they wouldn't get your sale, they may not be able to sell it again that day. I ended up buying all kinds of ridiculous stuff, including a one-person hammock that is going to be kick ass at the frat.

A nice showing of a few of my new Otavalan purchases, including comfortable pajama-type pants ($5 from $9) and my new sweater ($10 from $17). This is in front of Cuicocaha, which is a huge emploded volcano with a lake in the middle. I'll explain it more in just a second. Anyway, more from the market. Two friends got ripped off by a merchant after purchasing two sweatshirts for $10 each. After completing the purchase, the merchant tracked us down and insisted that they both paid with counterfeit bills. (counterfitting is a HUGE problem here, sales clerks everywhere check the water mark on $5's and $10's even). They didn't pay with counterfeit bills, but we couldn't win the argument, so we took the bills back, bought the sweatshirts with new tens, and are stuck with fake money. But, I was able to offer my friends some advice as a once-checker for Safeway: nobody in the US would look at these bills twice, so just bring them back to the States and they'll be fine!

This is Lake Cuicocaha, which is in the middle of Cuicocaha Volcano. This lake (up to 300 feet deep in places) consists of ONLY rainwater, proving how long the Volcano has been imploded, and how much it rains out in the jungles and RAINforests. There are no fish, or swimming animals of any kind, naturally. We took a small boat, piled all of us in it, and took a breathtaking tour through the lake, around the islands, and through massive amounts of reeds in the middle. It was really cool.

Later that evening, we stopped through a tiny town to visit a Curadero (literally "one who cures," but we just called him a shaman). One girl in our group, Zhang, enthusiastically volunteered to be "cured," which I'm sure she later regretted. It included this: being slapped all over the body with leaves; getting vodka spit into her face, chest, and stomach; fire breathed onto her body; eggs nearly broken over her head; and chewed up flowers (mixed in his mouth with cologne and vodka) spit onto her forehead, chest, and stomach. To top it all off, she was instructed not to shower for 48 hours.

That was all for our trip to Otavalo, and it conveniently happens to be time for class.

Best,

Blair

I hate blogging!

With my computer completely useless thanks to a (i think) virus, and my inability to upload photos from my iPhone, blogging has becoming increasingly difficult. I can only do it on the computers here at school. It's getting a bit frustrating because I hate coming in early, and we all leave right after school to do things more fun than blogging. Anyway, I'm heading to Baños tonight for a long weekend, so I'll be unable to blog again until Monday afternoon. Which brings me to triage: will this post be about last weekend at Otavalo, or about family life, and pictures of my home?

In my effort to stay sane and go the easy route, I'll talk about my family life, and stay a weekend behind, like I've always been. Here we go:

My Empleada: (maid, but literally "employee") had abandoned us for two weeks now. To my complete relief, I woke up this morning to the voice of a different woman, our new empleada! This is fascinating news, seeing as how I was really running low on boxers and socks, as well as just about everything. Before today, I was getting pretty concerned as to what to do next, because I didn't move here to do laundry. As terrible as that sounds, I honestly have zero idea how to do anything in the house; I've never washed a dish, washed clothes, cleaned the bathroom, or anything other than make my bed (a whole different topic).

My Bed: is terrible. It's apparrently common for Ecuadorian bedsprings to have 4 springs. I'm not really sure why, but because of this, I sleep in what I call my "bowl." To solve this, I put one of my pillows at the bottom of the bowl, topped by a folded blanket. This slightly helped to counteract the bowl situation, but in order for my mom not to find out that I disapprove her bed (I already said everything was perfect), I have to make the bed everyday. Tragic, I know.

My Family: is anti-social. The only thing we do at night when we're all at home is watch TV in our own separate rooms. While this isn't terrible, I sometimes wish we'd be able to hang out together, and that I'd become good friends with my brother. My mom is divorced, but it took a little while to figure this out. I live with one brother, about 24 yrs old, who works for Customs in the airport, and is attending a University. Needless to say, he's never around. I still haven't figured out what my mom does for a living, and I haven't bothered to ask yet; what if she's a coke dealer, and she'd have to kill me after she told me? That would be truely tragic.

My double-living room, with views of the city.

My House: is really nice, I like it a lot. I have my own room complete with a TV, closet, desk, and 4 plug-ins! I've learned that compared to most my friends in the program that my house is one of the biggest! Living it up in luxury, that's for sure.

Well, I planned an hour before class to get this blog posted, and I already ran out of time. Slow computers, images failing to upload, and other things have prevented my literary genius from being transferred to my blog.

I have no other options, other than to attempt to upload more pictures of my abode on Monday, the other pictures I really wanted to include are of the views of the city from my living room and dining room.

Wishing I was more funny,

Blair

Mindo pt. 2

As promised, a post full of pictures from the weekend we spent in Mindo a bit ago. So, following along with the last post, here we go.

Just a picture of Mindo, with us hanging out, trying to figure out the next plan.

One of the 13 ziplines of the tour, and we each got to do a "trick," as they called it. This was called the Mariposa (spanish for "butterfly") and you could probably see why; that's me being held upside-down by one of the guides. This whole zipline I was upside-down, it was the most ridiculous thing ever. Amazing.

Us eating at our favorite pizza spot, where a small cheese was $1. Our guide, Randy, is on the right. We ended up eating about 6 meals at this place, so good!

My "room" in our hostel, notice the amazing spongebob sheets. For some reason, every single bed in this hostel had spongebob seats. Hanging is the mostquito net that failed to really protect me.

Our preferred method of transportation, the most fun car ride I've ever had.

The cable car we had to take to get to the other side of the jungle, on our way to the waterfall.

View while flying over the cloud forest via cable car. Remember that we're about 1000 feet above the forest floor. Scary experience, but incredibly breathtaking at the same time.

Left out of the last post, we had to cross about 4 of these wood and wire bridges to get to the waterfall. It was POURING the whole time. After becoming comfortable with the bridges, it ended up being a lot of fun to walk to the center and use as a trampoline.

The water fall we descended! Keep in mind this was the 2nd half of the descent, and I was being supported by a thin rope, and descending with my own strength, nothing like what I expected. For some reason, I don't think this would be legal in the US without a consent and liability form (we signed nothing the whole trip).

That's about it for the weekend, I'll get another post up soon about my most recent trip to Otavalo.

Best

MINDO!

Okay, so we'll just pretend this is Sunday 16 January, because I've epically failed at this whole keep-your-blog-updated situation. And, as a result, have been pestered to get something up. Here goes nothing:

Fair warning: this post is long. good luck!

LAST weekend 14-16 Jan, a smaller group of 13 of us (there are 34 total) went to a VERY small town about 2 hours NE of Quito by bus called Mindo. While I was expecting a shanty bus on sketchy dirt roads of the Ecuadorian highway system, well, I was completely right. As aforementioned about driving in Ecuador, this was quite the experience. Driving through the middle of the jungle, all the while passing (yes, the bus was doing the passing) slower trucks on hairpin corners was shocking, but everything ended up fine, eh? Also on the bus, we met a English-speaking BRO named Randy that also doubled as a guide in Mindo. He took us to all the coolest spots, adventures, and pizza joints that Mindo has to offer.

Note: my laptop is still not connecting to any wireless networks, so I've been using my iPhone to keep this bad boy updated. Just learned that I can't upload my own pictures because of some random flaw in the system, so I'll post a picture-less post for now, then do a strictly photo post tomorrow to fill in the gaps.

We arrived to Mindo around 1030 thanks to our bus driver and the $2.50 bus fare just in time to head up to a nearby zip-lining company, complete with 13 zip lines for an adventure I had to-date yet to experience. This picture is crazy, so y'all should be excited for tomorrow's post. The last, and longest, zipline, went straight through the clouds; you couldn't even see the end.

After that we went back to Mindo, and back to our amazing Hostel, complete with mosquito nets for our "protection," although I've never been bitten more in my life. My "room" in the hostel had only three walls, so it was just like sleeping in the middle of the cloud forest.

That night ended with a group trip to a really small bar, us being the only gringos, of course. Upon returning to the hostel for the night, we also decided to test out the hostel's "swimming hole," which turned out to be no more than a rushing river less than 2 feet deep. Result: bruise-riddled legs and a sore body in the morning.

Saturday: River-rafting and repelling a 100+ foot cliff. So, we took our preferred method of tranportation to get to places: everyone stand in the back of the truck, holding on for dear life, while speeding through the TRUELY sketchy roads through the forest. I've never been so happy to be alive after arriving to each destination throughout Mindo. After rafting down the river, lunch, then the main event: repelling down a cliff/waterfall.

Again, we took the truck about 6 miles into the cloud forest, where we pulled up to the Cable Car that we had to take to get to the waterfall. Most stunning thing I've ever seen in my life, hands down! After a 45 minute TREK through the forest, we came to a cliff. When another guide (the expert) told us that we had reached our destination, I truely thought he was kidding. Long story short, he wasn't. I volunteered to go first- greatest decision by far. After repelling the cliff via one rope and my complete responsibly for my life (also only anchored to a 1.5 ft diameter tree) I was able to swim in the waterfall, explore te streams, and jump off some rocks into the waterfall. Simply amazing.

Thats just about it for last weekend, no other news-worthy events that I can think of. So, I'll be posting the pictures from Mindo tomorrow, which will be exponentially more exciting than this LOOOONNNGGG post.

GO DAWGS,

Blair

Literally in the CENTER of the world

On Tuesday, we bacame ultimate tourists, exploring all the "hot spots" that Quito, and the surrounding area have to offer, including visiting the Equator, as shown above. At that location, "calculada con GPS," I ended up standing in both hemispheres at once, my right foot in the winter, and left foot in the summer.
In an effort to satisfy my mother´s pleas, I will attempt to post a dry list of everything we did that day, with pictures. I hope this is a one-of-a-kind type post, because I don´t think this will be very funny.

After the Equator, we took out tour bus up an extremely windy road to get to La Virgen de El Panecillo, which you can see in the blog´s main photo at the very top. Also, from half-way up, it´s absolutely huge, as seen in this photo:

 Then, as I said, you can walk through the Virgen to get half way up, at which point you have a 360 degree view of the entire city, which is by far the biggest, most expansive city I have EVER seen or been to. It´s nothing like American cities, where there's a clearly indicated downtown because of the 50+ story buildings. Quito has buildings anywhere from 8-12 floors high, but spread out for miles, and miles, and miles. Absolutely stunning. Here, I decided to test gravity, and of course I won:

Next stop: La Plaza Independencìa, which is bordered by an ancient church on one side, and the President's house on another. We were able to see just a bit of the President's house, but not too much. Here´s a picture from the church side showing the plaza with the fountain in the middle.

Then we decided to go to the most impressive structure I think I have EVER seen. It's called La Iglesia de Compañìa de Jesùs. The Outside of it, which does it no justice, is here:

Then we found ourselves inside the Church, inside which we were NOT allowed to take pictures, but my daring friend Justine was able to capture two, luckily. The first one, of the "entry way" is here:

This church took many decades to build, and as you can clearly see, is accented with gold, covering every inch of the walls. The next picture is a little blurry, but it´s all we have of the most impressive part, the wall behind where the Priest speaks from. There are many pictures on the internet to see it in more detail, but here's nothing:

Well, there's the post that you all have been waiting for, complete with pictures of all my tourist-y adventures. Sometime in the middle of this week I'll do a post about life in my house, but I still feel a little sketchy taking pictures of the inside of my house while my mom is there.
My next post will be all about my weekend adventure to Mindo, Ecuador. It was the most intense experience of my life, and all the details will be posted either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Best,
Blair

Top 10 things that remind me I'm still White.

10. While walking down the street, I never get a response after saying "buenas tardes" (good afternoon)
9. I'd rather pay the extra money to ride a cab than take the city busses (they don't stop; you have to jump on and off - not my forte)
8. I get frustrated when it takes more than 30 seconds to load a YouTube video (at times up to 10 minutes!)
7. We were too nervous to explore for a bar by foot, so we settled for the T.G.I. Fridays we were in front of
6. I can't buy anything without speaking at least one word of English
5. I constantly look over my shoulders while carrying any more than $10, even with $5 in each front pocket for best protection
4. I ate Pizza Hut for lunch today (personal pepperoni pizza, cheese fries, and a drink for $3.25!) instead of going home for an authentic meal
3. I'll start sweating in jeans and a t shirt when it's sunny, while the locals are bundled up in pants, jacket, and a hat
2. I'm still not used to throwing used toilet paper in the TRASH, not the toilet (don't know if I'll ever get used to that)
1. I get sun burned the first day I spend around town (good thing I brought my Aloe Vera- like every good Whitey)

¿sí?

I have yet to meet a single person who can speak English. This is both great, and a little intimidating at the same time. With school starting tomorrow, this weekend has been spent relaxing, getting accustomed to the altitude (9000+ ft), and meeting my WHOLE extended family. Communicating has been coming easier than I had expected, but I was still hoping that maybe one member of the family spoke some English, just to make sure I still know how to speak my own language. Even our dog, Lorenzo, doesn't understand me in English. While you may be saying, "of course not, no dog can communicate in English," it's still weird to get used to the fact that he doesn't know what "good dog" or "come here, Lorenzo" or "hey buddy, did you miss me?" means. 
The good side of not understanding every word spoken to me is that I always say "sí," which has brought me on some interesting adventures so far. Among other places, my mom ad brother took me to and OLD neighborhood called Guápulo, home to an ancient Catholic church built in the 17th Century (pictured above) The only way to get to it was to take a steep, winding, cobblestone road, the kind of road you could only imagine in ridiculously unbelievable car chase seen from a movie. The kind of road you could only imagine would exist in South America.