Back in the States

After returning from my weekend in Banos, I had one last week in Yunguilla. Two more Danish volunteers arrived, so there were four of us volunteers total working on signs for the trails. The community hosted a small going away party for me on Friday night, which was nice, and then on Saturday, there was a wedding! Since most people in the community nowadays only get civilly married, this was the first real wedding in seven years! Of course, we celebrated accordingly. While I didn't go to the ceremony at the church (I didn't want to embarrass my non-Catholic self and also didn't have anything nice to wear), the party was great! We didn't get served food (soup, huge portions of both chicken and pork, potatoes and corn) until about 9:30pm and the party went until not just the wee hours of the morning, but the actual morning itself. I went home around 5am, but when I woke up at 9am to pack and get ready to leave for Quito, the dad informed me that there were still people partying down in the communal house!

I arrived in Quito in the early afternoon that Sunday and after eating and napping for a bit in a hostal, took a taxi to the airport at 7pm for my 9pm flight. My flight was from Quito to Guayaquil, Guayaquil to Miami (overnight) and then Miami to Indianapolis. I arrived in Indy at 11:30am on Monday and was greeted by my Dad and Gabe! Even though I had hardly slept in the previous 48 hours, I focused on unpacking and getting all of my clothes washed (in a real washing machine!) upon getting home. My Mom listened to my requests and made turkey and stuffing for my first dinner--I'd missed turkey so much!

It's been quite an adjustment being back in the States. Firstly, while Zionsville is pretty, it's not the same as waking up and seeing gorgeous green mountains everyday. There's also obviously the huge contrasts in food, wealth and lifestyle + the language difference. I already miss Ecuador a lot, but I know I'll be back there eventually, whether it's next semester (I plan on taking the Spring 2012 semester off from college and traveling because I don't need the credit) or sometime in the future for a vacation. I could even see myself living there one day--the people are extremely friendly (except for the one man who stole my camera) and the landscape is the most beautiful I've ever seen (+ it's the most biodiverse country in the world!).

 Goodbye, Quito!

 My family (Angelita and Diogenes) at my going away party--smiling for pictures is apparently not an Ecuadorian thing...

 Yunguilla

 Cotopaxi volcano on the bus ride back to Quito from Banos

 I miss this view

 Full moon over the mountains on the way back to Yunguilla from San Antonio 

(I went to the doctor for my cough--I can now check "going to the doctor in another country" off my list!)

 Clouds rolling in during the afternoon

On the path from the house down to the main road

Thanks to everyone who read my blog over the past two months--I hope you've enjoyed it! I'll be posting my pictures to Facebook tomorrow, so let me know if you're not on Facebook and would like me to send you the link so you can see them! xoxo

Quito, Baños and my last week here...

Sorry it´s been 2 weeks since I´ve written--last weekend I only went to Quito for the night, so there wasn´t too much to report. I went with a friend from Yunguilla with the intention of walking around the historical center to take pictures, but when we got to Quito, they were in the midst of a full blown storm, complete with lightning and thunder! We went out to a place called Bungalow 6 that night which was really fun and then came back in the morning in the back of an x-ray van (the doctor´s daughter is writing her thesis about plants in Yunguilla and offered to take us).

This past week I worked with the kids in Yunguilla during the camp the queen from the pageant in Calacali helped sponsor. I also got to make marmelade on Friday (from chigualcan fruit--I´ll post a picture), so that was fun. There´s been a Danish volunteer in the community this past week and I believe when I head back tomorrow, another volunteer from Denmark will have arrived. 

On Friday night, I went to Quito with two friends from the community. We stopped at the bus station so I could buy my ticket for the bus to the beach in the morning, but all the tickets up until 11:45am were sold out, so I had to change my plans (after being upset for a couple of minutes--I really wanted to go to the beach and see the whales migrating off the coast). We went out that night with some more friends from Yunguilla who were in the city and then yesterday morning, I took a bus to Baños, a town about 3 hours south of Quito. 

I was really tired and wanted to sleep on the bus, but instead I got to watch Soul Plane (dubbed in Spanish) because they had the volume up so loud. What an awful movie, haha. I got to Baños around 3:30pm and found a nice, cheap hostal rather quickly, so that was nice. I walked around town in the afternoon, did some shopping and ate some llapingachos (potato patties with cheese) for dinner. I watched part of a movie back in the hostal becuase I was exhausted, and then went out for some pizza and to use the Internet--not the most exciting of nights, but it was fun to see all the people congegrated in the big square in front of the cathedral late at night. 

This morning I woke up early to go for a walk to the river. There´s a big bridge you can bungy jump off of, but I don´t think I have the guts to do it! I ate a really nice breakfast of pancakes with passion fruit honey at a hotel near the waterfall and then afterwards went to the volcanically heated pool. There were lots of people/families there for it only being 9am, but the warmest pool was nice and relaxing! 

This afternoon I walked around some more and just got done with an hour long massage (only $20--so great!). My bus back to Quito is at 3pm, so I´ll be heading over to the terminal soon. There are a ton of stands near the terminal selling sugarcane, so I´ll probably be trying that and picking up some taffy (another local specialty) to take back with me. I won´t get to Quito until about 6 or 7pm, so I´m going to stay in a hostal there and then head back to Yunguilla tomorrow morning. While I´m sad I didn´t get to go to the beach, Baños was also on my list of places to visit and it´s definitely a nice town that I would recommend/come back to on a future trip! 

This will probably be my last blog post while I´m here--my flight back to Indy leaves Quito at 9pm next Sunday evening and arrives in Indianapolis at 11:20 the next morning. I know it´s going to be a big adjustment going back and I´m definitely going to miss the people here a lot. I have about a week and a half in Indy before heading back to Bryn Mawr on the 24th, so just enough time to wash all of my clothes in an actual washing machine and organize/post pictures! Hope everyone is doing well! Xoxo

Chigualcan fruit for the marmelades

Kids at the camp

Tunguhara volcano in Baños

A "ponche suizo" in Baños--a creamy mousse type dessert whose receipe is a secret

The thermal pools in Baños

The view of the waterfall from the pool

A view of Yunguilla

Cleaning the orchids in Yunguilla

The marmelade boiling

A bull in Yunguilla

Mindo!

Am getting ready to head over to the bus station to head back to Yunguilla from Mindo. What a great town this is! Yesterday after posting I had pizza and a pineapple batido (milk and the juice from a pineapple) for dinner and then headed back to the hostal. The two guys working at the hostal were outside playing guitar, so I hung out with them and we went out dancing later in the evening. Latin guys are a bit crazy, but we had a good time!

At the butterfly house with banana on my finger to attract the butterflies!

This morning I had breakfast at the hostal and then went to the butterfly garden about 3km away from the "downtown". I took a taxi there, but walked on the way back, and now my legs are covered in bug bites because I´m wearing shorts! The altitude here is only 1,200m, so it was warm all day yesterday (including at night) and actually quite hot today! The lights went out when I was using the Internet at another cafe, and the Copa America final between Uruguay and Paraguay is currently on, so I´m not sure what people are going to do! I had a chicken sandwhich and fried plaintains for lunch with maracuya (some type of fruit I hadn´t tried yet) juice. Time to head back to Yunguilla now--hasta luego!

 Beautiful butterfly!

 Incredible brownie and chocolate ice cream after yesterday´s chocolate tour!

Mindo´s main park--I think it´s going to rain later this afternoon based on the clouds in the distance!

Well, well, well...

Unfortunate news to report: My camera was stolen last Sunday afternoon while I was on the Metrobus in Quito. I had it in my pocket because I had been walking around a park taking pictures (after seeing Harry Potter, which was subtitled, not dubbed!) and someone took it without me noticing, then exited the bus. When I looked down to find it gone, I yelled that I had been robbed, and someone said they thought it had been a man wearing a red shirt, but with the Metrobus, the doors don´t open until you´re at a stop, so I had to wait another 5 minutes to get off the bus and call the police, which meant the man had easily gotten away when he had exited the bus at the previous stop. I was on my way back to Yunguilla after a nice trip to Papallacta (more about that later), but I then had to go to the police station to file my report, so I didn´t get back to the community until 8:30pm. I´m most upset about losing my pictures, but at least he didn´t rob my money/credit card or use force/violence. I bought trip insurance, so they´ll hopefully be reimbursing me for the new camera I bought yesterday in Quito. It´s the newest version of the Canon Powershot and so far it´s working great! (+ it wasn´t as expensive as I was led to believe cameras in Ecuador were)

Papallacta was great--the town is at about 3,300m, so I expected it to be rather chilly, but the sun was shining when I got there! I went to the thermal baths at the nice hotel in town, where I met an older Ecuadorian man who is currently living in Colorado after having attended Georgetown and an university in Germany. He was once an economist for the oil and gas industry, but is now working in insurance, and I believe has something to do with State Farm. I had great trout for dinner as I watched one of the Copa America futbol games at my hostel. The hostel also had its own pools, so I enjoyed those in the morning before heading back to Quito.

Aside from the robbery, Quito was lovely. I got to see Harry Potter (which was great, in my opinion) and walk around this massive park filled with families, soccer games and paddleboats! On Monday the entire community went on a tour to Tabacundo and Cayambe to learn about cuy production (guinea pigs--which I still haven´t tried) and rose cultivation (this is where your Valentine´s Day roses in the USA come from!). We also stopped to try bizcochos (dry, salty, buttery breadsticks), which were great! There was a high school aged volunteer from Quito staying here in the community on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so it was nice not to be the only volunteer for a bit! On Friday I went with Diogenes to his finca to check on the 10 bulls he has there. The walk was an hour and 45 minutes long (a lot of which was uphill), but the view when we got there was GORGEOUS. I´ll definitely be going back with my new camera. If I was a bull, that is where I would want to graze! You´re surrounded by mountains and can see the Pinchincha volcano in the distance!

I´m currently in Mindo, which is about an hour or so away from Yunguilla. It´s also cloudforest, but a lot warmer than Yunguilla! I met 2 Germans on the bus, so I went with them to find a hostel and then we just got back from a tour of the chocolate production facility in town. Best chocolate brownie and ice cream I´ve had! A lot of the world´s cacao is grown in Ecuador and it was really interesting to learn about how my favorite food is made! I´m probably going to visit a butterfly farm tomorrow and then maybe go on a birdwalk. This is one of the most famous towns for birdwatching, so I brought my binoculars!

Can´t believe I only have 3 more weeks in Ecuador--next weekend I believe I´m going to the beach, so that´ll be nice! I´ll try to post some pictures of Mindo tomorrow before heading back to Yunguilla. Not sure what I´m up to this week, but I believe I´m heading back to the Spanish man´s finca so that I can re-take pictures there. Hope everyone is doing well and beating the heat--you know it´s hot when the US heat wave makes the news in Ecuador! xoxo

Where to begin...

Sorry it´s been so long since I´ve updated the blog. Last weekend I stayed in Yunguilla. We went to Calacli on Saturday night for the coronation of the city´s "queen", which was basically a big party in the sporting complex that involved lots of music and dancing and went until 3am (we got there at 8pm). We didn´t get home until 4am, and lots of people had brought their young kids with them. Guess there isn´t the same concept of hiring a babysitter here if you want to go out!

 Diogenes, Angelita and Klever (their son who comes to eat at the house, but lives/works at the gate of the community as a guard) 

 A cake from the bakery I worked at last Friday

 Another shot of the community, this time from the school (instead of from the community finca, which is off in the distance)

 Yesterday at the environmental education presentation (unfortunately my camera´s battery died after the opening remarks)

 Cheese that I helped make! A woman and her children make cheese 3 times a week using milk from various community members and the products are sold in the community store.

This week I was able to start working with Yunguilla´s environmental education program. We organized a presentation in which the kids put on a play about the community´s history and environmental problems--I got to play the role of the American neighbor who wanted to illegally buy orchids and exotic animals, haha.

Last Friday, I also got to go into San Antonio and Quito with a couple from the community to work at the bakeries they make cakes for, so that was fun! We also went to the supermarket at the end of the day so I could buy turkey, which I miss dearly (Mom, if you´re wondering what I want to eat the first night I´m home, turkey and stuffing is the answer!). Unfortunately the turkey deli meat I ended up buying was quite flavorless, and I´m not even sure it was turkey because it was labeled "jamon de pavo", or "ham of turkey". The guy at the counter couldn´t really tell me whether it came from a bird or a pig, haha.

We didn´t really celebrate my birthday, but this weekend I´m going to Papallacta, a town with hot springs heated by a nearby volcano, so I´m looking forward to that adventure as an opportunity to celebrate. I´ve been having stomach problems this past week, so hopefully this might help me feel better (although Papallacta is probably going to be colder than Yunguilla because it´s at 3,300m). I´m currently in Quito, where´s it 11 degrees C, or 50 something F. I left Yunguilla at 5:30am this morning--the stars were still out (gorgeous!) and I got to watch the sun rise as I approached Quito by bus. When I got off one of the buses this morning, I had a great view of the snow covered volcano (which I believe is Cotopaxi) in the distance, however unfortunately pulling out my camera on the bus/in the middle of the street wasn´t looking like the best thing to do at the time.
I´ll be spending the night in Papallacta tonight at a hostel, then going back to Yunguilla tomorrow afternoon via a shopping mall in Quito where I hope to see Harry Potter. Fingers crossed that they don´t dub it in Spanish--I want to hear the British accents!

I could go on and on--every day here is an adventure. Almost all of my habits have been reversed: I´ve become accustomed to riding in the back of trucks and on the back of Galindo´s motorbike, which I obviously don´t do in the United States. I also wake up at 6:30am and am normally asleep by 10pm. I shower about every 3 days because there´s only running water in the morning, and this past week, the water heater thing has been broken, so it´s been an ice cold shower--ahhh! The family I´m staying with (Diogenes and Angelita) are super nice, and Diogenes told me last night that I was welcome to stay with them for the last 4 weeks I´m here if the coordinator lets me (normally they move volunteers to a new house every 4 weeks). He also might think I´m a bit crazy because last week I swear I heard rats running around in the ceiling above my room, but when he went up with a ladder to check, he didn´t find anything, but oh well! I plan to travel the next couple of weekends, so I´m looking forward to those adventures as well.

Hope everyone is doing well! A special belated birthday to my Mom :) I was able to send her an e-mail on Tuesday, but just barely--the community was without electricity from about 11am on Tuesday to 10:30am on Wednesday! As I said, it´s always an adventure! xoxo

Pictures from the Spanish man{s property

The gorgeous house!

Ostriches!

 Horses (he had more than 30!)

 Pretty flower

Monkies!

Parrot

The house

Pictures!

My apologies for not using apostrophes, this laptop is impossible to figure out. Here are some pictures! I{ll try to post about the rich Spanish man{s farm, as well. Not really sure what I{m supposed to be doing this morning, but I{m not complaining about getting to sit in the office and use the Internet (although it is rather slow...)

A photo of me at the Mitad del Mundo yesterday (even though it{s not the real equator)

Just for you, Dad...a view of Yunguilla this morning on my way to Tahuallullo (the community owned land-finca). The houses are kind of spread out after this main cluster. My house isn{t really visible in this picture, but it{s towards the upper right corner.

While I hated waking up at 6am on Sunday morning after going to bed at 1am, this view from the house made it worthwhile! In the distance you can see the Volcano Cotacachi (it{s been inactive for a while, I believe)

Two singers at the fiesta in Calacali on Saturday night. One of them has lived in Chicago for the past 14 years!

Ecuador, week 2

So unfortunately I´m not able to include pictures with this blog entry...apparently Internet places with decent computers are closed on Sundays, so this one that I´m at near the Mitad del Mundo (Center of the World) is the best I can get. I was in Calacali, the town nearest to Yunguilla, last night to partake in their 439th anniversary celebration. There was live music, dancing and pyrotechnic displays that I know for sure would have been banned in the United States (they were literally setting off fireworks in the middle of the crowd). It was fun to experience the local culture, but I was definitely the tallest person there/stood out and blocked the view of everyone behind me! Fun fact: A lot of people from Calacali migrate to Chicago. Why Chicago,  have no idea! I went back there today after very little sleep to help Yunguilla set up their stand at the agro-artisanal fair. I stayed there for a bit, ate a deliciously cheap lunch of chicken, rice, potatoes and a cheese empanada ($2.30) and explored the town before taking the bus to Mitad del Mundo. While the touristic city (you have to pay to get in) isn´t the site of the real equator, I figured I couldn´t travel all this way and not visit it. I got to see a miniature version of Quito, attend a planetarium show (more about stars later), watch dance performances, eat ice cream and call home and Fawaz. After this entry, I´ll be heading back to Calacali to hopefully get a ride home with the Yunguilla folks. I´m getting quite used to riding in the backs of trucks along very bumpy dirt roads through the mountains! A correction on my previous post: Yunguilla is actually not as high up as Quito. I think it might be around 2,700m? Nonetheless, it´s high up, and in the afternoons, I literally walk home through the clouds. Pretty crazy!

This past week there was finally a clear night, so I got to see the stars! I was walking out to the bathroom to brush my teeth and my jaw literally dropped. I could see the stars so clearly, it was incredible. I tried taking a picture, but it didn´t turn out, so I´ll try again next time and mess around with the camera settings a bit.

While the stars are beautiful, the insects are certainly not. I´ve developed a bit of a reputation for hating them, mainly because I walk around my room each night before going to sleep with a shoe to get rid of the intruders. Let me tell you, some of them are rather scary! I also have several bug bites from working outside during the days--some of them are so small you can´t feel them and by the time you notice them, they´ve already bit you. Grrr.

One of the highlights of this past week was working with some Yunguillans on a rich Spanish man´s property about 20 minutes away from the community. He lives with his wife in Quito during the week, but on the weekends, he comes here to his gorgeous house, 30+ horses, 2 monkies, 2 peacocks, 3 ostriches, several parrots and lots of birds (including a turkey I really wanted to steal and eat--the stores here don´t sell turkey and I miss it dearly!). The property was truly incredible and I can´t wait to post pictures. The number of horses seemed a bit excessive to me, but the man has money and this is his way of spending it!

The food has been pretty good so far. Angelita is learning what I like and what I don´t like, i.e. with rice milk. I now only get served tea in the evenings. The juices are all fresh and soooo delicious. My favorite so far has been pinneapple, although blackberry and tomato de arbol (tree tomato) are quite tasty as well.

I´m still getting used to the perpetual tardiness. I´m usually always sitting around for at least 15 minutes in the morning before everyone actually arrives for work. I should probably learn just to show up 15 minutes later, but I don´t want to miss something important, so the adjustment process continues!

It´s been kind of odd to be so disconnected from technology, and during my first week, I got laughed at (and laughed at myself) for thinking that the cows mooing in the distance was somebody´s phone vibrating on a table. In my defense, there was a cell phone on a table nearby! Almost everyone here has cell phones, and I suppose I could have brought mine and used it, but I´m fine with calling home on the weekends, so it´s all working out. There´s supposedly wi-fi at the school, so maybe I´ll be able to borrow someone´s laptop and go there later this week.

Let´s see...what else...I´ve developed an addiction to an Ecuadorian (I think) telenovela (soap opera) called ¨Pero Amor¨. It´s set in Miami, but all the characters speak Spanish. It´s on Monday-Friday from 7-8pm, so it´s become a nightly affair to watch that with Diogenes and Angelita after dinner. We then normally watch the news, which is almost even more depressing than in the United States. The difference is that they don´t censor their images, so it´s not uncommon to see bodies and blood. The news anchors are also very un-optmistic and have no problem expressing their sentiments on the robbery, bus accident, etc, which makes watching it a very interesting experience.



I think that´s all for now. There´s a little girl in this Internet place singing the SpongeBob Squarepants theme song in Spanish (Bob Esponja) and I need to get back to Calacali to see if I can get a ride back with the Yunguillan crowd. Sorry for the lack of pictures--hopefully I´ll be able to get some up in the next week or two! Xoxo

What a week!

Hello, everyone!

I´m currently in Quito for the day, so it´s time to update the blog! This past week has been full of adventures and new experiences, so I´ve brought along my journal to help me remeber it all for this entry.

Sunday: Had a great breakfast at the Magic Bean Cafe in Quito--strawberry pancakes and fresh squeezed orange juice! Took a taxi to the bus terminal in Quito, where I caught a bus to Calacali. Luckily I had told some of the people on the bus where I needed to get off, because I would have just continued on to who knows where without their help! The bus dropped me off basically on the side of a random road, but once I made it into the town, I asked where I could find a truck to take me to Yunguilla in the first restaurant I found. This well-groomed, legitimate looking man offered to take me himself, and so that´s how I got to Yunguilla! He stayed around while we asked where I should go/what I should do with my big suitcase and then didn´t even charge me for the ride! Galindo, one of the main tourist guides in the community took me to my host family´s house via moto (not quite a motorcyle, but a motorbike). Don´t worry, Mom and Dad, he´s a pretty good driver! I´m living in a house with an older couple (they´re actually my parents´ age, but look like they´re much older) and their 11 year old granddaughter, Amanda. Angelita (the grandmother) and Diogenes (the grandfather) are super nice and welcomed me instantly. I have my own room, but the house is definitely MUCH different than what I´m used to. There´s no heat (it gets SUPER cold here at night because of the altitude—probably in the 40s), no running water aside from 6:30-8am and you have to handwash your clothes (more about that adventure later). We watched some Ecuadorian volleyball, which is much different than in the US because there are only 3 people per team, the net is much higher and you can basically carry the ball, and then had dinner. The journey had worn me out, so I was in bed early!

Monday: After a brief meeting with the director of the community today, we washed tents the kids had used the previous weekend on an environmental education camping trip. We went to our respective homes for lunch, then came back to finish washing and go to the orchid growing area to water the plants. The work day here ends around 4pm. We had soup for dinner and then I challenged them to a game of cuarenta, the popular Ecuadorian card game I learned how to play last time I was in Ecuador. I´m currently tied 1-1 with Galindo, so we´ll see how that ends up!

Tuesday: I´m slowly learning that Ecuadorians run on a different time system. It´s kind of similar to Bryn Mawr time, but more like 15-30 minuts instead of 10. I met the two British volunteers, Brendan and Will, who have been here for the past 4 months teaching English to the schoolkids, and they came with us to work on cleaning a trail. We used machetes to cut down branches and shovels to make the path wider, but it wasn´t until we were on the way back that I realized we had been walking downhilll the entire time and now had to walk all the way back up to go back to Yunguilla. We´re at about 3,000-3,500 meters, so about 9,842-11,482 feet, which makes breathing pretty difficult! Had a great hot blackberry drink with dinner and then went to bed early so I could wake up to take shower when there would be water the next morning!

Wednesday: I enjoyed a nice hot shower this morning and then went to Tahuallullo (the community owned piece of land where most tourists stay/most of the community projects are based). We worked on clearning the areas around trees that had been planted recently on a mountain (or so it felt like walking up to the top). We returned home for lunch and then in the afternoon worked some more before it started raining and we had to stop. At night I went to a workshop about identifying threats to the biodiversity of the community as they´re trying to make it a reserve for conservation and sustainable uses. Very interesting to learn about the land and the community dynamics!

Thursday: Today I worked to help terrace and plant a hillside with potatoes at someone´s house in the morning, and to make bags of soil for plants at the nursery at Tahuallullo in the afternoon. When I got back to the house, Amanda tried to show me how to hand wash clothes, which of course was kind of a disaster. I got pretty frustrated about how labor intensive it was and how much water it was using, and then got even more frustrated when I could only wash half of my clothes because there wasn´t anymore clean water. I´m sure the clothes are going to take forever to dry, too, so I´ve been looking for laundromats in nearby towns so that I can avoid the whole washing clothes by hand thing in the future.

Friday: We traveled in the back of a pick-up truck today to finish cleaning the rest of the trail we started on Tuesday. While we were working, some of the locals heard a toucan, but we unfortunately weren´t able to see it. We were done rather early, so in the afternoon we played volleyball and soccer. There was a going away party for the British volunteers tonight, so we went to that and then came back to go to bed.

Today! Saturday: Traveled with Brendan and Will to Quito and enjoyed a nice lunch of pizza (I´m a little tired of soup—fun fact: I was once a member of a Facebook group called ¨Soup is not a real meal¨, so this whole soup at almost every meal thing is not really my favorite). I was able to call my parents and Fawaz and am now in an Internet café in La Mariscal, right down the street from the hotel where I stayed on Saturday night. I hope to make it back to Yunguilla for dinner, so we´ll see how that journey goes!

Overall, things have been going pretty well. I haven´t gotten really sick, although I´m scared about getting a stomach bug which is apparently going around (the two British volunteers got sick this past week for the first time in the 4 months they´ve been here). As I said, the house is a lot different than what I´m used to, but it´s all ok because Yunguilla is absolutely the most beautiful place there is. Green mountains are everywhere and we´re literally in the clouds! Everything is pretty laid back and everyone is very friendly. I probably won´t travel until the weekend after next (I´m hoping to go to the thermal baths in Papallacta for an early birthday treat), but maybe I´ll be able to access the Internet in the community office, we´ll see. Hope everyone is doing well! Xoxo

 The view from the house

 The view on my way to work

The house (my room is through the door on the left)

My room (with an extra bed if anyone wants to come and visit!)

Crazy bug with feathers

Me & Amanda doing my thumbs up face!

I´m here!

Just a quick post to say that I´ve made it to Quito! Woke up at 4 this morning after only 3 hours of sleep, Dad took me to the airport and after a short delay due to a thunderstorm (Indiana weather never rests), I was off to Miami. Ashleigh, Ben and their dad greeted me at the airport and we went back to their condo for brunch! Miami/Coral Gables is beautiful and brunch was great! My flight for Quito left at 2pm and I got here at 5pm (Quito is 1 hour behind Indy). I´m pretty sure it´s safe to say that taxi drivers are universally crazy drivers. Mine did his job though, and got me to my hotel in La Mariscal (the toursity area of the city) quickly and safely. My room is cute--2 twin beds, a private bathroom and a TV. After settling in, I walked down the block to call home and then headed off for dinnner at Mama Clorinda, a cute little restaurant that serves Ecuadorian food, although mainly to foreigners (I had to fight for the waiter to speak to me in Spanish). I had llapingachos (cornmeal cakes with cheese inside of them) with chicken and avocado. Pretty good! Now I´m on my way back to the hotel because I´m functioning on way too little sleep and need to be rested for my journey to Yunguilla tomorrow via public transportation. Wish me and my luggage luck! 

Getting ready for take-off!

Saturday’s the big day! My flight leaves Indy at 6:30am, so Dad and I will be getting to the airport at 5am. You already know how excited we both are about waking up that early on a Saturday morning. And how excited Mom is that she’ll already be in New York. Maybe I just won’t sleep… Anyways, I’m flying through Miami, where my friend from high school, Ashleigh, will be picking me up so we can go to brunch because I have such a long layover. Then at 2pm, I depart for Quito! My flight should arrive around 5pm their time (1 hour behind Indy/the East Coast) and from the airport, I’ll take a taxi to the hotel I have reserved in the touristy district of the city (La Mariscal). I won’t have much time to explore Quito on Sunday, as I’ll be embarking after breakfast on my journey to Yunguilla, the ecotourism community where I’ll be living with a host family for the next 2 months. Here’s to hoping the Ecuadorian public transportation system isn’t any more complicated than SEPTA to figure out! I’m a little bit nervous about traveling by myself, but am sure that my Spanish and cultural experience (I’ve been to Ecuador twice before in high school on week-long service/learning trips) will help me immensely! Mom and Dad, this is the fruits of your ISI tuition money being put to good use! I’m not sure how often I’ll have Internet access, but I’ll try to update the blog when I can, and maybe even post a picture or two. I think there’s a place on the right-hand side of the page where you can insert your e-mail address and receive an alert when the blog is updated. I won’t have my cell phone with me, but if you feel like sending me an e-mail, my address is: m.zelonis@yahoo.com

 

Thanks for all your well wishes! I can’t wait to start this adventure!