Thirty-seventh day- dramatic.
So Friday morning we woke up early, and got ready to take off to Mindo. After the hurried blur of the morning, we were finally on the bus to the northern side of Quito, and then on another bus to Mindo [most of which, for me, was spent sleeping]. When we finally got off at Mindo, the first of our many dramatic events of the weekend had occurred. Caitlin couldn't find her medicine or toiletries...or sweatshirt. After a while, the gang puzzled together that her stuff must have been stolen, because the stolen items were the ones that were placed towards the top of her backpack. Annoyance aside, we hopped on the back of a pickup truck [which by now had become too common a mode of transportation for us] and were on our way to find a hostal. We arrived at the main part of Mindo, a home-y rural town with lots of quaint restaurants and cottage-cozy hostals. After a long gander at the beautiful view at the Hostal Sanchez, we dropped our things off and set off to Pizza de Tere. Being as hungry as we were, the 7 of us ended up ordering 3 large pizzas. In the process of ordering and eating, we met the friendly owners, one of whom told us that "Todo es posible en Mindo." After making our stomachs happy with food, we went to find a place to zip line. Although I'm not normally a big fan of being high above the grounds in nothing but a harness around my legs, we all decided to venture into the forest for some adventure. After only a couple zip lines, my dear friends had established to our guides that my nickname was Chucky, which started a long session of nickname-making. Which also established a "casi novios" case between Henry and Bri, which Henry was not too happy about. But the 13-zip-line adventure overall was such a fun experience. We zipped through the forest in mariposa pose, superman pose, and bouncing up and down while the guides pulled the line up and down. We found a yummy chocolate/coffee place, and had humongous pieces of brownie. After that, we went to a bar outside with swings as chairs that we had spotted ahead of time. We all ate burgers and had a grand time and then went out to El Diablo after playing the "most likely to.." game in our room. Caitlin started getting sick and drama filled our night, but we had fun nonetheless.The next morning, Hannah, Annie, Alex and I went to El Quetzal [the cute chocolate place we went to the night before] for breakfast. I had delicious coffee [the first cup of coffee I had in Ecuador that wasn't instant] and pancakes to prep me for a long day of hiking. We went back, Caitlin decided she would venture on despite her incessant vomiting, and were off to the waterfalls. We took a cable car from one side to the other in order to get to the waterfalls. We had a pleasant walk with singing, talking and taking pictures, and we got to see about 4 waterfalls. Annie, Alex, and Hannah paid a couple dollars to jump into a waterfall which was epic. After the waterfall hike which left us out of breath, we went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant. We were absolutely famished because it was around 4, and ended up devouring all our food in negative 5 seconds. After our very late lunch, Caitlin and Alex left, and the rest of us decided to stay in Mindo for another day. The 5 people left went to find a hostal. We walked into "Bird Planet," which looked very expensive but stupendous. It was expensive. While we were in the process of leaving to look for another hostal, however, the lady caught us and made a deal we could not refuse. She gave us a cabana for $7 per person, and we took it. The cabana was small and cute and a lot like a doll house. We loved it. After settling in and taking a shower, we decided to go out to El Quetzal [for the millionth time now] to get a brownie snack. At the cafe, we looked through a book of dogs and picked ones that matched our personalities/looks, which was followed by a thorough reading of the dogs. Laughing and talking, we returned to the hostal and played card games like Oh Heck, which we all learned to love. Annie decided to go to bed early since she didn't feel too great, and Hannah and I came upstairs to see her sleeping on the floor [there were only 2 beds]. She woke up, said she needed to go to the bathroom, talked to Henry and Bri downstairs, and came back upstairs. Hannah and I assumed that she was awake, but apparently she was sleepwalking because when we woke her up later to get her to sleep on the beds with us, she said that she had been sleeping the whole time. We all had a good laugh and talked about our fake ideals in men [aliens, hobos, etc] until Henry pretended to be our dad and told us to go to bed.
Sunday morning, we woke up and Hannah and I decided we would want to go to the butterfly house while the others relaxed. We ended up going to ChocolArte with Annie and Henry, getting delicious toast-and-omelette breakfasts. Bri woke up feeling sick so she ended up staying back in the cabana and Annie wanted to explore elsewhere. Henry, Hannah and I set off to the butterfly house, walking for about 30 minutes to get there. The butterflies were very unique and we got to hold them in our hands but the $5 we paid to get in was a little bit overpriced. After grabbing some last minute snacks and medicine [for Bri, poor thing], we were ready to leave, when we found out that the 2:00 bus was full. Because of this, we ended up cramming in the 2:00 bus without seats. Despite this, I had a pretty good bus ride back besides being very tired from the weekend trip. When we returned, the house was empty due to the other half of our group that was still in Montanita. I had a pretty relaxing Sunday after I got home, and got ready for school the next day.
Monday went pretty normally, with school in the morning and relaxed afternoon after school. I was extremely tired and cranky last night so I went to bed early.
Today I went to school and had a surprisingly great day. Everyday I've been with the kids, Jairo has been the troublemaker of the class, but one that will listen and come around if I cater to his needs. Today, my argument to him was that I would be leaving soon and that I didn't have time to fight with him. After that, he listened to me once again and told me he would come to the U.S. with me. It was a re-realization that kids like him are sweethearts, that their troubled minds just need someone to understand and to have the patience to wait for them. Xavier also surprised me today. I had a very soar throat in the afternoon, thus needing the kids to be quiet. Xavier continued to talk, but after I told him very firmly that I won't ask him to be quiet anymore, he stopped and listened. Again, kids coming around. Wonderful. I also had some sad realizations, like the fact that Jenyfer's dad hit her mom. She wrote about her in her diary entry about inspirational people, and although it warmed my heart, it made me sad that I couldn't help her home situation.
After school, Hannah and I went down to La Mariscal and explored, seeing La Basilica and 4 other churches. They were all beautiful in their own ways, and I loved having the freedom of exploring the city with my dear friend. We had dinner at "La Menestra del Negro," which besides being more than slightly racist was pretty decent food. Afterwards, we left and came back to the house, realizing that we had been out for about 5 hours! Tomorrow we are hopefully taking salsa lessons, under the assumption that my stiff bones will care to move a little.
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