Eighth day- irony.
Yesterday was a day of extreme irony. Here are just some of the things I said yesterday morning:"I'm so glad I've adjusted so well to Ecuador, I haven't really been sick or anything!"
"I'm starting to feel a lot better after drinking lots of water"
"I feel SO AWAKE!!!"
Even a book couldn't have exaggerated the irony in these statements as was blatantly obvious in reality yesterday. Yes, you've guessed it. I was very sick yesterday, feeling nauseous for most of day, and forcing my body to take on the challenge of a 3 hour bus ride to Plaza Grande and an hour and a half there. The scenery was great. And I, more than anyone love a good view. But yesterday was just horrendous. After taking some pictures at the presidential palace and looking around the Iglesias de la compania de Jesus [which were both very cool], I had my shoe stuck in the door of the trolley and took a bus ride on the steps of the bus on the way back. Needless to say, that didn't do good things for my nausea. When I got back, I listened to the sounds of people laughing and Mariachi band jamming as I lay in bed, unable to sleep or enjoy the fiesta of 4th of July downstairs. Bri, being the genius that she is, made me eat a few goldfish, which pretty much saved my life yesterday.
After finally getting out of bed, I ate some more crackers and joined the party as people danced and sang with the Mariachi band. All the tutors then went up on the roof and enjoyed the good view as we played ten fingers...again. Nonetheless, I was glad to join the rest of the party and enjoy the day with my lovelys.
Seventh day- exhausted.
Today was a day of transportation. I woke up to a morning of realization that I hadn't let my bank know about traveling so I had to skype and deal with that before walking over to an atm, only to find out they were out of service. Word of advice for traveling to Ecuador? Checking in with your bank and bringing lots of small bills. But after that whole fiasco, we started walking to get on the bus for Mitad del Mundo. What we thought would be an hour of traveling ended up becoming two hours, and most of the duration of the ride was spent being zombie-like forms standing wordlessly on the bus from complete exhaustion. When we finally arrived, we saw a menu to a restaurant that had a $2 meal of hamburger, fries, and coke, and to the starving souls that we were, it was sold! We then proceeded to look around at the shops, enjoy the view, stare forever at llamas, and stand with one leg in each hemisphere [but not really since the Mitad del Mundo is not the actual equator]. Even so, the idea that we were so close to the equator was enough to bring smiles to our faces and cause us to take some crazy pictures. Most of the bus ride back was spent on discussing our nicknames for the TQP jerseys we would soon be getting. And in this discussion, we became a crowd of slap-happy giggles in the exhaustion and lack of activities to keep us occupied. On the way back we stopped at El Recreo, finally giving me a chance to stop at an atm. Everything got crazy there because no one knew where anyone was and everyone was on edge. My suggestion to say something nice about everyone else was laughed off and in a blur of sleep-deprivation, we got back to our lovely home. Tomorrow should be an exciting celebration of 4th of July in Ecuador. Looking forward to it!
Sixth day- laughter.
So I realize I've skipped four days on blogging my adventures in Ecuador. I've been in Banos without my laptop for the last four days. Although it's a bit much to be blogging on four days worth of adventures in one post, I can say it's definitely been worth the procrastination.The first day in Banos was a great long trip from Quito. Four hours of traveling via bus to be exact. It was pretty uneventful besides conversation...oh and Annie almost getting her camera stolen by two vendors who were sitting in front of us and were clearly looking at us through the corners of their eyes for a very long time. And...the craze did not end there. When we finally got to Banos, we had trouble deciding on a hostal to stay at, and ended up staying at this hostal, whose owners did not look very friendly or trustworthy. Sure enough, it turned out that they had lied about giving us a $5 deal on both staying the night and food. FOOD WAS NOT INCLUDED. Which of course was not mentioned, which then led to pissing Alexa off to no end and all of us getting wrapped up in the drama. It was a crazy time. After settling in for a bit, we went out to bars and it was a jolly good time. I believe this was the night that we met our dear friend Javier who I can only describe as a hilarious dancer with hips like Shakira. Oh and I met this kid who we ended up running into THREE times in the next four days resulting in people having to rescue me many a times from him [he just really wanted to dance!]. When we got back to the room, a couple of us gathered in our room and ended up playing 10 fingers, in which many inappropriate topics were brought up, including the comparison of the harriness of Henry and Sam's legs.
The next day we went on a tour to the waterfalls which was so much fun. Again, it was one of those moments where I couldn't decipher reality from fantasy. Some people went bungee jumping which got my blood rushing just watching them do it. At the last waterfall that we visited, we went down this beautiful path through what seemed to be a rain forest and we got to swim under a waterfall. I still can't believe it. It felt so much like I was so immersed in nature. It was pretty great. After that, I'm thinking we took a nap, and then went to go eat. Which really meant walking around for a bit trying to figure out where to eat. Until I spotted "Cafe Hood" [where the food is good]. The food was absolutely delicious and we all had a grand old time there. Then we went out again, and everyone was so silly that night, all together and dance-y and such. I ran into my creeper again and people had to save me but other than that, great times.
The next day was when all of us were supposed to go back, but we got news that we don't start tutoring til next Monday so 5 of us [Bri, Sam, Henry, Alaina and I] ended up staying an extra day in Banos. All of us went to the hot springs in the morning [where many people either pointed or called me Chinita and took a picture of us]. The rest of our group left after this at their scheduled time and all of us gringos made a scene in the bus terminal where we made a big deal in hugging each other and say our goodbyes. After that, the 5 of us decided that we didn't like our hostal [or really the people that own it] so we went to look for a new hostal to stay at. We found a good one with a nice owner and decided to spend an extra $1 to stay there for the last night. After that we ate at Cafe Ali Cumba where a cheerful Danish woman served us delicious sandwiches that we devoured in less than ten minutes. We then went horseback riding, where all of our horses had ridiculous personalities. Mine was an alpha male horse who was a little wild and of course named Jackie Chan. Jackie hated Mariachi, which was Bri's horse that I was guessing was Jackie's rival. Sam's horse Luchito was always in the back of the pack...and was facing the wall away from the other horses when we got there. Henry's horse Whiskey was super calm and Alaina's horse Michael Jackson really liked being really close to other horses' butts. It was pretty funny. Except for when Jackie almost made my heart stop by speeding up close to a ledge in the mountain. But we all got beautiful views and it was pretty great. After we got back, it was shower/nappy time and I woke from my nap to sounds of kids screaming. We went to this really delicious pizza place, which employed [who else?] my creeper. He was reading but really he was watching me from the corner of his eye so we all left soon after eating. We went back to our room before going to our volcano tour, where we didn't see much but fog. It was still a fun night and we were very confused by what our tour guide, Sergio, was telling us. In fact, at one point they offered us a mysterious drink and made a joke about gringos and falling into lakes.... we didn't really get it. At that point Sam said, "What are we drinking and why are we ending up in a lake tomorrow?!" It was pretty funny. We went out that night AGAIN, which was way too much for me, but was still fun. We ran into Javier [we didn't know his name until last night] and danced with him for a while. We got pretty tired though, so we ended up leaving after a little bit. When we came back, we didn't play 10 fingers, but rather passed out in a very short amount of time.
When we got back home to Quito, most of us were too tired to do anything so we stayed in while the others went downtown. Banos trip again? Mayhaps. Banos was awesome, we had bread everyday, we met awesome people, and we want badly to go back, to the land of loud and colorful chivas.
Second day- lost.
I woke up to sounds of construction. I was pleasantly surprised about the fact that I could even get up at 9 in the morning considering I went to bed so late last night. I went downstairs and talked with people for a while until Bri and I decided to go check out the roof. The view was fantasmic, breathtaking..I couldn't believe where I was.As we ate food, played cards, and of course colored pages from my coloring book, I felt like a child in the midst of a crazy place. Another thing that made me feel like I was in a crazy place? The amount of attention that "gringos" get in this country! What a ridiciulous amount of staring, smirking, and of course, the voices of little kids screaming "gringos!"
Besides noticing the racial uniformity of Ecuador, I also had the pleasure of experiencing the hectic chaos of public transportation. Getting onto the trolleys/buses was just half the trouble [as people push and shove in order to make it in the vehicle before the drivers lose patience and close the doors]; the cramming of a billion human bodies into a small amount of space seemed quite an achievement. Holding onto handles and bars in a jerky bus as a small girl? Also proved to be a challenge. Even so, the trip to plaza de teatro proved to be an interesting one. Somehow, all 12 people in the group seemed directionally challenged and it took us quite a while to make it to our destination...where we witnessed a fist fight between two aggravated men, the fist of one of the men almost landing in my face. It was an experience.
Again at our destination we were granted beautiful views. The bright colored buildings on steep hills reminded me a lot of San Francisco. We walked around, looked around markets, ate ice cream, saw a cathedral, and all was swell. It's only about 7:30 here, so who knows what the rest of the day will bring?
First day- excitement.
So here I am, in Ecuador. In the middle of this nature-city hybrid environment. And I've made a promise to myself, to try my bestest hardest to post a blog everyday and maybe even a picture to show some of the events of my day.Yesterday was, you know, airport day. I had a weird feeling in my stomach as I waited for Bri to pick me up from my house, a kind of mixture of excitement and nervousness. And I felt nauseous as well. Which did not do anything to help my nervousness. But after medication and some good healing words from my mother [or more like twenty calls to make sure I had everything I needed], I was all set to travel. And guess what? My suitcase? It was 49 pounds. Heart-stopping. But it was all good. The day was super long. It seemed like I had been up for days. We had to travel first to Atlanta then to Quito and we had two hours in between our flight.Then it was the usual when we got there, me, excited, Bri calming me down. I just couldn't believe I was in a different country! Bri and I got the free room to stay in with Henry and decided we were going to decorate and have a tradition of saying our "roses and thorns" or "rosas y espinas" for the day. Excitement all over the place! So not the funnest most exciting blog post, but it will get better as more events come up! And here's a picture of us allll happy [or rather super tired] in the living room area.
Girl.
Here's another poem for you to read..
The girl held fire in her eyes.
The girl held fire in her eyes.
She said, One day I’ll die, but not tonight.
Her soft hands waved tomorrow away
And air croaked from her frail body
As she said, Not today, not today.
The girl held strength in her motion.
She said, Just one more push, I live for today.
The rusty hands of father time creaked
As the hour bred two, and two, three.
She said, Tomorrow I’ll shine, tomorrow I’ll feel.
The girl buried emotion in her heart.
She said, Not for you, not for anyone.
Her feet blistered from the grains of sand
As she burned life with every footstep.
The sea salt air smells like silence, she said.
The girl built a fort on white gold sand,
The girl wanted to hear the waves orchestrate.
The girl was invincible.
The girl fought hard for time to slow,
The girl didn’t hear the waves blow
Against her fort on white gold sand.
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