Highlights:
-Photographed my little kindergardeners; pictures are up so check those out at http://picasaweb.google.com/alex.fussell
-Woke up at 4:30am on a Friday to not take a really cool train haha
-Jumped off a huge bridge
-Rappelled down 4 waterfalls
-Bought a jacket with llamas on it :)
-Cooked spaghetti :)

On Thursday, I had service learning and took my camera to recess. You would have thought that the kids had never seen their photo before, which I suppose could be true. I pretty much could take one picture at a time because they wanted to see every picture after I took it. I'm going to take some more this week of the rest of my kids and also of the classroom so you can see what those look like.

After school, Ali, Annie, Austin, Edan and I took the Ecovia to the Trolley to the south bus station, Quitumbre. We bought some tickets to head to Riobamba, a city of 125,000 and the capital of the Chimborazo Province which, it turns out, is really boring. We took a cab to our hostel and drove through most of the central district at 11 pm which consisted of zero people and closed up houses and businesses. Our room at the hostel was really cute and included a kitchen, which we couldn't use since our entire food supply consisted of a package of crackers I'd grabbed before leaving home, and since everything was closed, we couldn't buy food. We got up at 4:30am the next morning to go ride El Nariz del Diablo (The Devil's Nose), a (now) tourist train that goes up/down a really really steep hill by traversing lots of switchbacks, and passengers can ride on top of the train to enjoy the beautiful views of all the surrounding volcanoes. At least, that's what all the guidebooks say. It turns out that there is one small, 30-person, bus that has been retrofitted to go on train tracks, you can't ride on top, and tour companies buy out all the tickets so you have to buy them 8 days in advance. We arrived at the station at 5am (we wanted to make sure we got tickets) only to be told the were sold out. We waited a little to see if anyone didn't show up (they all did). The guidebooks lie.
We went back to the hostel, slept more, and then had breakfast and wandered around town for a while. The architecture is sort of similar to Quito's Old Town/Historic District, but there's less to do. Then we decided that we wanted to go to somewhere more exciting, so we chose Banos (the n should have the little squiggle over it, so it sounds like the n in the word canyon). Before heading out though, we decided to explore the countryside some, so we asked our hostel hosts how we could go about renting a car. They called a man who rented us his own personal car for 3 hours. The extent of the paperwork for this exchange was him holding onto Austin's passport copy. Welcome to Ecuador! We drove out away from Riobamba and visited several small towns which had possibly never had tourists before. Everyone we saw looked at us very strangely. Of course, I'm sure it's rare to see 5 white kids in a car anywhere in Ecuador. All the little pueblos seemed to be entirely agriculturally-based, and therefore were not so wealthy. All of the buildings were made of concrete, although sometimes there were painted really bright colors. It was a different look at the countryside than you get by riding a bus, so I enjoyed that a lot. We then went to the bus station in Riobamba and headed to Banos, which is one of the top tourist destinations in Ecuador. It's a pretty small town, but it's filled with all manner of outdoorsy tourist activities and also spa-type activities. The name comes from fact that the town has baths with incredibly hot water heated by the nearby volcano.
We found a nice comfortable hotel and enjoyed the nightlife activity, which was much more happening than Riobamba. We also went to the little carnival which had a Ferris wheel which went much faster than any American Ferris wheel I've been on.
The next morning, we had breakfast in the hostel ($10/ night, breakfast included, mostly hot water, mostly clean, pretty good deal). I'm glad I like scrambled eggs best because they understand that (huevos revueltos) but they do not understand sunny-side up, over medium, over hard, or anything like that. I've also discovered that the warm milk they give you for coffee is good and filled with protein so I'm not so hungry later. The milk here tastes sort of different and is not refrigerated until you open it and put it in the fridge yourself which seems a bit odd to me, but it's not bad.
We went to the main tourism agency street and rented buggy-things to drive (well, for Edan and Austin to drive, since they can drive a manual). We drove out to two bridges a little ways out of town where you can jump off them. It's not quite bungee jumping because you just swing, but there's definitely still an adrenaline rush. Edan, Annie and I decided this would be fun. We paid $15 dollars, put on harnesses and jumped from the railing on the side of the bridge. I was thinking: Oh, this is no problem; I'm not scared of heights! I found out that when you're standing on the guard rail above a canyon, though, you're scared of heights haha. It was SO fun, though; I really enjoyed it.
We rode back to town and because of that nice protein I had drunk that morning, I wasn't hungry. (I know, crazy!)Everyone else was and I watched slightly jealously as they ate creamy Italian pasta and Mexican burritos (from the same restaurant haha). I have to say that I miss food from home a lot.
Austin and Annie went off to give/receive a motorcycle riding lesson, respectively, and then head back to Quito, and Edan, Ali and I decided to rappel down waterfalls. We chose an office which said they had canyoning for $20. I had cash but they didn't so they went back to the hotel while I filled out a waiver. It sounds so legit! However I only knew my passport number, not theirs, and I wasn't going to sign for them, and by the time they got back, the company had forgotten about the paperwork so they never signed it haha. We got in a van with two tour guides, Angel and Javier, got wetsuits, jackets, and shoes, and drove up to a random little house up a random little road. We joined with three middle-aged American guys who had just done an intense 8-day jungle camping experience (think having guns to hunt and potentially protect yourself from unfriendly natives). One was a computer engineering professor, one was a professional adventure, and one was a firefighter. We were glad to have him along, just in case. Our tour guides told us we could put on our wetsuits inside of the little cabin. While we were changing, a GIANT rooster walked out from under the little bench in the corner and scared Ali half to death. Edan and I laughed pretty hard.
We walked up a small mountain which was a struggle, but we were less tired than the three guys which was satisfying since they had just also summited Chimborazo, which is the tallest mountain in Ecuador (a mere 20,565 feet). Then we rappelled down three waterfalls and slid down two more. I wished I had had gloves because I couldn't let the rope just slide through my hands since they would have burnt, but it was still really neat. I felt like Steve haha. I don't have any pictures of the waterfalls since we didn't have a dry bag, but there is one picture showing our very attractive outfits. The water was not warm, so as soon as we got back to town we headed over to the baths. There were several small-pool-sized hot tubs. And when I say hot, I don't mean 105 F, I mean at least 115 in the colder one. Ali and I suffered through about 15 minutes of that tub and Edan (for some reason which I cannot fathom) went to the even hotter one. Ali is a public health major and we discussed all of the diseases we were probably contracting by being in this water (which was not clear, I might add, since it just gets piped in from the ground), in the pool which became rapidly more and more crowded. It was entertaining, but I did enjoy my nice clean and hot-but-not-too-hot shower.
We got dinner and wandered around town for a while doing some shopping since we were all looking for some things. There are a ton of stores which are basically mini-Otavalos (that's the town with the HUGE indigenous market), so I bought a cool jacket with llamas on it. Ecuadorians are all small, but the jackets all seemed to be made for someone who has short arms but is very very fat. I probably visited 10 stores before I found a decently-fitting jacket, but I like it a lot (I'm wearing it right now, for example.) Ali and I also bought the super cheap (by that I mean inexpensive and pretty low quality) shoes that we had worn on the canyoning trip. I like them because the entire sole and toe is rubber, so your feet don't get wet from walking on a wet surface.
We were pooped so we called it a night and actually got a solid night's sleep.

The next morning we had breakfast, applied lots of sunblock and hiked partway up one of the mountains next to Banos, so a large statue of The Virgin and her baby. The hike was rather challenging, especially since we were all already sore from the day before, but the view was gorgeous. I was dumb and brought my camera but left the battery in the charger, but I took several pictures on Ali's camera so I'll get them and upload them soon. We caught our breaths, talked to another American who was studying in Quito, and headed back to the hotel to shower before checking out.
I got some food at the little cafe next to the hotel, which was somewhat disappointing; their humitas are not nearly as good as the ones my host mom buys, and then Ali and Edan ate at another restaurant where Ali ordered Nachos and Avocados and received a bowl of guacamole and Doritos, and Edan ordered a hamburger without fries and got one with fries. You never know if the food will be good or not here haha.
We walked over to the bus station and rode the 3.5ish hours back to Quito and another half an hour ish on the Trolley. I like the Trolley (except for the theft of my phone) because it stops a block and a half away from my house.
I was hungry but my host mom hasn't been to the store in a few days because there was NO milk and NO bread (It's probably the first time that has every happened in an Ecuadorian house; they eat bread like there's no tomorrow). So, I got to cook pasta (they had whole wheat pasta!!!) with tomatoes, onions, mozzarella cheese and a couple spices (their spice cabinet is not quite as comprehensive as yours is, Mom). That was a wonderful dinner :)

Well I've spent a solid 3.5 hours on the computer and I still haven't responding to any emails haha. I guess that's what no internet for three days does!

Love Alex