walking in cuenca

Today I spent a lot of time walking around the Cuenca downtown. It's a UNESCO world heritage site full of pretty old buildings, much like Quito's Historic Old town (also a world heritage site). There are a ton of big, old churches. I also visited my host-grandma, who lives here. She was one of the ten relatives who all came and stayed at my house a few weeks ago. Out of all of them, she was the easist to understand, so I'm glad I was visiting her. We chatted for a while about my travels, her travels, her family, the economic situation in Ecuador, the government, taxes, other South American countries, and the US (she and her husband have lived there for about 15 years on and off). It's so satisfying to be able to hold an entire conversation about all manner of things in Spanish. I feel like I've learned so much and gotten lots of good practice while living here.
I also went to the airport this morning to try to by one of the nice $50 plane tickets back to Quito, but they were out so I'll be taking a not-so-nice 10 hour bus ride overnight. The guidebook says there are luxury buses for $2 more so I really hope that is the case. (Here, a luxury bus pretty much means slightly cleaner and slightly more comfortable seats.)

Here in Cuenca, they seem to launch a lot of fireworks. We have no idea why, but they had them during the day and night. We also saw a breakdancing show in the main plaza and didn't really do much else because it's Sunday and all the museums are closed, and as the afternoon continued EVERYTHING closed except for all the ice cream shops, pizzerias, and fast food restaurants. I wanted real food but we eventually found a Shawarma restaurant which was SO good. Shawarma is sort of a mix between Indian food and Middle Eastern food and I love it.

This time in two days I'll be home :)

Love Alex

adopted family : )

Yesterday, we took a series of buses from Montañita. We heard that one left there at 10 am, so we wandered over to the bus stop at about 9:50 and fortunately we were there early since it pulled up right as we walked up. We transfered in Santa Elena, where the bus to Guayaquil was convieniently leaving right away. As we approached the city through the slums, Ali and I looked at each other and decided we were already done with the city and we hadn't even gotten there yet haha. However, in the bus terminal, we called Tito, a friend we met in the Galapagos, to see if he could possibly meet up with us at some point that day. He said their whole family would be there in 5 minutes to pick us up. Basically they're the greatest family ever. We first went to the main Banco de Guayaquil and Annie finally successfully got her money. Then we walked along the boardwalk, which is one of the most pleasant urban spaces I've ever been in. Tito told us how that and everything else in Guayaquil is funded by Guayaquileños, because the national government (aka Correa, the president), doesn't give them anything. Guayaquileños are not fans of the current government, generally speaking...
We also visited a cute little neighborhood perched on the top of a hill (which is 450 ish stairs tall) and we had a beautiful view of the city. WE had already been disgusting because the showers didn't work at the hotel in the morning, and then we were drenched in sweat after climbing. That was not so pleasant.
We then drove around the city some, where we saw neighborhoods that look exactly like Florida suburbs, with large houses in gated communities that cost $350,000. That's very expensive for here, but that's so much cheaper than anywhere in the US for those houses. (They aren't exempt from traffic problems, though. That part of the city is across a river from the main downtown and there's only one bridge).
Their mom is also the regional manager for an ice cream chain, so we visted two of those stores (in malls; it appears that Guayaquil has at least as many malls as Quito, if not more) and I had the largest ice cream cone of my life :)
We decided that instead of heading off to Cuenca, so we went to their house and swam in their pool. The kids are ages 11, 13 and 15, and they all understand English perfectly and speak well. They're like our brothers. We then went on a night tour of the city. We saw a huge iguana statue, a huge parrot statue, several neat buildings, a city park with live iguanas, and probably a few more things, but I was so tired that I actually fell asleep in the car. I haven't done that in years haha

The next morning we said our goodbyes and went to the bus terminal. At 9:10 am, we bought tickets for a bus which they said left at 9:30, but then the ticket said 9:50. However, at 9:50, there was no bus. There were several bus station workers that told us not to worry, it was just running late and was on it's way. At 10:50, another bus showed up. I was disappointed; we haven't had any problems at all with buses until now. However, they accepted our tickets. We had planned on visiting some Incan ruins on the way to Cuenca, but the bus took FOREVER (they told us 3 hours and it was 6.5) so we decided we didn't have that kind of time. I enjoyed being back in the sierra and looking out the window; it's a really beautiful part of the country and I definitely want to come back and explore more some day.

We found a cute hostel and had a large dinner, given that we hadn't had lunch. I had a burrito. I can't wait to have Mexican food again!

3 days!
Love Alex

surfing fail haha

Last night we met lots of people. Everyone here is SO friendly to us. By everyone, I mean the town's population, which seems to be entirely 20-something males. By us, I mean four white females. So, maybe the people aren't always friendly, but they certainly are to us. I'm not sure if I like this, but since the town is pretty small, we run into people we know frequently.

This morning we slept in and then had a lazy breakfast and walked around the beach. It's quite long and has the town proper at one end, and several hotel/cabins at the other end. I bought a mango batido and relaxed in a hammock and felt like I was getting burned, but I'm not, fortunately. We found Ali on the beach where she had set up camp since we'd left her that morning since she was sick again :( We rented two surfboards and Erica and Ali explained the basics to Annie and I. We met some other boys from Guayaquil and one came out and tried to teach me how to surf. People who are good make it look far easier than it is. I gained a small bruise on my nose after smashing it into the surfboard, but it sort of looks like a sunburn so it's fine.
We gave up after an hour of surfing and just chatted on the beach with some of people we've met. Most of the people here are tourists and travelers. We've met a lot of South Americans from a variety of countries who are just traveling the continent, and some of them have been for years. I've only been gone two and a half months and I'm sure ready to come home, but some of these people doen't even have homes. Different life...

Tomorrow we're going to Guyaquil and then Cuenca. I'm ready to move on from this town; it's too crazy for me haha

Love Alex

i've never sweated so much in my life

Today we packed up bright and early, went to the bank just before 9, and found a HUGE line waiting outside. Fortunately we just needed the ATM (which continued to work :)) and then we went on a tour to Isla de la Plata (Silver Island, where silver is as in the metal, not the color). We took a boat for about an hour and a half to a sweltering island, where we walked and saw blue-footed boobies, mascaras (I don't know how to say it in English), and tiny humming birds. The mascaras had eggs or babies and their nests were right on the bath. It was so cool. Then we went snorkeling, which was even better than yesterday; there were a lot more big fish, the water was clearer, and there were other long skinny fish that were neat. There were also small jellyfish, who sting, as I found out. We didn't have very long, but it was also amazing.

We then headed to our next stop, Montañita, which is a party town full of surfers. It is yet again very different than anywhere we've been!

Love Alex

mango yellow and lobster red

Today we went to several different phone booths so erica and annie could continue attempting to call their banks to withdraw money. I am SO glad I have a functioning card with me. Ali and I are providing all the money at the moment, and we have an ever-growing list of who owes who what. We feel like parents, providing our children with allowance and paying for meals and treats haha

Yesterday Annie was somewhat sick (eat, throw up, feel better; healthy, I know) and last night Ali came down with feel sick, throw up, repeat 200 times, sleep allll day. So, we left her and lots of fluids and went to a cool island on a boat. We saw lots of birds, including blue footed boobies. Then we went snorkeling and saw lots of pretty large fish, and this sweet eel-like white animal with a blue stripe. The we went to this secluded beach on the island where ocean-sized waves (large) would break RIGHT on the beach, because the ground was all flat and shallow underwater until it got to the beach, when it went uphill steeply. It was very entertaining. On the boatride back, we went right along with a school of dolphins, which was SO cool. I am now also a lovely shade of lobster. Tomorrow I will be a lovely shade of white sunblock.

Here in Ecuador they have drinks called batidos. Mango batidos are exactly like mango lassis. I've had three so far in Puerto Lopez because the shop across the street sells them for a dollar and the ice is made from purified water (or so they say, and I have yet to be sick.)

One week till I come home!
Love Alex

mas adventura

this morning we spent a lovely morning in canoa, which was one of my favorite towns in ecuador so far. "precious" is ali and my choice word to descirbe it. i wandered around the beach and the town while the other three went swimming and took some pictures on ali's camera. we're now down to two cameras since annie misplaced her wallet (with a camera, $3 and a non-functioning credit card) and now it is gone. luckily i have my extra 8 gig memory card so i think we'll be fine. we packed up and took a bus and a ferry (which seemed dangerously close to capsizing once) but we made it to Bahía de Caráquez, a moderate-sized city on a peninsula. We spent a while wandering around and enjoying the very calm atmosphere (aka it's sunday and everything is closed and it took us quite a while to find a restaurant, but it was yummy when we did). Then we spent a while more trying to find an ice cream parlour (they're called heladerías here) but when we did it was basically the best ice cream we've ever eaten. We're going to relax here for a while, hopefully meet up with Taylor and her dad, and then head to Puerto Lopez tomorrow!

Love Alex

beach beginnings

The beach trip is going nicely so far. We've been to Atacames (very breifly) and then we moved on to Mompiche, a very small town (think one main street and no pavement) which was super interesting although we are not sad to now be in Canoa, a slightly larger town. We went to a black sand beach in Mompiche which was pretty amazing; I've never seen such sparkly sand or felt such soft sand before. On the downside, someone snuck up to our stuff (on this COMPLETELY deserted beach sort of in the middle of nowhere) and now I am short a camera. At least I was planning on replacing it anyway. Erica is short a cell phone, an iPod and $100, so it could be worse.

More to come later; I just wanted to let you know I'm alive and well!

Love Alex

el fin/ el principio

yesterday I spent the morning finishing up my papers and our group brochure on all of Ecuador (all the descriptions were rather short given the limited amount of space). I gave a presentation on Ecuadorian Food which was actually kind of fun since I knew what I was talking about and I had yummy-looking pictures of all the foods. My teacher was pleased with our progress in speaking; she said we've all improved since the midterm presentations.

After classes, we had a end-of-program get-together will all the host families and students. We had snacks, juice, recieved ACLAS t-shirts, and said our goodbyes. Then we went out with our teachers, which was very entertaining. I will miss them a lot.

This morning I slept in with zero guilt that I was not doing something important. I started packing and I still have a huge mountain of stuff on my bed that will most definitely not fit in a backpack. I will be attempting to figure out that problem shortly...

My maid didn't come today, so we went to a restaurant for lunch. Then I met up with Ali, Erica, Annie and Joey and we went wandering around Quito doing nothing for way too long. We probably spent half an hour in a DVD shop but they walked away with a fatty collection of new movies. We the walked around for forever again trying to find the Esmeraldas Transport bus station, which is more or less in the party district of town, of course haha. We found it after wandering around FOREVER. Then I came home and now have 4 hours to kill before heading to the bus station for a nice 7 hour bus ride to Esmeraldas to start the beach adventure! I won't have a computer but I'll update the blog/answer emails when I get the chance.

Love, Alex

service learning: check.

Today I got up at 6 (for the last time!) and went to my final day of service learning. We didn't do any big projects today because they did an incredibly sweet goodbye presentation in the afternoon. They did two dances, a recitation about friendship, presented me with a framed photo of the class, and all gave me lots of hugs and said thank you (in English haha) and "Te quiero" which means I love you. I also took more pictures of them during recess (I'm up to almost 200 haha) and I videotaped the dances and recitation. I had my camera in my lap so it wouldn't be too distracting to them so it's filmed from an odd height, but I'll try and upload those. It will probably only take like three days... I also gave them a coloring packet and crayons (curtesy of ACLAS, which I'm very grateful for). The kids enjoyed them a lot.
,
At school, we had a pretty chill day since we're ALMOST done. We tried to convince Monica, our second professor, to come out with us after classes tomorrow. She said she'd think about it. Two of our other professors, Loli and Sofie, said they would for sure come out haha

Since I spent all weekend writing, I finished my essays so I could turn them in and have them proofread multiple times, because even if a professor reads it and my host dad reads it, there are still grammar mistakes. I'm not sure how all three of us miss them, but there you go. Needless to say, I had Loli read my essay twice and Monica read another essay once, my host dad has read each once, and then he's going to read them once more tomorrow. Hopefully they'll be good then. I've also spent a while working on a powerpoint for my Food presentation, for Monica's class. It's enjoyable because the entire powerpoint is just pictures of food. It makes me hungry, and hopefully will be moderately interesting to my classmates.

I'm also trying to figure out where exactly I want to go for the next two weeks, other than the broad concept of "the coast," but this requires reading my pdf guidebook on my tiny laptop, and I am not so burned out that I'd rather do that than my homework. SO I'm not quite sure where I'll end up but I'm sure it will be fun! Spring break starts in 18 hours :))

Love Alex

I LOVE MANGO

Today I woke up bright and early (7:15am, after getting 8 hours of sleep) to work more on my Ecuadorian Foods paper. Then I wrote a paper on some Incan ruins here which I plan on going to visit in about a week and a half. I am SO tired of writing essays in Spanish, or any other language for that matter. On my plus side, my teachers are pretty easy graders so hopefully all this effort will pay off.

In school, nothing particularly notable happened. I'll miss these classes, though. I love having fun teachers in an 8-person class. The fact that there's not normally much homework doesn't hurt either haha.

After school, I went on a small adventure to investigate more malaria medicine. Ali, Denise, and Austin all need more and I'll need more once I get home. At Fybeca (a rather expensive drug store), they told us we had to take some over the counter malaria medicine once every three days, but we didn't believe them. At a different drug store, they told us you three pills of that very same medicine in one day right before you go to the malaria area. The instructions said you take one a day starting the week before. Needless to say, we did not buy any.

Ali, Austin and I decided to go see Alice in Wonderland (which translates here to Alicia in the Country of Marvels). Our favorite movie theatre is temporarily closed, supposedly because they don't have enough parking so the traffic gets really backed up on the street in front. I'm not sure how they're going to fix that quickly. Instead we went to a theatre a few blocks away. It turns out this new theatre is in ANOTHER mall, so there are THREE 3+ story malls in between my house and my school, which is a 35 minute walk. This country is weird.
For dinner, I wasn't too hungry so for $2.25 I bought the Combo 2 from a little yucca bread stand; which consisted of 4 yucca breads (they're unfortuately very small, but delicious) and a medium mango yogurt, which tasted EXACTLY like a mango lassi (if you've never had one, go to an Indian restaurant right now and try one. Or, wait until I get home and go with me!). This was possibly the best $2.25 I've spent in this country; that yogurt was amazing :) Side note: yogurt here is super liquidy; there is no solid yogurt. I miss my Dannon vanilla yogurt a little bit.

Anyway we ate and watched the movie (this theatre was not as nice as our normal one, but it still nicer than Issaquah's). I then got a taxi ride home for a dollar, which is the minimum fare here so that was a nice change.

Tomorrow I'm getting up even earlier (last day of 6 am!) for my final day of service learning. More than 60 hours here I come! I am possibly the only person that will make it to the required number of hours, at least without fabricating my hours. I also have a large collection of adorable pictures of Ecuadorian 5 year olds which I will upload soon.

My backpack should be arriving in Quito in an hour curtusy of Austin's brother! I'm excited haha

Love Alex

tourist-y adventure

On Thursday after finishing our monster papers, we watched Amelie at school, we were have a plethora of DVD players and desks to sit in haha. It was great and we enjoyed it so much, except that school closes at 8pm and we had two more minutes of the movie when we had to leave.
On Friday, I headed to Papallacta, a town two hours away by bus which has lots of hot springs. We stayed in a nice hotel and relaxed in hot tubs all afternoon and evening and part of the next morning. It was a nice change to stay in a hotel where I really felt that it was clean. I don't like expensive places though (it was $35 for the night and a wristband which gave us entry into the public pools, which are still very nice and weren't too crowded.) I really enjoyed relaxing but I don't feel the need to return; I can only hot tub for so long. Despite the cost, the service in the restaurant was incredibly bad so cost is not everything. The food was good, fortunately.

I have lots of homework again: three mandatory essays and two extra credit essays. Essays seem to be the only way to have us prove our knowledge. I think our teachers have forgotten about tests, packets and interviews. I've never written so much in my life. Tomorrow=hw day, and then I have three days of class and it's spring break!

you didn't fry your empanadas?!?

This morning I spent more time reading and writing. I'm three quarters of the way through Maria, by Jorge Isaacs. I look forward to Monday when I can turn in my last summary and not read it any more.
I went on a jog in the park, which was nice, although I also look forward to being able to run in the streets again instead of circles (albeit large circles; the park is pretty darn big). I then wrote a short paper on humitas, which are the cornbread-like food that look like tamales. I had lunch and rode the Ecovia to school without getting robbed. Yay!

In my first class, we listened to a Bolivian legend. I use the word "listened" and not "understood" intentionally haha. We then had to draw the story on a large piece of butcher paper. Basically, what we ended up deciding (and what we managed to get our teacher to tell us) was that in Lake Titicaca, there is an island, which was called the Island of the Sun. A mother and father lived their and gave birth to the entire Incan race. They must have had a lots of kids.
Sometime later, two dueling tribes lived on the island, and the Incans came back and conquered them, although they were allowed to continue their rituals such as human sacrifice. The Incans built an incredible city with lots of gold. One day, the Spanish showed up. The Incans threw their gold in the bottom of the lake and fled to some other land, where they celebrated their successful escape by partying and dancing for 12 days with a huge gold snake, which was more than 200 meters long, and somehow they moved it to make it look like it was alive. Nowadays, ruins have been discovered in the lake, but they don't seem quite as splendid as they story says. The story might make more sense if we had understood more, but we did have fun trying to draw out something that did not make sense at all.
In my second class, we learned that although Columbia is incredibly dangerous and violent, the people there are some of the happiest in the world. My teacher explained that this is because they have the following mentality: Today is probably the last day in my life, so I'm going to party!

Then I came home, where I found a container of empanadas verdes (green empanadas, literally, although they're actually brown). I microwaved two and was halfway through eating my second one when my host dad came into the kitchen and was slightly appalled that I hadn't fried them on the stove. When my host mom came home later, she asked me if I had made some empanadas. I told her I had microwaved them. She was even more appalled. I thought they were quite good, but tomorrow I'll try frying them.

I've spent the evening working on my 2000 word essay, (right now it's at 1978, but it has three photos so I figure it's pretty much 5000 words, since a picture is a thousand words, right? :)), working on my grammar homework, editing my Maria summary, and reading aboug Venezuela and doing more research about Hugo Chavez, while listening to my four new favorite Ecuadorian songs. My internet has crashed three times since I've tried to stream them all at the same time via YouTube. It takes about half an hour for them to all load. At least I have internet in my house, and it's faster than some of my friends' internet connections at their houses!

Love Alex

mucho writing

well i'm exhausted from a long day of service learning and homework so i'm about to go to bed. just a quick recap of the day, though... We had another field trip to a museum instead of class. We went to this really interesting museum which was focused on culture and artifacts such as clothing and sculptures. I liked it a lot and if anyone were coming to visit me, I would take them there. However, no such luck.
We ate outside the museum in a yummy cafe after and then I got home almost two hours earlier than normal. I spent all of that time and most of my evening working on my 2000 word essay, and I wrote 1500 so far, so that was satisfying. Tomorrow I'm going to get up early, run, and write more! I also have a one-page paper on Ecuadorian food due tomorrow, the next (2 ish page) summary of Maria, by Jorge Isaacs, due Thursday, service learning on Thursday, the huge paper due Friday (although we don't have class!), a 2 page paper due Wednesday, a group brochure due Wednesday, and a 3 page paper and presentation on Ecuadorian food due Wednesday. Then I'm DONE WITH WINTER QUARTER CLASSES! yay no finals week!

Love Alex

(almost) theft number 2

Today I ran to school to do some homework, which was lucky because I had another service learning meeting. Why I have them at all, I have no idea; I never have any problems or anything to talk about. My meetings are always fast, especially since I'm the only person who volunteers at this school. Today's meeting was about 4 minutes long. It was a good one, though, because Monica told me that, although the packet says our final paper has to be 10-12 pages, it also says the word count should be 2000-2500 words. It turns out that's only 6ish pages, I think, so I'm much happier.

I got dropped off at the Ecovia (super super crowded bus) like normal and took it to school. There was this weird lady who kept standing really close to me even though there was more space where she had been a stop or two before. Then I got off, which is always the best part of the Ecovia ride. When I got to school, I took my laptop out of its case. The case had a big rip in it. I was annoyed because it's from REI and the seam should not have torn. Then I realized that it wasn't torn on the seam; it was definitley cut by a knife. I looked at my backpack, which also had large cut in the bottom. Nothing was taken, but I was upset. I should have realized that the weird lady was standing so close for a reason. My backpack here is also my favorite backpack. And, I HATE standing out so much. I am white (white=$$ for so many people here), tall and female and all of that together means I attract so much more attention than I want. I plan on walking to school from now on. I've had enough theft on public transportation here. And I always try to be safe; I wear my backpack in front of me and have my (long) arms around it, but apparently that's not enough.
Edan, who also had her phone stolen, also had her bag sliced today. She didn't have anyone weird standing so close, and they didn't steal anything either, but her bag was also nice and we are both mad. Oh Ecuador.

22 days until I come home!