Riobamba- scratch that- Baños

Dear Chris Kwon,

This weekend, I had planned to go to on a train to go to Nariz del Diablo (Devil's Nose). You can sit on top of the train and enjoy the 3 hours of views. I roped 4 people into joining me, so we left for Riobamba (starting point of train) on Thursday night. We went early so we could buy tickets for the train in the morning. We arrived at Hostal Oasis late and went to bed immediately. We woke up at 4:30 to go the train station. At 5, we found the train station pretty deserted, so we knocked on the door. A security guard let us in and we asked him if there were any tickets available for that day. He laughed and said no. I thought he was joking. We decided to wait until the ticket booth opened. When it did, the employees had the same reaction. They said we needed to buy tickets at least a week in advance. (Thanks, guidebook and secretary at school who said we could get tickets if we got there early). Apparently, tourist companies buy tickets in bulk very early. Great. If no one wanted to go next weekend, I thought maybe my friends who are coming to visit would like to do it. I asked if I could buy tickets for three weeks from then. The ticket man said no and that the tracks were going to be closed for 5 months starting in two weeks. WHAT? Oh Ecuador. The 5 of us left the ticket office and thought about trying to find some tickets for that day. We met a lady outside who told us that there were no available tickets and that the famous picture of the train (see bottom left) was not what the train really was (for real image of the train, see bottom right). Apparently, it has been two years since anyone has been allowed to ride on top ofthe train. The picture at the bus station was deceiving too! Oh Ecuador, What a disappointment.

We groggily made our way back to the hotel and slept for another two hours. Annie, Edan, and I went to get some breakfast. We wandered around the town (125,000 people, the site of the first constitution signing, and not much else) and ate some brekky. We found some delicious ice cream, so indulged in that too. We had a team meeting with Alex and Austin and decided to go to Baños, which was a two hour bus ride from Riobamba. Austin wanted to rent a car and drive around, so he found a guy who rented his own personal car to us for the afternoon. We bought our bus tickets for 6:45 and headed towards what we thought was Chimborazo, but found out at a toll booth that we were going the wrong way. No worries, we explored some local pueblos. The first had the freshest air I have ever breathed. There was a beautiful pink church in the town and abunch of old men hanging out outside of it. I'm sure they thought it was weird. We drove to another pueblo and admired a church and some viewpoints. We drove to yet another pueblo, because there was a sign that said it had cool things, but all we found was a horribly rocky road. We made it back to Riobamba and stopped by a park that had views of all of the surrounding volcanos. We ate some fried chicken for dinner, then boarded the bus to Baños.

Two hours later we made it to Baños. Austin told us about a carnival nearby, so we walked up there. Somehow, I was convinced to go on a sketchy ferris wheel. We were the last people in the carnival. The ride operator left and we went and played on the abandoned rides. After that, we headed to the bars and danced all night. I made it home (after much struggle finding my hotel, because it was very hidden) at around 3:30.

Saturday morning, we woke up late and ate breakfast. Everyone wanted to go bridge jumping

(except me, because even if everyone does it, I will not conform). Baños is like spring break 24/7. It's actually a lot like Seaside. There are mostly tourists and all of the businesses cater to tourists. There were at least two tour companies on every block. We quickly found a moped/buggy renting shop and rented a buggy thing. It was a manual, so Edan drove. We drove on the main highway going pretty slowly. The views were absolutely gorgeous. We arrived at the bridge jumping location and Alex, Edan and Annie jumped. I was the official photographer. We drove a little more and then headed back for lunch.

After lunch, Annie and Austin decided they were going to leave that afternoon. Both had already been to Baños and they wanted to attend an important soccer game in Quito today. They ended up renting motorcycles for a few hours, then leaving for Quito before dinner. Alex, Edan and I decided to do some rappelling down waterfalls. We found a company and bussed with two guides to a house to grab wetsuits and shoes. We were transferred to the site and met some other people from the U.S. 3 guys (2 from Orlando, 1 from L.A) and their Amazon guide joined us on our waterfall voyage. They had just gotten back from spending almost two weeks in the Amazon. Besides some staples (Rice, potatoes), they only ate what they gathered or caught. They had some pretty exciting stories. (Survivor, anyone?) They are part of this tour group called Eco-Planet Adventures, which is headed by an ex- Israeli Special Forces officer. This is the website: http://www.ecoplanetadventure.com/ The guys were pretty cool, but they didn't speak spanish. We rappelled down 3 waterfalls and took the last two like water slides. It was really fun. I wish I had pictures.

After the waterfalls, we rushed to the thermal baths (Baños is famous for it's volcanically heated baths). There were tons of people there and the water turned my bathing suit o

range. We were in the moderately hot pool and I thought I was on fire. After about 10 minutes of that, we went back to the hotel. We ate dinner, then went shopping. I found some sweet (although expensive) shirts and bought some shoes that are kind of like keds. We were exhausted from our day, so we decided not to enjoy the nightlife again.

This morning, we woke up at 8, at breakfast, went to the bus station to buy our tickets, then hike up 600 and something steps to kick it with the Virgin and her baby. The Virgin's seat

provided a lovely view of the valley in which Baños is located.

Despite the disappointment of the train ride, this weekend was probably the best I have had in Ecuador. Everything was entirely spontaneous and no one knew where I was. This week is going to be awful. I have a 10 page paper due on Thursday, I have to read the worst story ever written (Think Jane Eyre + Pride and Prejudice) and write a response to it, I have other homework, and then I have to prepare for finals. Wish me luck! (Oh, and word of advice: Go to Baños. There's something for everyone).

!!!30 días más!!!

Dear Chris Kwon,

This week has been pretty uneventful. Yesterday, I was in a horrible mood. I went to FUDIS, where I thought I would be alone and probably harassed by Red Alpaca Sweater (RAS), the man who is creepy, toothless and old. Joey showed up! He brought the movie Indiana Jones with him, so we watched that. No patients were interested in watching it, so I watched it while Joey slept. Joey and I split a cab back to school, but he asked the cabby to drop him off at his house, which we passed on the way. The cabby and I had already agreed on a price ($2), but about a block after Joey's house, the cabby asked me to get out and walk because the street was closed ahead. I paid him the $2 and got out. The walk wasn't far (maybe 6 blocks), but I was kicking myself for allowing him to treat me that way. I knew he was taking a bad route. I should've said something.

Instead of class, we went on a field trip to the City Museum. I was in a bad mood, but was glad I didn't have to go to class. The museum was about the history of Ecuador. I grabbed some pan de yuca on the way out of the central district and headed back to school. We were going to watch Amelie (best movie ever), but that didn't work out, so I walked home. Alex had her phone stolen yesterday. I need to be careful, because my phone is my primary phone in the states and I know everyone will be trying to call me as soon as I get home. At dinner, Antonio told us stories of his youth. He attended Catholic school and was a total cut up.

Today, I woke up and worked on some homework (fascinating, I know), ran through the park, and ate my favorite lunch (lentils and rice). My host mom asked me what I'm doing this weekend and I told her I'm going on the nariz del diablo (http://www.destination360.com/south-america/ecuador/devils-nose-train). She got really excited. She went on another rant about how important traveling is and how I must take every opportunity before I get married. I love her. Haha. Class was uneventful. I did learn, however, that in order to buy baking soda here, you need a special permit from the government, because a lot of people only use baking soda to add cocaine.

Tomorrow I have service learning, class, a meeting (with pizza), and then I'm off to Riobamba to ride on top of a train.

Alright guys, it's my last month here. It's the final countdown! Enjoy this video.

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Chris Kwon,

This is my third entry in three days. What's wrong with me? Today, I met up with some chicas at 9:15 this morning and we headed to the stadium. Some of the girls bought Barcelona jerseys outside for $6. We entered the stadium and there were more venders set up. They were selling their shirts for only $5. They were selling team baseball hats for $1. Unfortunately, they weren't selling shorts. A group of die-hard Barcelona fans saw us 5 gringas and took pictures with us. It was hilarious.

We walked through another gate and were immediately bombarded by stares and people wanting to sell us beer. We sat near the front and watched as U Católica played Nacional. These games were sort of frustrating, because people would constantly walk in front of you trying to get you to buy their product. There were some Nacional fans sitting in another section. We happened to be sitting in the Barcelona section. Nacional and Barcelona are rivals. I think that U Católica is a college team, so the Barcelona fans had no beef with them. The game was pretty boring, but Nacional scored in the second half. Immediately after, U Católica scored. Eventually, U Católica scored another goal and they won 2-1. The Barcelona fans were super stoked.

Tons more people piled into the stadium (there were 21,000 people there today) and prepared to cheer on Barcelona, who played against Independiente, which is the Uruguay team. The Nacional fans were, of course, cheering for Independiente, but I don't think I saw any Independiente fans. When Independiente came on the field, they released about 100 balloons. We waited a couple of minutes and then Barcelona came on the field. The crowd went CRAZY. Toilet paper was thrown, red smoke filled the air, and a sea of yellow sang one of the 1,000 Barcelona songs I heard today.

The talent was better than the previous game, but the game itself was less exciting. There were two goals, one by each team. The game was pretty calm, until the last 10 minutes. The Barcelona fans grew rowdy and began throwing their garbage and ice at the refs. There were riot police on the field. The game ended in a tie, and everyone in the stadium was disappointed. Edan and I ate some chinese food (not great) and had some AMAZING ice cream. I am NOT a fan of the food here, especially desserts, so the Crepes and Waffles' Almond ice cream in a waffle cone was a real treat.

I finished Seinfeld last night. It has been a long road (about 5 months), but I managed to see Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer off into their jail cell. What, you didn't know how it ended? You are uncultured.

Día de Los Parques

Dear Chris Kwon,

I met some friends at school at 10:30 and we walked over to the stadium to buy some soccer tickets. There was a rumor that there was a Barcelona (the Guayaquil team, not the Spain team) game tomorrow. The ticket booths were closed, so we decided to come back later. We were headed to Parque Metropoliano, which is the biggest park in Quito. According to the map, it is just up the hill from school.

We walked up the hill, which proved to be extremely difficult. We were all sweating and panting the whole way. We found the park, but could not find an entrance, so we walked parallel to the park. Unfortunately, parallel involved walking back down hill, then ba

ck up hill. We finally found what we thought was an entrance. We walked up the unmarked road and made it to a soccer field. We watched a soccer game for a few minutes, but felt disgusted by the a) lack of talent and b) whistling boys trying to get our attention. We walked up the street and found ourselves in a pueblo. We seriously doubted if we were in the park.

My friend had told me that the park had amazing juice stands

everywhere. We stumbled upon a convenience store in the pueblo (pretty much every border house had a store attached) that sold fresh juice. A woman juiced a carrot and blended it with a freshly cut orange. It was delicious and the vitamin C perked me up. We asked the woman what

the name of the pueblo is. She told us Miraflores. I asked if we were in the park and she said yes. A pueblo in a park? That would be like there being a whole town in Discovery Park. Oh Ecuador.

We had heard that there were good hiking trails, so we set off to find them. We stayed on the

road for a while, then veered off into the woods, making sure to remember where we came from. (I apologize for all of my sentences ending in prepositions; I have no choice). We kept going down narrower and narrower paths, until we reached a viewpoint. We could see the town that is on the other side of the park. I'm still not sure what it's called, but it's not Quito.

We met some U.S students at this viewpoint and they told us of more viewpoints and trails. We headed towards them and found many other viewpoints. We walked through a ton of mini parks with big toys and food shelters. The park reminded me a lot

of Point Defiance, except it wasn't as straight forward. You could easily stray from the beaten path. We finally found the road and walked along it for a while. There was a pasture with a bunch of llamas in it and I was obsessed. There was a shepherd tending the llamas. I asked him if I could take a picture with them. He said yes, but the llamas were not cooperative. Most of the pictures are of me chasing the llamas.

Further down the road, we ran into a lot of civilization. There was a shelter with art in it, a bunch of women watching/playing basketball (we decided it was women's day), and a Nestle-sponsored kid's zone. We rode on a zipline with some kids. We finally found an exit of the park. This exit spit us right out to the stadium. We bought tickets for some game tomorrow. It cost $8. After reading the ticket, we realized there were two games tomorrow- one at 10 and one at 12:15. Since our ticket counts for both games, we have decided to make a day of it.

We walked over to Mr. Bagel and ate lunch. I love bagels and I'm super stoked I get to eat them here. Afterwards, we went to an ice cream shop and ate some ice cream, which was more ice

than cream. Different, but good. We wanted to go to the Botanical Garden in Parque Carolina (a park very close to our school), so we headed over there. We didn't know where the Botanical Garden was, so we ended up walking around half the park. I LOVE this park. I run here. Every time I go to the park, I discover something new. We found a miniature riverwere you can rent paddle boats. The park is THE place to be on Saturdays.

There are a ton of playgrounds in Carolina too. One in particular is pictured at the right. It's an old plane that has been converted into a playground. There's a fence around it and I've never seen anyone in it. I thought I wanted to take the bus home, because I was sore, but I ended up walking all the way home. I got in around 4:30. 6.5 hours of straight walking! Some people were going to a movie and I had agreed to go, so at 5:45, I dragged myself to the theater, only taking the bus half of the way.

Before dinner, we ate at Shwarma, which is a local favorite of the UW students in Quito. It's a Persian restaurant. I had the falafel tonight and it PALED in comparison to any other falafel I've had, but it was only $2.50. We saw the movie Coco Before Chanel. It's a french film. We watched it in french with spanish subtitles. At first, I was pretty concerned, but it was a straight forward film and I understood most of it. The main character in the movie was the woman who played Amelie. We had talked about this earlier in the day and I ended up buying a bootlegged copy of Amelie for $2. We are planning on making a girl's night at school sometime this week and watching the move. I recommend it!

In conclusion, my day was filled with sweat, sunburn, and subtitles. I have one more episode of Seinfeld to watch. I'm pretty sure I will finish it in the next hour. I'll let you know how wonderful it is to have accomplished watching an entire series in 6 months. Later days!

Quick Recap and a few additional pictures

Dear Chris Kwon,

This week has been interesting. I returned to school on Wednesday and heard of everyone's weekends. There were three landslides blocking the road home from the beach, so the majority of my classmates had great stories about their return-trip-struggles. My culture class teacher asked us to evaluate the class. We all agreed that the readings were really boring. She agreed, but said we have to read them, because UW provided it. She suggested we take more excursions, which we all thought was a wonderful idea. We have two excursions planned: for the first one, we are going to a museum on Tuesday.

On Thursday, I went to service learning (I got there late, of course). Neither one of my fellow volunteers came, so I was on my own. I HATE being there. A man who has been there a while came and entertained me. By entertain, I mean he held my hand and told me how beautiful I am. Ugh. After 5 minutes of this, I took my hand away from him. I felt utterly creeped out. I reminded him that he had a wife- who has cancer. He backed off and we had a good conversation about culture differences between Ecuador and the U.S. In class, we watched the Mexican movie Amarte Duele. It reminded me a lot of Crazy Beautiful, because it deals with an interclass relationship. I guess that's sort of like many other love stories.

This morning, I woke up and worked on homework. For some reason, I had a ton of work to do. I worked on some, then put on my only clean athletic clothes, which were some non-flattering shorts and an oversized shirt that has been permanently stained by the amazon. I ran to and through the park. I got more whistles in that outfit than I have ever received. I feel like people were mocking me. Oh machismo. A while ago, I saw this dog truck. It reminded me of one of those dog-catcher's trucks in a Disney movie. I saw it again today in the park and realized that this was the dog-walker's vehicle. Here, people pay someone to pick up their dog, take it to the park, and tie it to a tree. They probably eventually walk it, but it seemed strange. There is a dirtbike course on the edge of the park that I discovered today. I think it would be interesting to see a race.

I hate this country, because everything is so private. I just found out today that there is a train that leaves from Quito and goes to Cotopaxi, a huge mountain. I also learned that there is a wax museum in the city. None of the guidebooks bother to mention these things. Fortunately, Monica, our culture teacher, always suggests things for us to do. There are oodles of soccer games each week, but there is no posted schedule. I hope I find sweet things to do this weekend. Tonight, I'm off to La Calle Ronda, which is in the old town.

GalapaGOs!

Dear Chris Kwon,

As you already know, my Carnaval weekend was spent in the famous Galapag

os. My experience was absolutely nothing like I had expected. It started out early on Friday morning. I caught a cab to the airport, where I had to pay $110 just to get onto the islands. I had brought only a backpack and a purse. The backpack had aerosol sunscreen and bugspray, a razor, and a 32 oz bottle of water. I saw some aerosol cans lined up in security and got nervous. I had nothing confiscated, however. We had a layover in Guayaquil and made it to the Galapagos. Before we landed, the cabin crew sprayed some sort of disinfectant all over our stuff. It was toxic smelling and I thought I had stopped breathing. I lived and ee landed on Isla Baltra, which looked like a desert. We had to stop on the tarmac for a while, because we were waiting for an animal to get out of the way.

Oh Galapagos. We exited the airport (which is really a shack with no doors or windows), boarded a bus, got off the bus, boarded a ferry, crossed a small harbor to Isla Santa Cruz, got off the ferry, and traveled on a very straight road for 45 minutes. Final destination: Hotel Fiesta.

Hotel Fiesta is in Puerto Ayora, which is the main part of the second biggest island" Santa Cruz. I love PA. It's a small town, which mostly caters to tourists. We had a disappointing lunch at the hotel and bused to the Charles Darwin Center, where turtles are raised for 3 years, then released into the wild. The turtles were huge!

The next morning, I woke up at 6, thinking it was 7, because there is an hour time difference. We boated to a seal infested island, I believe is called Playa de los Perros. We boated to another island where we saw a ton of iguanas. Igu

anas can swim. We were boated to yet another island. We were supposed to go to some sort of salt mine. We ended up at a channel between two cliffs. We swam in the channel for a while (there were bottom feeding fish everywhere). We hiked back to a boat, boated to Puerto Apoyo, and walked back to the hotel. After lunch, we had the option of paying $5 to go to a beach for some swimming. We all decided that sounded like fun, so we boarded the bus and headed to a beach. Natalee and I rented snorkels and flippers, but the water was too murky to see anything. Ho

w sad. We ended up playing in the waves and it felt very similar to Florida: warm water and salty, so I can actually float. Before we went to the beach, Alex was putting sunscreen all over her face. I made fun of her for putting sunscreen on her chin. Who gets burned there? It was cloudy out, but I still put sunscreen on. I burned horribly- on the nose, the upper lip and the chin. It looked like I had been in a cherry pie eating contest.

On Sunday, we left the hotel at 8:30. We were headed to the opposite end of the island. We stopped at Gemelos (twins), which were two huge craters. They photographed horribly, but they were very deep and interesting. We boarded another boat and boated for about an hour to a seemingly uninhabited island. There were a bunch of seals and blue footed boobies (a notorious Galapagos bird), but no place to dock the boat. We circled the island and saw two people (from the United States) who lived and researched on the island. Their only protection from the elements was a tarp over a cave. They were friendly and waved to us, but so did the seals. On the boat, we ate a delicious lunch of fresh salad and tuna. We boated out to a beach and were given some goggles. I swam among gorgeous tropical fish. I saw a lot of tang, which are really common in pet stores. The beach was fairly new, because the sand was mostly crushed shells. It was beautiful, but still overcast.

Our tour group had 16 people in it, which consisted of me and my three fellow travelers, a family of 3 from Virginia, a family of 5 from Guayaquil, and a family of 4 from Guayaquil. We ended up getting really close to the Guayaquil families (it's weird how much more we identified with the Ecuadorians than with the Americans). On the way back from the "snorkeling", the eldest son of the Guayaquil children asked us if we wanted to go to a bullfight. Three of us agreed, because we wanted to be fully emerged in the culture and the bullfight was part of Carnaval. The bus dropped us off in the middle of the island and we walked around the stadium. It was absolutely packed. I was ready to give up, but gave it one last shot. I strayed from the group and stood by the bull pen (so to speak). There were some rodeo clowns in the arena who were preparing the audience for an epic fight. I watched as the bull sadly sat in his pen. He was released. One other gringo and I were the only ones taking pictures. We gave each other sympathetic looks and moved on. I end up straddling a fence with some kids in order to see the fight. I took a lot of pictures. The rodeo clowns stood next to me and told me the view was much better from inside the arena.

The fight started out with the bullfighter and the bull. The bull seemed really apathetic to the whole experience, so they brought in some guy (whom everyone called "drunk") and he tried to agitate the bull. In the Galapagos during Carnaval, the childr

en spray each other with foam. The bull was covered in foam. I was assured that the bull was not going to be killed, but the poor thing sure was tortured. The bull would occasionally get agitated and run after the "drunk" with no shirt on. There was talk of switching the bulls, but I don't think that ever happened. The rodeo clowns jumped in the ring with a cow and tortured it. The crowd (which was mostly locals) laughed up a storm. Along with one of the Guayaquil families, we left the bullfight. We taxied it back to the hotel, showered and changed, and walked around the town. We made it back to dinner and passed out really early. Long day.

Yesterday morning, the first day of Carnaval, we woke up and were taken to see some tunnels. Again, they were barely photogenic, but interesting. We walked around an area that was a real turtle habitat. We took more pictures with the turtles and walked up to a mini cabin on the grounds. We were served free coffee from a white guy, who had a perfect U.S accent. I asked him where he was from and he said he didn't know. His parents moved to the Galapagos in 1949 and he was born there. At the time, his parents worked for the PI and they were doing a piece on the Galapagos. They ended up staying. Chevre.

After lunch at the hotel, we walked for about an hour to Tortuga Bay, which has a huge gathering for Carnaval. It was an interesting experience. For the first time all weekend, I saw some blue in the sky. Tony, our tour guide, bypassed the main beach (which had TONS of amazing waves- oh how I want to surf) and headed to a more tranquil spot, which had zero waves. We waded there for a while with the Guayaquil families. The mom of one of the families was entertaining some strange little girl. As it turns out, the little girl was the daughter of a famous model, who was sitting on the beach. All of us "kids" (the four of us U.S students were unofficially adopted by the Guayaquil families) went to play in the waves on the other beach. We had a foam fight (sort of like silly string) and I was super content while diving into the waves. After a long time of playing, we exited the water as half-human/half prunes. We were headed back towards our parents when we stopped to watch a male pageant. It was for Mr. Tortuga Bay. The winner was to receive the title and $100.

A man from our hotel was a finalist in the competition, so we cheered him on. He lost to a really attractive man. The Miss Tortuga Bay competition was up next. All of us joked about going up there (all of the Guayaquil kids are boys, so they were pushing us to compete). Natalee eventually gave in and entered the contest. She had to dance on stage with 9 other girls. It was hilarious and slightly embarrassing, but we had to show support to our fellow Gringa. The competition was based on crowd cheering. The crowd was to cheer for 3 finalists. Natalee

seemed to have made it, but the Emcee told her to leave the stage. Our family protested and she was dragged back on stage. She ended up winning the contest! She only won $60 though (sexism). Our Guayaquil families were SO proud. Everyone was taking pictures of her and us and our family. It was amazing.

We trekked the hour back to the hotel, where we had dinner, then had complimentary cocktails for Carnaval. The Guayaquil families walked with us into town, bought us ice cream, and hung out with us on the dock. The dad of one of the families had an AMAZING camera (I will soon have access to all of his pictures, so get excited). He took a million pictures of all of us on the pier- even individual photos. It was exactly like prom. At 11, some concerts began. We listened to some unknown people sing some well known songs. As Miss Tortuga Bay, Natalee had to sit up by the stage with other contest winners. It was sort of a big deal. Shauntee, Alex and I were sort of bored, so we walked around the town. We eventually ended up at a nightclub and danced with marines. Haha. Our Guayaquil father had taken a picture of us with the marines earlier. Us gringas pretended to Salsa dance, while the marines were probably super bored. We made it back to the hotel around 2 and wiped out.

This morning, we said our goodbyes to one of our families, who told me to call them when I'm in Guayaquil on the 19th (my friend Mackenzie is coming on the 19th, so I will be in Guayaquil). The family has a house in Salinas- a famous beach town- and they told us their door is always open for us. The mom is a great cook and all the meals would be covered for. I LOVE this family. I truly hope we meet up with them. I hate to impose and have no idea how to repay them, but I think it would be rude if I didn't take them up on their offer.

We looked at more tunnels on our way to the airport. Again, we got to the airport way too early. I was exhausted and zoned out for an hour. Our flight left and I made it safely home to Quito, but not without paying a ridiculous $5 for a cab ride home.

I apologize for the lack of photos. I read somewhere that you can have an old point and shoot on the Galapagos and you would seem like a professional, but my photos didn't turn out so great. I will steal the Guayaquil dad's pictures and eventually post them somewhere. I had an amazing time and feel truly blessed that I got to do something that all biologists dream of doing, even though I practically failed biology. Ha. Ha.

Happy Fat Tuesday everyone. Lent starts tomorrow, so that means more chocolate and sugar will be left for me! Yay for not being Catholic.

SMALL world

Dear Chris Kwon,

Some news about YS: She is from Guayaquil and is very interested in current political events (perhaps she is a politician?) Oh, and tonight she mentioned that her daughter lives in Spokane. Yeah, you heard me. Spokane. That city that barely beats Tacoma in population. That city I go to every year for a huge basketball tournament. There is a little YS moseying around Spokaloo. Perhaps I've met her. Perhaps I've played her at Hoopfest.

Today was bleh. My two fellow FUDIS volunteers bailed on service learning today, so I was on my own. My alarm went off at 6:30 and I stayed in bed until 7:30. I rolled into FUDIS around 9 (hey, it takes a long time to get there) and sat there for a good hour and a half. Olivia joined me at 11 and we talked until 11:40. Ines came by and asked me where the others were. I told her they were sick. She asked me what they said. I said "they said they were sick." She asked me again what they said, I told her "nothing." Talk about peer pressure. She told me to expect a call to my service learning advisor. We're never all there on the same day. I think I'm one of the worst volunteers ever (please don't read this future volunteer programs, like the Peace Corp), but at least I show up.

For lunch, I ate at Sbarro. The cheese here is awful. I miss all cheeses so much. I had a coke and it was the first caffeine I'd had in over a week. I was JAZZED. We had two presentations each. They were each supposed to be about 8 minutes. Some peoples' lasted 20 minutes. All I wanted was to leave. It was a struggle.

I kicked it at the mall for a little bit after school, then rushed home. It felt good to move and sweat. I miss exercise. A lot. I can't run at night here though, because it's "dangerous" and I am not a morning runner. So, I will just walk quickly (which is probably a good idea anyway).

I may have mentioned her before, but "D" is the older woman in my group. At first, I had mixed feelings about her. She works as a contracted computer software engineer or something, she has two daughters who attend Roosevelt High in Seattle, and she's married. Why on EARTH is she with a bunch of undergrad college kids? Because she is D. Further probing found that she is a graduate of Duke (it's no secret, I'm jealous, because I didn't even get in there- yes, I applied) and that there was some recent family drama that is (I think) all sorted out now. At Duke, she majored in zoology, but eventually decided she preferred computers. She's no Jones New York employee (I LOVED my older coworkers this summer), because she is accomplished, but she's D and she is cool in my book. In one of our classes, we are to debate about a controversial topic in Ecuador. D is my debate partner (aka enemy). Today, I found out she attended a semester of the Harvard school of Public Health with an intent on getting a masters in Epidemiology. WHAT? I hate her more now. I decided it would be fun if we debated a public health topic, since we are both somewhat [fully] interested in public health. Later, now that I've had some time to think about it, I think I've made a huge mistake. This lady went to a dream school for MY dream field. How could I possibly win a debate against her? It's not about winning. It's about gathering knowledge. I know, in the end, I will have learned way more than I will have lost, because she is D- an older, well-educated college student.

This weekend is Carnaval (it lasts until Tuesday). I will be in the Galapagos with the turtles and the majority of my classmates will be at the beach. So friends, in the tradition of Ecuadorians, go get into water balloon fights, dump pails of water on strangers, and pretend you can justifiably do this because you're Catholic.

I got sunburned today- during class

Dear Chris J. Kwon,

It's been a minute. At our last meeting, we discussed a very boring illness. The illness came back to destroy me. A mix of stomach and fever kept me in bed all weekend. While my classmates went out on Friday night, I spent it in bed. On saturday, I slept. On Sunday, I watched a ton of Seinfeld (I'm in the final stretch). All of my classmates went to a Superbowl party and watched that hot guy who is dating that Kardashian girl beat the other team. I can't be concerned with United States popular culture. For now, it's all President Corea (yeah, he's popular) and uh.... [insert famous Ecuadorian here]. Okay, honestly, right now, it's all about Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer.

I returned to school on Monday (first fever-free day since Tuesday). I'll spare you the details, but I'm still suffering from a stomach illness and I just came down with a bad case of midterms. I have to write two essays (one on language and the other on La CAN).

This morning, I woke up at 6:30 to go to FUDIS. Ines wasn't there. Annie, my volunteer-mate, showed up late, and then we colored for three hours. We entertained Olivia (the live-in volunteer) and I explained to Annie that 11/15 of our group was somehow sick within the past week. I used my epidemiology skills to prove to her that there's no way that was just coincidence. She proved to be an fascinated listener and was interested in making a chart of everyones' illnesses. One of the regular cancer patients at FUDIS filmed me on his phone for about 5 minutes today. Annie and I both felt uncomfortable. He asked me if he came to the U.S if he could visit me. I told him sure. What are the chances this guy is going to show up at my apartment in Seattle? If he does, then I'm continuing my blog.

I ate lunch at Mr. Bagel, because I had been craving bagels since Kramer got his job back at the bagel shop (mid-day Saturday). During class, we sat outside. It has been raining here for the past two days, so I think everyone was stoked to finally get outside (like being stuck inside is something new to all of us). I could feel myself burning.

Tonight and yesterday, YS has been at dinner. New theory: like Adriana and myself, she is also a student. It could happen. Perhaps she could peer-edit my essays! New study buddy.

I may have already mentioned this, but everything in this country is just a little small. It's perfect for me. The only exception in this whole country is the mirror in my bathroom. I can only ever see my forehead (looking good today, thank you). The rest of my face will just have to wait until I return to the states.

To conclude my update, I have some sad news. I think tía returned to New Jersey. She never said goodbye to me :( It's okay, I will stay distracted by my essays and the fact that I will be in the galapagos in 4 days! eeeeeeeee!

Of the 15 of us here, 4 of us (I think) were keeping blogs. Two have unofficially dropped their blogs. There are two of us left. I owe my success to you all. THANKS! Keep on truckin'

Me Duele el Cuerpo

Dear Chris Kwon,

¿Que más loco? ("What's up man?" in Spanish slang)

This blog should be the most boring of all time. I'm trying to break a boring record, so encourage it. Since I have returned from the depths of the amazon, my life has been nothing but painful. On Tuesday, not only did I bruise my shin on one of the numerous randomly-placed poles in this city, but I came down with a gnarly fever. I'm sure most of you know about that. My host family wasn't around that night, so I toughed it out all by myself. It was painful to sleep. On Wednesday morning, I told Susy that I had a fever. She grew very concerned, gave me a pill (again, I will accept anything here) and a huge jug of juice. I slept and facebook stalked all day. At night, I felt better and by this morning I was at 70%. A less painful stomach ache replaced my fever. I went to school. Halfway through school, I felt feverish again. I decided a half hour walk wasn't in my future, so I took a bus. I asked the bus driver if his bus went to Ave América, which is pretty close to where I live. He said yes, so I hopped on. Bussing takes as long as walking for some reason. 5 minutes before we reached Av América, the bus turned onto a different street. I jumped up and ran off the bus. I managed to look really upset, but knew it was not my place to call out the bus driver on his lies. I painfully climbed home (this last bit being the hardest part of my walk).

Sorry to complain, but I must warn you, the Amazon isn't a great friend. We now have a mutual understanding to be civil but never try be good friends.

In other news, there is a girl at FUDIS (my service learning place) who is from New York. Her name is Olivia. She is part of a volunteer group that signs up to stay in a location for 6 months or a year. She was lucky enough to draw FUDIS. She has to live there- and see Ines regularly. I think my service learning goal has changed from "entertaining the patients" to "keeping Olivia from killing Ines."

As usual, I am looking forward to the future. On Saturday, I have tentative plans to go hiking. On Sunday, we're having a superbowl party. We're having a barbecue and I'm really excited for cheeseburgers. Queen Latifa is singing the national anthem?! We have midterms on Wednesday, so I can imagine the rest of my weekend will be full of study. I leave for the galapagos in a week. And (most importantly for your future's) I come home in less than two months!

Today is free first Thursday, so go get your culture on at one of the fabulous museums in Washington (or wherever you are).

My First Month

Dear Chris Kwon,

I know I posted a long post today, but I must add this extremely boring (but very exciting to me) comment. Tonight, I ate dinner while my host mom, Susy, watched me eat. We ended up talking about travel for about an hour. She is a fascinating person and I'm mad I wasted a month not talking to her. She has been everywhere. She lived with tía (her sister) in New York for 7 years. She has been all over Europe, South America, and parts of North America- at least that's all I know of. She told me she married late (when she was 32) because she was busy traveling. She did things right (in my opinion). She told me she would work, then travel, then work, then travel. She traveled right though. She would go to a place for months at a time and get fully immersed in the culture. She is truly an inspiration.

I've been here exactly a month. It seems like I've been here a lot longer. I have crammed so much into my life, it's hard to believe. I'm so grateful and fortunate for this experience. My host family is wonderful, even if they don't treat me like their child. They treat me more like a peer, which I think is better. Susy doesn't baby me. In fact, she ignores the school's warnings and encourages me to travel. She does advocate common sense and awareness of surroundings- so don't worry mom and dad (and gamma ray betty).

Again, sorry that this post was irrelevant and boring. I feel I must stop and appreciate my opportunities once in a while. I encourage you all to find your passion, even if it's not living in a polluted city with a host family that's not allowed to speak english to you. I wish you all could be here with me, but I know it's not for everyone.

Enough for now. Perhaps something actually exciting will happen to me in the next week- before midterms.

It rains in the rainforest?!

Dear Chris Kwon,

As you already know, on Wednesday evening, I, along with 11 fellow classmates, ventured into the amazon. We left Quito at around 7:30 pm. The bus ride took about 4.5 hours. I'll s

pare you the boring details of that ride, but I must tell you that I thought I was going to get kicked off thebus, because my classmates made the bus stop at least twice so they could pee. There was a bathroom on the bus, but it was only for girls. It was weird.

We arrived in Puyo at around 12. We took some "taxis" (most taxis outside of Quito are actually trucks and you just sit in the bed of the truck) to Hosteria

Turangia, where we stayed for the first night. It was pleasant, but I got very little sleep. We woke up early, had some breakfast, and hopped in a van with our guides for the day. Probably my favorite quote from the whole trip was said when we first met our guides. Austin asked if the jungle was dangerous. The guides said yes. Austin then asked if they had a pistol to shoot dangerous things. The guide said, "no, but we have a guy who can wrestle crocodiles..." First on the agenda: River rafting.

I was picked to help demonstrate safety measures

while rafting. My new Ecuadorian boyfriend (our rafting guide) threw me around the boat. Haha. There were two boats. It was the 12 of us, our two guides, and a couple from Chile. I was in a boat with my Ecuadorian boyfriend, who tipped the boat and knocked us all out. He left us there for a while, then made us save each other. The other boat wasn't as lucky. At one point, we hit a rock and the Chilean guy fell out. It was scary, but we didn't panic. Rafting was AMAZING- probably my favorite part of the whole trip. It was a level 3, which is pretty mild.

For lunch, we ate at a restaurant in the town of Mera. I had really good beef. Shortly after lunch, we said goodbye to our rafting guides (I know, my Ecuadorian relationship was brief) and walked to what turned out to be some guy's house. We left all of our stuff there. Said guy took us to the middle of nowhere and we started a hike. The guide had a machete. Imagine, 14 confused people and a guy with a machete in the middle of nowhere. Our destination was a cave. The guide, Frank, cut a tree and the tree seemed to bleed. The "blood" is called Dragon's blood. It is used for zits and basically all blemishes- I guess. Without thinking, I put the

Dragon's blood all over my face. He encouraged people to try some berries, too. I didn't try it, but it's interesting how much faith we put into Frank.

On every hike we went on, there was a natural swing. I felt like tarzan. After climbing some trees, smearing stuff on our faces, and swinging from vines, we arrived at the cave. I walked in about 20 meters and was sort of unimpressed. There were bats and spiders in the cave and I failed to bring a flashlight. Some of us decided against going any further, so we hung out outside the cave. The others came out eventually and we trekked back to our starting point. We were all given boots before the hike. The boots turned out to be really helpful, because the trail wasn't done and it was really muddy. Our tallest groupmate, Matt, had too big of feet for any boots. His shoes were destroyed and he struggled on the trial. By the time I was done, I was covered in mud. Those who went through the whole cave were caked in mud too.

When we finished our hike, there was no one around to pick us up. Eventually, one van came to get us. There were about 18 of us packed into a small van. Fuuuuuun. We drove for about an hour and ended up at a remote area. We evacuated the van and walked for 10 minutes in the dark, bearing all of our things, to our campsite. The walk at night is way different than during the day. There were bridges and narrow paths. Outside the tree cover, the moon illuminated the campsite. It was pretty bright.

We eventually ended up at a place right next to the river. Our campsite was a compound filled with "cabins" which are actually lofted decks with some wood covering each room. There were 6 of us to a room. Each room had 3 sets of bunk beds, equipped with mosquito nets. Below the decks were hammocks. I LOVE hammocks. The compound had a kitchen, which was the only place with electricity. The kitchen is the most unsanitary place ever. There is a parrot who lives in the kitchen. At one point, we walked in and saw 3 cats on the counter where our food is prepared. It's impossible to be a snob in the amazon though.

We ate dinner and laid in the hammocks until it was time to sleep. Sleeping was really difficult. I was stuck with a top bunk and struggled to get up there. After I made it to bed, I spent a good hour with my flashlight making sure my mosquito net was tuck

ed in and there were no bugs in my bed. I found two dead bugs and a bunch of hair that didn't belong to me... Gross.

After a paranoid night's sleep, I woke up at 7:30, at breakfast (which was only fruit) and m

et up with Jaime (Hi-May), our new guide. Jaime is the COOLEST guy ever. He was taking us on a 3 hour hike to some waterfalls. We left the campsite and walked to the entrance of a park. Jaime kept stopping and showing us cool crafts with plants. We made headbands out of leaves, painted our faces with a seed, and Jaime painted my fingernails with

another plant. He is like the Martha Stewart of the Jungle. He gave me and some other girls Quechua names. My name is Sacha, meaning Jungle.

We followed the trail for about 5 minutes, before cutting across a river and walking literally through the jungle (thank GOD for my boots). There wasn't much of a trail. Again, I was relying on Jaime to guide me. It was pretty intense. After about 2 hours, it started to rain. I was soaking wet. After another half hour, we reached the river again. We de-robed, covered ourselves in clay (per Jaime's suggestion; very exfoliating) and swam upstream. We made it to a waterfall.

We played in the waterfall for a bit, then swam back down the river. The rain finally stopped. We put our clothes back on and continued our hike in a different direction. This portion of the hike was mostly uphill. I preferred uphill, because there was less sliding. We made it to another waterfall, where some people swam. I chose not to swim again, because I was tired of taking off my clothes. We took

some pictures and trekked back towards camp. This time, we followed the real path.

We made it back to camp (completely soaked) and ate some lunch. After lunch, we were driven to a viewpoint. We climbed some stairs and made it to the most incredible view ever. There was a deck withsome hammocks and a swing. You could swing over the banana trees. We ate a bunch of bananas (for free) and shot some darts with a blowgun. On the way down, Jaime took some leaves from a tree. The leaves are used for tea and they're called Hierba Luisa. We drank the tea later that night and it was DELICIOUS. I miss tea.

Some people wanted beer after the viewpoint, so Jaime took us to a "tienda." We walked to a place with a bar and a store with crafts. It was on a beautiful river. I found out my camera has a panoramic setting, so I took a ton of pictures of the river. When I walked back up towards the "tienda," there were a bunch of boys playing soccer in an empty pool. There was a soccer field on the grounds as well, but they preferred the dug-out pool, which made the game more like indoor. Another girl and I decided to be rebels and we jumped into the all-boys game. It was really fun. I miss soccer.

We walked back in the moon-illuminated night. I saw fireflies for the first time in a long time. I slept well that night, after all that activity. The next morning (Saturday), we left at around 10. We went to an indigenous Quechua community and hung out there for a while. They showed us

how to give ourselves non- permanent tattoos and I spent a good hour working on tattooing my name (Sacha) on my wrist.

We spoke with a Shaman. We watched an indigenous dance and we all started dancing. We ate tarapia (fish) for lunch with yuca and rice. We used huge palm leaves as plates. None of us died from eating this food. We canoed back to the campground. We hit a bunch of rocks in the river, but our paddler (someone employed by the camp) did a good job of saving us. We were told to wear our bathing suits in the canoes, which turned out to be a huge mistake. I had managed to avoid a ton of mosquito bites until the canoes. Now, I am looking at at least 30 bites- mostly on the back of my thighs and my back. It's really painful...

We had the afternoon free. We walked to a different tienda, which was really just the kitchen of someone's house. We bought ice cream- yum. It didn't rain that day, so there were a TON of mosquitos out. Ugh. Some people (not including myself) went back to the Shaman for a hallucinogenic drinking experience. None of them reported hallucinations and they all said the experience was sort of weird.

The next morning, I woke up at 6:30 because my legs and back itched so badly. I climbed out of my bed and read a book by the firepit. At around 7, the sky grew really dark and it began to pour. For breakfast, we had fried green bananas, which were really good. Jaime took us to

his usual place of work, which is a monkey park. There were a ton of monkeys there, all ready to climb all over you. There were a few other animals too. A monkey bit me. I didn't bleed, but I asked Jaime if they had diseases. He told me he was still alive... Oh Jaime. We got on a bus and were taken back to Puyo, where we took another bus to Quito. We made it home around 5. I showered for a long time, because I was really dirty.

The amazon was an experience. I really missed the city though. I'm a city girl at heart. Give me robbers, creepy men, gnarly bus exhaust, and high altitude over mosquitos and isolation any day. My mosquito bites will probably keep me suffering for a while. BUT the amazon, like most things in this country, must be experienced. I'm very fortunate to have crossed this off my list without dying or paying a lot.

In other, way more boring news, today was my first day of Spanish 301 and 322. I am really fortunate, because I have my favorite teacher as a teacher. Our service learning advisor is my 322 teacher. At first, I didn't like her at all, but she is actually pretty cool. She taught us a bunch of stuff today. I didn't feel that any of what she taught was super important in life, but it was interesting. The word "culture" for example comes from the same root word as agriculture and cultivate. Ever considered that? There's some food for thought.

Later days, chicos.