Women's Empowerment at Cotopaxi

Dear Chris Kwon,

Since we last spoke, my life has been rather dull. I finished my work at FUDIS, wrote a 7 page paper about my experience, and have rid my mind of all memories of that white-walled place. I celebrated by going out on Thursday night. Most of us went to dinner. Denise and I split some food and I paid WAY too much for it. I ended up getting home at 3 in the morning (very unlike me, I know).

Yesterday, I did nothing. I pretended to work on my many essays due next week, but really just relaxed. I at dinner with one of my empleadas and she was very sweet. She has three kids. Her son, who is 18, knows how to cook, because she would never want to have raised a man who can't cook. Such a liberal thought in this country.

This morning, I woke up early and beat the morning traffic (aka no one else was awake in the house when I was). I had a modest breakfast and walked to the mall, where I met Shaunté, Denise, Edan, Autumn, and Taylor. We boarded a van and headed to Cotopaxi. Cotopaxi is the world's largest active volcano. It's 5,897 meters. You do the math. We went to the museum in the national park, yawned a bit, and moved on to the hike.

The hike wasn't very far, but it was one of the most difficult things I have ever attempted. The guide told us that it usually takes 30 minutes to an hour to get up to the refugio (base camp). I made it there in 40 minutes. My head was racing and my heart was pounding. As pictured above, base camp is 4800 meters, which is almost 16,000 feet. That's about 2,000 feet above the top of Rainier. I came ill prepared, because the base of the hike provided high winds and hail! It was really about 40 degrees, but I was freezing in my rain jacket and nothing else.

The person who ran our tour was a woman, all of us participants were women, and our guide up the mountain was a woman. Mom, be proud, a group of fine spirited women overcame the treacherous hike to the base camp today. The hike down was amazing. The ground is steep and made entirely of ash and rock. We skied down the hill. We took tons of jumpy pictures too. We were supposed to eat lunch at a lake, but we were all frozen, so we ate in the van. The guides found us amusing, because we were all very animated. I had an amazing day with those ladies.

The rest of our class went to Papallacta, which is a town with spas and hot springs. They had a good time, but I don't think I could have handled pure relaxation. Tonight, some of us went to eat pizza in Gringolandia. It was pretty delicious. I enjoyed our relaxing dinner and was somewhat relieved when everyone decided to call it a night after dinner instead of going out.

I still have many assignments due by Wednesday. I am keeping a very calm (or irresponsible) attitude about it. Instead of freaking out and planning on spending tomorrow doing other things. Biking in the morning, botanical garden with a friend from home in the afternoon, and possibly a movie in the evening. Let's see if I can live up to those expectations.

Bon soir amis.