La Amazonia!

On the Wednesday before Easter we got out of school for a week and a half Spring Break. For the first part of the break our program had planned for us to go to Tiputini, a biodiversity research station in the middle of the Ecuadorian Amazon forest.

On Friday morning we took a 30 minute flight to Coca, the closest city to Tiputini. Then we took a 2 hour motor conoa ride through the Napo river until we reached a petroleum station, where we had to identify ourselves with our passports. It was so weird to see the station right smack the middle of the forest where the only people around where the oil workers, and the local indigenous children (who although probably don't realize it yet, are being affected very negatively by these oil companies -destroying their environment and little by little their culture). We then took a 2 hour Chiva (open bus with no windows) ride through the forest passing both the Quichua (largest Ecuadorian indigenous nation) and the Huaorani (who until just a few years ago discovered clothing -effects of the oil companies) territories. Finally, we hopped on another motor conoa for a not so pleasant, rainy 2 hour ride down the Tiputini River (on the Amazon basin).

Shortly after arriving at the station we were fed a great dinner (suprisingly enough they have pretty good food there) then we had a PowerPoint presentation on a night camera project that detects heat and movement, so we saw a lot of cool pictures of various Amazonian animals like giant armadillos, jaguars, and deer.

Saturday morning we walked around one of the trails, led by Ramiro who talked to us about the various plant and animal species. It was a hot, sweaty, and muddy walk (coming from AZ I'm not used to so much humidity, about 95% if I remember correctly), but luckily we had cool rainboots to help us our walking though all the mud. We saw all kinds of cool insects, including lemon ants, which were quite tasty. :) The highlight of our first trail was definitely the spider monkeys. We had to get off the trail and chase around the forest to watch them in their natural habitat (Bernie you would have loved it! They were so cute and ocol! I was so excited that all I kept thinking was "Mira! Mira!" kinda like we say with fireworks?? haha).

That afternoon we got an a motor conoa and rode down the Tiputini River to go swimming, or floating really. It looked kind of gross because the water is so brown, but really it was probably better so we couldn't see the many species that lived there (like the caimans we saw the following night, yikes!). When we got back we were pleasantly greeted by a family of wooly monkeys right outside our cabin, very cool! That night we had a presentation from a guy doing his PhD research there on adolescent monkeys and their social organizations. It was super interesting yet all I could think about was, this guy is actually going to live here for like 4 years, don't know if I could do that.

Sunday morning we climbed a super tall tower to try and see the birds and monkeys from high above. Unfortunately, it was bad timing because the only view we got was that of the rainforest from above. We then took a little canoe ride around a little lake where we saw birds and turtles. On our way back to the cabins we saw more wooly monkeys and pygmy monkeys, the cutesiest baby monkeys ever! Actually they aren't babies, they just look like it because they are the smallest species of monkeys in the world. It was really funny because Ramiro pointed out the tree where they live and after about 10 mins of several monkey calls we were disappointed to not see them, but just when we were about to leave, Jessica was able to spot a pygmy and show us all. Needless to say, Ramiro was proud.

That afternoon we climbed up high again, but this time on a canopy walk. It was scary to climb up but the sights were definitely rewarding. I saw the 3 most colorful mccaws ever while I was high above. They were bright blue, red, and green. After another great dinner, that night we got on the conoa again to see nighttime species. This is when we got to see the caimans, and various birds. It was very shocking to see how easily our guide was able to spot these tiny creatures in the night.

Early Monday morning, we made our boat/bus/boat/flight trip back to Quito, ready for our next Spring Break adventure: la costa!

Totally Random Totally Fun

Quilotoa - the town

Friday after class I took off with Maureen to Quilotoa, a volcanic crater with a lake about 4 hours south of Quito. Because we learned from our trip to Baños that to go from our houses in northern Quito to the terminal terrestre in south Quito, where we catch buses it cost about $10 by taxi, so we decided on taking the Trole, a 25 cent fare. We took a two hours bus to Latacunga where we called Jess, Anina and Emily because we were going the meet them in Chugchilan, (they had skipped class and left early that morning) but without luck/lack of cellphone service, we decided to catch a bus to Quilotoa, another 2 hour ride. On the buss to Quilotoa we had to stand up for about 1.5 hrs and unfortunately I lost my glasses during this time period, either someone stole them from my backpack, or the fell out, the latter being the least likely.

When we arrived to Quilotoa, a tiny town with seriously about a total of 15 houses, we went directly to the first hostel we saw (not that there was much to choose from). There we met a 25 year old med student named Emily, from none other than Glendale, AZ, who had come alone and wanted to know if we wanted to stay with her, and of course we said yes.

It was about 8:30 p.m. and neither Maureen or I had eaten since lunch so we were starving. We asked where we could get food but the hostel worker told us everything was closed and we wouldn't be able to get anything at this time of the night. Luckily, we spotted a little house with a light on where an indigenous man was painting masks. We knocked on his door and asked him if he knew where we could get food. He told us everything was closed but that he would wake up his wife and she would cook for us. He called his kids who gave us tea then his wife who made us delicious rice and potato soup with a main dish of more potatoes and avocado. Soo many potatoes but soo good.

Zumbahua Mercado

The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast and caught a truck going to a little town called Zumbahua (or refered to as Zimbabwe by Emily, who's Spanish wasn't great)where they were having a market that morning. It had been a very cold night (the only thing that made me survive was the 2 pairs of sweats I was wearing, the four blankets I had on top of me, and the fact that I slept with Maureen) and it was a very cold ride to Zumbahua. On our way there we picked up many local people from the little towns we passed who were also going to the market.

En el mercado they had all kinds of traditional clothes and shoes for the local people as well as many kinds of meats, veggies, and fruits, but the most interesting thing we saw was a lamb being skinned. We didn't get to see when they killed it, but we saw it's head being chopped up then a man taking off all of its skin, as well as all of its insides out. Gross, but cool! After quite the spectacle, we decided to walk back through some of the little towns we had driven through to take pictures of the amazing countryside. Then after having walked quite a bit we hitched a ride back to Quilotoa.

Quilotoa - the crater

In Quilotoa we ate a light lunch because neither Emily or I wanted to eat meat after what we had just witnessed. We then went to see the crater, which was beautiful. We decided to hike all the way to the bottom to take a closer look. After about an hours walk down the ashy volcano, we got to see the laguna from down below. The view was magnificent. After sitting down and contemplating such beauty, and seeing how far and steep we had come down, we decided to ride mules back up to the top. It was a nonstop cursing trip since the guide kept telling the mules to go faster "caramba macho, chingado, carajo"...it was hilarious, and even more hilarious was Emily's attempt to try and repeat the words to get her mule going.



Latacunga

When we got back to our hostel we decided we did not want to stay in Quilotoa for the night again because there really was not much else we could do. We caught a truck back to Zumbahua with these two funny Dutch girls who ended paying 4 times as much for the trip than we did. (In Ecuador you really have to make sure to establish prices of taxis/trucks/buses before you get on or else they will charge you so much more in the end.) After being distracted by these three hilarious men getting drunk off of liquor in a Sprite bottle, we ran to catch a bus that was leaving for Latacunga. It was a bit of a tough ride at the beginning because I kept being hit on by a random old drunken men who kept poking me and asking/telling me the same things over an over, and over again. It wasn't until I pretended to fall asleep that he left me alone.

In Latacunga we got a $4 hostel room at the very top of a building, penthouse baby! Haha, only with hard beds and barely any hot water. We went out to eat dinner at a pizzeria but not before crashing a wedding with a really pretty bride and groom, and very attractive men in Ecuadorian army suits. We then went out to La Ciguarra, the best bar ever! Well a cool bar with the best bartender ever. He gave us wine with coke to start off with, aparrantly it's a popular Spanish drink, then candil (popcorn) then brought us the drinks we wanted. Then, when sketchy, and mostly drunken, guys came over to hit on us, he would come and take them away, ever so kindly. Rodrigo was so awesome! He even told us that the whole situation was TORTUGA! I couldn't believe he knew about tortuga situations! (Tortuga is what we call awkward situations because the word for awkward, "torpe," just doesn't do it, and totuga obv simbolizes the awkward tutle). All of us had crushes on him because he was just so cool.

Here I was also hit on by some Ecuadorian guy who after realizing I was singing to Mana bought me some beer "en el nombre de Mana, porque son los mejores." He said he had studied ecology and was a professor at various tecnologicos around Latacunga, thus why he loved Mana. (The entire time all I could think of was how cool Emily would think this was, right? haha). He also was the first to tell me that Mana is coming to Quito next month!! It was a completely random and cool night.

Domingo de Ramos

On Sunday we met up with John, one of Maureen's friends in the Peace Corps for breakfast. After having talked to him about his experience, it only makes me want to be in the Peace Corps after college even more than before. As we walked out of the restaurant to go to Mass we saw a huge crowd of people carrying all kinds of palm ornaments to Mass. We had forgotten, it was Palm Sunday. Mass was really nice. There was a sort of vocal performance put on telling the story of Jesus going to meet his death and there was also great music.

As us' another great weekend in Ecuador.

Jess's 21st Bday Celebrations!

On Friday night, after the Pilsener stalking, we all went to Jessica's house for her first birthday dinner. We had dinner with all of Jess's family, including her hot host brother, Gustavo, and her host sister's fiance from New Zealand. They made tacos, or what to me, and to everyone not Ecuadorian at the table, were bean burritos. Although not my mom's Mexican food, which the best, of course, they were still good. We also had legit Sangria with fruit and bday cake.

After dinner we went to Plaza Foch and bar/club hopped all night. We went to a place called No Bar, which is the most tourist filled bar I've seen here, and danced to some great music, offset by horrible techno. We also went to Macondo's, which was more of a bougie lounge with even better music, and met Jess's US Embassy friends and then Huainas, our usual dancing place.

On Saturday, we went to get our nails done and read trashy magazines, for about 3 hours. It was cool, only ocho dolares for both a mani and a pedi, and I'm pretty sure they did a better job than anyone else I've ever been to. At the salon we met a lady that told us she used to be a host mom to international students. She asked us if we liked to go out, and we said yes, that we usually went to el Mariscal and la Plaza Foch. She told us to be careful there, because there were a lot of homosexuals in that part of town and they were super dangerous. She also proceeded to tell us that Americans fall in love with ugly Ecuadorians, and that we shouldn't do that. She told us that she once had a host daughter who fell in love with an ugly Otavaleño, and that she just didn't know how anyone could do that, afterall, he was Indigenous, and all indegenous people are soooo "horribles"...Hmm, she was definitely the most blunt racist/homophobic person I've heard here, I wonder why she's not a host mom anymore.

Afterwards, we went to El Bosque and bought lots of food at SuperMaxi to cook for Jess's second bday dinner. Emily and Jess cooked chicken parmesan, spaghetti, vegetables, garlic bread, and salad. I made the birthday cake. Out of a box, I might add, haha. We also had wine, and later on, for Jess, Pilseners and Piña Coladas. It was all so yummy! That night we went out again, this time to Pipas, where I tried hookah for the very first time, then back to Huainas, to dance all night. Good times!!!

Sunday, the girls went to Quicentro, what we think is the best mall here, and I stayed home, all day long, studying for my Econ and Marketing tests --I hadn't read for marketing since my last test, oops. It sucked, but luckily, they are both over and I think I did really well!

Pilsener Stalkers...

Jessica's 21st birthday was yesterday and on Friday after class Anina and I went to south Quito to look for a present for her. Specifically, we were looking for a Pilsener t-shirt, which Jess has been wanting for a while. After walking around the artisinal market for a while, and not finding anything, we asked around to see if anyone knew where we could find it. We were eventually told to try El Espiral. At El Espiral we found a t-shirt store that we knew was $ when the guy told us he did actually have a Pilsener t-shirt. Anina and I waited anxiously only to find out that it was a knock off PilsHener shirt. Disappointed we walked up the spiral, the mall literally goes around in spirals, and found a place where they made t-shirts. We were able to find a Pilsener logo online and had them make a sweet shirt for Jess. Somehow though, we weren't satisfied and decided that we wanted a Pilsener poster to go along with her shirt. (Note: Jess is kinda obsessed with Pilsener, la cerveza orgullosamente Ecuatoriana. Actually she's obsessed with all beer, but she's not an alcoholic, haha.)

The guy at the t-shirt shop told us that there was a Pilsener distribution place near by where they might be able to give us posters. Anina and I walked out of in search of the general direction that the guy had been pointing at only to be confused seeing as we had just walked down about 4 flights of spirals. We asked some waiters at Coffee Tree and after thinking we were weird for wanting to go to the distribution center, we were led down Amazonas, a major street in Quito, toward la Plaza Foch, en donde farreamos (where we party) all the time. After not finding anything, we went into a little boutique where a lady told us that the Pilsener truck was near by so we should ask those guys. Anina quickly found the truck, but when we got there, the Pilsner guys were not there. We asked a random guy just standing around and he told us that they were eating lunch at a place near by.

Anina and I decided that we were going to wait for them, at the restaurant across the street from where they were eating (creepy, I know). After getting some food, we realized that the guys were done eating. I pretty much ran after them, getting weird glances back at me from the guys as I approached them, ever so awkwardly. I told them that I was looking for Pilsener posters and asked them if they knew where I could get some. One of the guys was like "yeah, here," and handed me a bent poster. I must have looked disappointed because he asked me if it was fine then asked me if I wanted more. I said yes, of course, and he handed me about 6 others (that weren't bent), and told me that if anyone asked where I got them, it wasn't him. I laughed, thanked him, and walked back towards Anina who was waiting for me at the G-Spot Restaurant, needless to say, cracking up at me.

It was probably the best present hunting (and only stalking) I've ever done and I'm glad that Jess loved her present!

Relaxing in Baños

Friday night Alex, Anina, Maureen and I took off to Baños to meet Emily and Jessica who had gone earlier to get us a nice place to stay. When we arrived to Terminal Terrestre, where we would take the bus to Baños, we were told that there were only 2 seats left, the rest were for people going further on the trip and therefore had to pay more. After negotiating a little, we got ourselves some seats, unfortunately NOT what we wanted. Alex, Maureen and I had to sit in the very back next to the gross, smelly bathroom that had just been sprayed with some flowery smell, therefore making the smell 10 times worse. Poor Anina had to sit in the very front, in a seat we didn't even know was for passangers, next to the bus driver. Turns out, the seats weren't that bad considering there were about 15 people that ended up getting on the bus and traveling the entire way standing up.

After sleeping in a very comfy room with 3 bunked beds, for all six of us, we woke up Saturday morning ready for some fun. We decided to rent some bikes for the day so that we could ride down a waterfall route. Despite my initial hesitation about how much fun it would be to ride the 23 km to el Pallon del Diablo (the Devil's Cauldron), or the biggest waterfall on the route, it ended up being a great experience. We saw various little waterfalls on the way and got to ride through a completely dark tunnel (super freaky considering I literally couldn't see where I was going) and a bridge (where people were bungie jumping).

When we arrived in the little town of el Pallon del Diablo we heard the Lion King's "the circle of life" and all sang it, very excitingly, only to get strange looks from the locals. It was great! After locking our bikes there and hiking down to see the huge waterfall, we rode the in the back of a truck back to Baños, singing various other well known songs and once again getting starred at by the others on riding with us :)

In Baños we found a Mexican food place and ate gorditas, burritos, enchiladas and limonada. Yummy! We then went to El Refugio Spa and got the cajon de baño (Box Steam Bath) treatment. For this treatment we had to sit in a wodden box that only allowed our heads to stick out. Inside the box was a lever where we could allow steam to come out, as well as a bunch of eucalyptus leaves for aromatherapy. We also had tea next to our heads, which these two girls would come and hold for us to drink when we wanted some. After sitting in the steaming cajas for a while we would come out and the girls would poor buckets of freezing water on us. Chilly, but it felt great after being completely covered in sweat. After three little sessions of the steam bath/cold water treatment, we ate some watermelon while we had a mud-mask on our faces. It was a very interesting and different experience, especialy the "spiritual walk," which I forgot to mention, came before our cajon treatment. We went on a walk that involved us walking barefoot on river and volcano rocks, yelling out in towards the mountains, and crawling in grass. Needless to say, my feet hurt afterwards.

For dinner we went to Cafe Good where Anina and I shared a very diverse meal: pita and hummus, nachos, and pad thai, all a delish. We then hopped on the top of this bus, called a Chiva (goat) bus, that took us up a mountain to see the volcano Tungurahua (which errupted a few weeks ago). It was a great ride because we drank some Pilsners and looked at the beautiful stars above (something which is obv unheard of in LA). Although we didn't get to see the volcano because it was cloudy, we did get to see a great view of Baños as well as a fire juggling show put on by two attractive brothers. We then went to a bar and played Janga, completely random I know, then to a discoteca where they played completely random, yet great, music (like Mana's "Me Vale") and danced with non other than one of the fire bros.

Sunday morning we went back to El Refugio to get awesome rock massages then headed back to Quito (to finish my Marketing project, which today, is still not done).

Baños was so much fun and hopefully we'll be going back. Especially because we didn't get to it's main tourist attraction, the reason it's called Baños, the thermal baths.

Viernes Loco!

Friday was one of the busiest days I've had since I've been in Ecuador, mostly on the school work side. On Fridays I only have two classes, Moneda y Banca at nine in the a.m. and then Antropologia Cultural, with a two hour gap in between.

As usual I woke up dreading Moneda y Banca because I had a project due which I hadn't finished. Me not finishing my hw for this class is nothing out of the ordinary considering I understand pretty much nothing. Moneda y Banca is supposed to be an Econ class but somehow the professor thinks it perfectly fine to ramble on and on about finance, accounting, and the Ecuadorian financial laws. All of this would be okay, since after all they are all related, but I do not have any background, whatsoever, in any of those things, so I understand nothing. Also, if he didn't read everything word for word and bore the entire class to death, I wouldn't mind it so much.

I came in to class worried because I hadn't finished the project, but turns out, it's okay, we can turn it in on Monday. ---Changing the dates of things due is very typical of Jaime Maya, SO ANNOYING!! Today we had a quiz on some accounting crap which he refused to teach us, but when we got to class, he decided Friday would be better. Good in the sense that I have more time to figure out something I've never done in my life (literally figure out how numbers are related, in finding equations for them, then doing it in class without any references), bad because it means I probably won't do it.---- Good thing for me, when I went to the ONLY computer lab that has ProBanker (the program we had to use) installed in it after class, I found a girl working on the same project and allowed me to be in her group, which I didn't even realize we didn't have to do it on our own. Basically, I hate this class, and I am bound to fail, oh well...

After anthro I had to get together with two Ecuadorina kids from my marketing class for a group project we had. We have to launch a new product (ours is a social magazine with social pics and nightlife info) and do all kinds of investigation for it. This has been the biggest pain ever because the guys in my group don't want to do anything. I've been trying to get Alex(an Ecuadorian, not the one from Pitzer), Andres, and Francisco to help me out with the project but they hadn't been worried about it at all until this week. Because Francisco had to go out of town, he said he would do the telephone interviews, a professional interview, and a "hidden consumer" interview all on his own. Alex, Andres and I had to do surveys in the mall and a focus group (ugh!).

So we took off to Cumbaya to the local bougie mall where we figured we could find the most USFQ students (since our product is aimed at them). After parking we found out that the camara didn't work, and since we had to videotape everything, we were forced to drive all around Cumbaya to Alex's friends' houses to find one that we could use. It was a pain, yet cool because I got a tour of the town, which I'd never been to (I hadn't been past the university). They guys showed me the local restaurants, hospital and schools, and SWEET homes, or mansions really, where their friends lived. We also got stopped by the police and Alex got a ticket for having "a distracting object" in his hand while driving. I found it hilarious that after making an illegal u turn and not having his seatbelt on, he only got a ticket for being on the phone, although this was a 3rd degree ticket, meaning the worst kind. Even more hilarious, was the fine, a total of SIX bucks, haha.

When we finally made it back to the mall and started interviewing random young people we were approached by the mall's security guy who told us we couldn't survey people here. Even though we only got to survey a total of 4 people (since the security guy followed us around after he approached us), we left back to school to do our focus group (but only after picking up 4 guys on the way to help us out). I ended up trusting the guys to finish the focus group on their own and headed to none other than McDonald's for Bruno's birthday party.

At McDonald's there were about 22 of Bruno's friends playing a game that two girls, dressed in Ronald McDonald costumes, were leading for them. It was the most intense Mickey D's bday party ever. They played all kinds of games, sang songs, danced, ate Happy Meals (of course) and even had a piñata with candy and prizes (each kid got coloring books, free meal coupons, and toys), all in the middle of the restaurant, where all around them regular customers enjoyed their food. The kids loved it. And I did too, especially because I got eat!! Chicken nuggets and fries, and Bruno cake (the same one from my bday)! SO good! But probably tasted better to me because it turns out that I had been so busy all day that I had gone about 11 hours without food.

As soon as it ended I pretty much booked it home to pack to go to Baños!