On Tuesday we had a short school day so my class got pizza and ate it at the park, and honestly, I don't think that pizza has ever tasted so good. We also made a giant green salad with SPINACH! Yum. We don't get a lot of green leafy veggies down here.
Afterward a couple of us went to the supermercado and I got stuff to make a spaghetti dinner for my family, including a $3 bottle of wine. It turned out alright, given the circumstances, but I've definitely had/ made better spaghetti in my day. As for the bottle of wine, it was probably a bit of a bold move because I've actually never seen a drop of alcohol in house although I definitely know that they drink, given the past few weekends we've spent together. Anyway, they didn't have a corkscrew. hahaha. Oh well. More for me. Just kidding. Kind of...On Wednesday we all got to school super early and left on our own little party bus for the 2 hr ride North to the little town of Peguche. Here we visited a music shop where they make a ton of instruments like ocarinas and rondadors, which are the national instrument of Ecuador, according to wikipedia (I bought one, of course). We got to see the guy make a rondador right there, which was awesome and then they played a couple songs for us. We also got to test out all of the instruments.
Making a rondador
That guy is smiling so big because I was a natural at whatever this instrument is. I forget what it's called. 
Our "band". Just be glad there's no sound...
Bastante instruments 
After that we went to a nearby waterfall called Peguche (the town we were in was also called Peguche). We went for a little hike and got to crawl through this cave and explore a little, and although the waterfall itself wasn't anything too incredible, given the waterfalls that I'm used to, it was absolutely delightful to retreat into the forest and breath some fresh air. We then drove to Cuicocha where we took a boat around la Laguna de Cuicocha. Our boat was filled with a bunch of rowdy costeños who then insisted that we take pictures with them and we all drank our free cup of canilazo (a delicious warm alcoholic beverage) together. We then said our goodbyes and headed off to eat lunch in Cotacachi and then proceeded North through the city of Ibarra and up to the community of San Clemente.
La cascada Peguche
On a boat at la laguna de Cuicocha 
Un Arco Iris
A big, beautiful church at Cotacachi- interesting, pretty sad sidenote: most churches like this one that were built by the Spaniards were built on top of Inca cemeteries in the middle of town squares. It's a pretty strong, pretty heartbreaking symbol of colonization, especially since my first inclination is always to marvel at the beauty of the architecture etc... It's pretty striking how something so beautiful can symolize something so tragic. 
The courtyard at a museum we visited at Cotacachi
San Clemente is an indigenous community that is located about 30 minutes outside of Ibarra at the foot of the volcano Imbabura. In 2001, along with a lot of the rest of Ecuador's population, this community was hit hard by the dolarization. They turned to a model of ecotourism to bring in revenue and sustain their way of life. With this model, families host travelers and provide homecooked, organic meals and they also share their traditions of agriculture, music, dance and more. It was a really cool experience. We got to dress in the traditional clothing (which the women still wear) and dance to indigenous musica. The next day we followed one of the leaders of the community through the forest and learned about all sorts of plants and medicinal uses that they have. Then I helped to plow part of a field in my bare feet. I also woke up early to watch the sunrise and then help my host mom make tortillas on the outdoor stove fueled by burning eucalyptus. Our school trip technically ended on Thursday but we were so enchanted by this community that we decided to stay in Ibarra and return the next day to ride horses up Imbabura. I hit it off with my 17 year old host brother Roberto so we invited him to come along too. So we went into town for the night, ate a bunch of delicious ice cream (helado de paila... Ibarra's claim to fame), stayed in a really cool old hostel and woke up at 6 the next morning to trek back up for our equestrian adventure. And what an adventure it was!! San Clemente is already located at about 9200 ft above sea level and then we proceeded to ride for about 2 1/2 hours to about 12,500 ft and omg, it was breathtaking. We had two guides and Roberto with us to help us out with the horses and lead the way. When we got to as far up as we were going (which was really far) we hiked a couple minutes to this little barn and I milked a cow. Hahahaha. My life is awesome. It literally felt like we were on top of the world. When we got back down, we giggled our way through a delicious lunch of quinoa soup, avocado, beans, chicken, salad, dessert and REAL COFFEE with Manuel and Roberto. This is how I imagine heaven to be. And if it's not like that, I don't want to go. Exhausted, sore and blissful, we made our way back to town and onto a bus back to Quito. But funny tidbit about buses in Ecuador. They often times are really pimped out with lots of fringe and speakers and stickers and lots of Jesus paraphernalia. On this particular bus there was also a TV on which a viewing of the movie Joyride 2 was being shown. For those of you who don't know, Joyride 2 is a really awful horror film basically about all this scary stuff that happens to this group of people on a roadtrip (dubbed in Spanish of course). Hahahahahah talk about HILARIOUS. The irony of it just about killed me. It was quite a humorous end to our awesome trip.Upon return to my house in Quito, I ate, showered and slept. On Saturday Laura and I went to the Colombian Bakery where we drank coffee, ate weird pastries, studied for our midterm and watched the rain. It was a really nice Seattle-esque day. Afterwards I met up with another amigo for more coffee (this time with Bailey's... it's always happy hour here and people are always drinking!!) and more studying and then we went out for another fun night of dancing in Gringolandia.
On Sunday, I helped my mom peel potatoes for lunch and then went to my uncle's house with Laura for a jam session on the roof. Upon hearing that I had bought a rondador, he immediately called up his friend and arranged this "lesson". It actually just ended up being more of him on the guitar and his friend on my rondador jamming and Laura and I awkwardly dancing around on the roof and playing really horrible music on our flutes. Luckily his son was there video taping the whole thing. Talk about blackmail. If I can get my hands on the video I'll try and post it eventually so everyone can have a good laugh at the debut of our band "Sangre de pesca!". We're gonna be big. But I also got to meet my 18 and 15 yr old cousins who live really close and we all ate ice cream together. It was beautiful.
And then! (don't worry I'm almost done, I promise). The Superbowl!!!!!! Now, it's true that not only did I not know it was Superbowl Sunday until Sunday morning but I also had no idea who was even playing, but it was still a good excuse to go out on a Sunday night. A group of us headed to Gringolandia and met up with the other Gringos of Quito to engage in the good old American traditions of drinking beer, eating hamburgers and being really loud and obnoxious. We ended up at this really fun little Irish pub where we were crammed shoulder to shoulder with all the other raucous Americans. Unfortunately, all the commercials were Ecuadorian, so I missed out on my favorite part of the Superbowl. It was actually a really good time, regardless of my indifference to the real reason for the festivities and made me a little homesick, not gonna lie. Gotta love Amurica. Go Saints! (right?)
Anyway, this week marks the halfway point of this quarter and today marks the one month anniversary of my being in Quito! It's really hard to believe that I've been here so long already. I am really truly loving just about every minute of my adventure here and the people that I am sharing it with. I am considering options for next quarter including petitioning to live in an apartment with other students or maybe trying for an internship in el campo somewhere. There's a big part of me that wants to live with Roberto's family, plow fields in my barefeet and cook tortillas every day (not that that's necessarily an option, but I think I could make something similar to that happen) IDK! The possibilities are many and I would be excited for any that I might find myself in next quarter, which I consider to be a pretty amazing thing. Life is good, I'm learning tons, experiencing so so much, speaking bastante Spanish and loving every minute of it all. This week I have a midterm on Thursday and then no school until next Wednesday because of our break for Carnival!! It's going to be a crazy weekend, hopefully with lots of stories to tell upon return.
It's taken my a number of sittings to get this all out and get the photos uploaded, so I understand if it takes y'all a couple sittings to read it all (or you can just look at the pictures and ignore my ramblings). I have lots and lots more photos that I'ma try to put up on flickr tonight too, but my internetzz are a little slow. Actually, a lot slow. And actually, I have more pictures that I've been trying to load onto here but it's soooooooooo slow so I give up for now. But hopefully it'll work eventually!
Anyway, once again, lots and lots and lots of love to you all! Oh! And grandma, I got your letter today :) What a great start to my week, and I'm glad that you got your ice cream.
Bastante besos!
mt
ps KELSEY! (shout out) jaja Love you gf.
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