Baños!!!

Hola!

Here are some pictures this past weekend... the second to last of the quarter. Eek!

We stayed at an adorable little hostel in the heart of Baños, a small town at the foot of Volcán Tungurahua (which is an active volcano, btw) that draws hoards of tourists due to its natural hot springs, amazing hiking and all sorts of adventure sports.


Here's the view of the church from the rooftop terrace at our hostel. I had a fun time playing with some shutter speed business...




The next day, we ate breakfast on the rooftop and then rented bikes ($5/ day) and set off on the 17 km, mostly downhill trek to see some waterfalls. About 10 minutes in it started to DOWNPOUR, literally to the point that I couldn't see anymore. We pulled over for a little bit, regained our (very wet) composure and continued on down the mountain. We ended up at Rio Verde and hiked down a very steep hill to see the grande finale cascada, Pailón del Diablo, where we crossed a rickety bridge and ate some snacks.



After enjoying the incredible view, we hiked back up, ate some empanadas and climbed into the back of a truck for a ride back up to Baños with some German kids and a guy from Texas.



When we got back to the hostel, we found that we had a new roommate named Matthieu, from Canada. We all decided to cook dinner together in the hostel, so we bought some groceries and made spaghetti (again). The rest of the night consisted of drinking beer and playing cards with a bunch of the other people staying at the hostel and then eventually going to a bar close to our hostel. It was good times with fun people from all over the world, traveling in Ecuador for about a hundred different reasons. I think that we finally got to bed at about 5 or so, but Marcy and Kraig had both gone to bed earlier, so were ready to go a lot earlier than I was. But I didn't want to miss out on anything, so I dragged myself out of bed after way too little sleep, and after about 3 cups of instant coffee, was ready to roll once again.

Sunday was pretty low key. We just hung out with our new friends, ate and walked around Baños and bussed back late last night.

Here's Marcy and Ignatio, from Buenos Aires, playing chess on the roof of our hostel.




So that was my weekend, in a brief and not very well-said nutshell. Tomorrow we leave for our last school trip to Tena, a town in the Amazon. After that we have one more weekend, finals week and then Spring break! I cannot believe how fast this quarter has flown by. It's unreal that I already have to think about saying goodbyes to fellow CIMAS kids who are going back home (Marcy :(( ) and my wonderful Ecuadorian family and get all ready to move to a different place.

Which reminds me! Life update for anyone interested... As many of you know, I had originally intended to stay on with CIMAS for the Local Development and Social Change, but as this quarter has progressed, I've realized that I will get a lot more out of this next quarter by taking advantage of the opportunity to have an internship outside of the classroom and the city where I can live in a community, speak BASTANTE Spanish all the time and really learn what it's like to be a part of a community-run, grassroots development project. Where exactly I will be next quarter is still a little up in the air. A friend Laura and I are pushing to be able to live in Mindo at the hostel where we stayed where they are in the process of starting up an organic gardening/ food security project within the community of Mindo. It sounds like a really cool project with some really cool people that involves community sustainability and farming/ gardening classes, but also the opportunity to work with the community, in the schools and for the parks to collaborate and develop other projects as we go. I can't imagine a better learning experience for myself. And even if this particular project doesn't work out, this is the basis for any of the internships that I could have for next quarter, and I know that anywhere I go I will learn so much. I will keep posting updates as I find out more (hopefully next week because the internships are supposed to start the week after Spring break) and hopefully will have lots more exciting things to share in the coming months.

So exciting! Besos to all. I miss your faces.

MT

oh! and guinea pigs!

Forget to mention i "ate" guinea pig for dinner last night! My family tried to trick me and tell me it was chicken, but I wasn't having it. I had a tiny little bite to say that I did but also to not be rude. I explained to my family that it was like eating my pets... like Lukey and Andy jajajaja. They are a real delicacy here and cost $15 a pop! And they're disgusssssssssting. Really rubbery, not a lot of meat and a bunch of tiny little guinea pig bonesssss :((( I'm sorry Elmer and Skamper. Please forgive me...

The Cloud Forest! Guayasamin! Guinea Pigs!

So I've been epically slacking at this blogging business. And since I keep starting posts and then not finishing it means that one big giant post is in order. And this will be it. The past couple weeks have been chalk full of fun adventures, Spanish papers and of course, lots of starch. Where to begin....

I survived my trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon but unfortunately didn't take any pictures! We took a tour of the Lago Agria and Coca, which are right near the Colombian border and are home to a bunch of drill sites and piscinas of petroleum waste. It is absolutely horrifying and disgusting. If you haven't already, you should check out a new documentary called "Crude" which goes into the very same places that I saw last weekend and shows the damage done to the land and the health of the people living nearby by Texaco/ Chevron and now PetroEcuador. I really wish I had pictures to show because there is no way that I can possibly convey the horrible things that I saw in my limited and not very imaginative vocabulary. That's why I love photography! I do have plans to return with a couple others who didn't get to go so I will make sure to snap a bunch then. But until then, go watch "Crude" because that's literally the exact location of the things that I saw. Any maybe walk to the movie store instead of driving...

This past weekend was far more relaxing and enjoyable in a different sort of way. On Thursday night we went out to some bars and then Laura and I went back to Marcy's house to sleep for a couple hours and wake up muy temprano to catch a bus to Mindo, a tiny little town in the Cloud Forest. We arrived, in a group of 6 including our new friend Juan Carlos who Laura and I stayed with in Esmereldas for Carnaval, and got some delicious breakfast. Unfortunately, my body decided then to let me know how unhappy it is with the lack of nutrients (specifically fiber) I've been receiving. I can't decide if it's better than the opposite problem, but either way, it wasn't especially fun. One really great thing that I've discovered about traveling is the unique closeness that is cultivated among fellow travelers (ie. we talk about our poop a lot) jajaja. ANYWAY I ate a few bananas today so I should be fine, in case you were worried.

After breakfast we called up some guy that was a friend of a friend of a girl in our group from Bellingham who had just opened up a hostel in Mindo. We hiked the 15 or 20 minutes down a dusty road, over a river and into the forest to find the place nestled among an astounding array of fruit trees, tall jungle grass, tropical flowers and an breathtaking garden... and we were home! Patrick, one of the owners of the place, set us up with some rooms and then brought some delicious fresh squeezed lemonade which we sipped leisurely while relaxing/reading/recuperating in the forest air on the big covered deck right outside our rooms. We laid around for a couple hours then decided to get our ziplining on. This meant buying tickets from Patrick and hiking a few miles up the mountain to the canopy. Here we were greeted by a couple guides who helped us get all harnassed up, gave us a quick (and I mean quick) safety talk in Spanish and essentially pushed us off into the clouds. It was pretty incredible to soar above the treetops through the clouds upside down. Whoooooooo!! After we finished, we hiked back down to town, ate some crappy Mexican food and returned home to drink beer, play cards and crash early.

The next morning we woke up to a delicious breakfast in our hostel with real coffee (!) and then set out down the forest path to the river not far from the house where we went for a quick dip and got eaten alive by mosquitoes. We then headed into town for lunch and caught a ride in the back of a truck up the mountain once again (but a few km further this time) . It was just starting to rain when we were in the truck and by the time we got up there it was pouring! We hopped into a rickety little cart on a cable and crossed through the clouds once again. On the other side, we hopped off and set off to see some waterfalls. By this time, we were all hiking in our bathing suits, soaking wet from the rain, and running down the trail because we realized we only had an hour before the little cart stopped running for the day. We got to one waterfall and went swimming in the pouring rain. It was incredible and yet another moment in time that I wish I could document, but for the sake of future photos I left my camera in its plastic bag inside my t-shirt inside my surprisingly waterproof timbuk2. But again, just trust me, it was dreamy. After a quick swim, we ran back up the trail through the thick warmish rain and thunder storm. It was soooo good for the soul to be in the woods in the rain, running and frolicking about, but there are still 6 other waterfalls that we didn't get to see, which means that a return trip is definitely in order (as if we need an excuse). We got back in time to catch the tram back across and then hiked down, catching a ride for the last little bit of the rainy walk. In town, we bought some groceries and headed back to cook up a delicious spaghetti dinner. Turns out it was Patrick's birthday and they had some people over, including the girl who had given us a ride down the mountain who turns out to be from the bay area and a UO alum. Crazy stuff.

The next day we had another leisurely breakfast, visited a potential internship site in town, ate the world's most delicious veggie sandwich and then hopped a bus back to reality (mas o menos).

Since this is week 8/10 of the quarter, things are starting to get a little crazy. Today we got to hang out with some middle schoolers and help them "practice their English" which really just meant we played a massive game of soccer. It was really fun. Then we visited the Fundación Guayasamin. Que increíble!! If you are not familiar (which I wasn't before coming to Ecuador) with his work, you should definitely check it out. Oswaldo Guayasamin was an Indigenous Ecuadorian painter and sculptor who lived in Quito. He died in 1999 and they have converted his houses and property to a big museum of his art collections and his own paintings and sculptures. There aren't words enough to describe the feeling of looking at these paintings up close, in person. Here's a quick little wikipedia link if you want some more info. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswaldo_Guayasam%C3%ADn and here are some pictures that I took of the paintings. Of course it's not the same as seeing them in person, but here's a little taste...







Oh, and here's a picture of the new piercing that Laura and I got. Whoops! jajajajajaj

Anyway, sorry if this post is a little scatter brained. It's taken me a few days to get it written. If you want to see pictures from Mindo (and there's lots) check out my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsenecal/

I have more to say and more to share but it's gonna have to wait for another day.

Love to all!

MT