Mindo

So every month XPOLRER takes us on a day trip or to do something fun in the city. So today we got to skip school (WOOO!) and we went to a town called Mindo. Mindo is famous for its waterfalls and jungle hikes. The terreain there is not actually jungle, its cloud forrest, which I think sounds alot cooler.

We left at about 9:30 and drove north out of Quito. The roads twisted and turned the whole way there, going up and down mountainsides and through valleys. I didn't find the drive as captivating as the one to the hot springs becuase the land was all exactly the same, dense shrubbery and trees, and after a short while it got boring. So, Cluadio and I entertained ourselves for the rest of the 90 minute ride by singing songs of my iPod at the top of our lungs from the back of the van.

As we were getting close to Mindo I started seeing ful color signs and photos on the side of the road, obviously to lure gringos and thei money to the tourist sight. Upon arrival I was a little taken aback. Obviously one has to expect that the people are going to capitalize on the fact that the falls attract tourists, but the hotels and restuarants were a bit much, not distasteful, but certainly not fitting for a quaint Ecudorian town. It seemed like the place was in some kind of civil conflict, half of the buildings were modest dwellings and stores built and used by the locals, while the rest were cafes, hotels, and travel agencies to cater for gringos.

From the actual town, we all climbed into the back of a pickup truck and started driving on dirt roads up into the hills. It was an exceptionally bumpy ride and I think we all exited the truck with sore rear ends. From the place where the truck dropped us off we walked down a path into the forrest. The trail was muddy and covered in these crushed nut shells someone had spread to increase traction but all they seemed to do was annoy my feet (I was barefoot of course, who needs shoes?) The path snaked its way down the hill and we stoped at a small clearing on the edge of a cliff. There were a few posts in the ground and a wire than ran about 300 yards across to the other side of the gulley, a zip line! Two guys who manned the station got us all harnessed up and sent us all flying over a river about 500ft below and then back again. One of them showed me how to hang upside down on the wire, so of course I flew through the air with my arms spread out and my feet above my head, such an amazing feeling.

After the zip line we continued down the path to the river and the falls. The part of the river where we could swim was nice and calm, there was an old building on the bank and places to change. I love waterfalls, especailly jumping off them, so natuarlly I looked on the internet last night to see what the deal was with jumping in Mindo. There were plenty of videos and stories of tall plunges, so I was eager to find them. The obvious one was at the pool where we swam, there was a platform to jump from and a concrete slide, which hurt like hell but was good fun. But I knew there were more so I follwed the trails on each side of the banks until I found falls and the jump. We had a guide, of sorts, with us, a really old guy who seemed to know the place like the back of his hand, so I asked him if it was alright to jump. He tossed a few stones into the river, showing me where to jump and told me that it was fine. Just as my friend Brain and I were about to jump, Sofy, our leader form XPOLRER came up the trail witht he rest of the grop. She saw what we were about to do and told us there was no way. Luckily the guide sided with us, and after about 15 minutes of standing on the side of this small cliff, freezing our butts off, she gave in and said one jump each. It was quite a heigh, I'd say about 45 feet, give or take a bit, and the power of the waterfall kept us under for a bit, but it was still amazing. We swam downriver a short way and then climbed up a rotting wooden ladder lashed to the side of the cliff. I can't say I had much faith in the slippery rungs but we made it back up unscathed.

We walked back up the river to where we had left our bags, dried off and changed again. Then started the climb back up the path. Another pickup-truck ride brought us back to the town where we had a big lunch and got back on the bus. All of us were exhausted from the swimming and climbing and everyone slept most of the way back to Quito. Just outside of the city, Brian shook me awake and directed my sight out of the window to the other side of the freeway. A school bus had had an accident and was lying on its side completly blocking the traffic. About 40 young students, all dressed in their uniforms stood shivering on the side of the road. There were no ambulances so luckily I don't think anyone was hurt, just alot of broken glass and traumatized looking youngsters.

I took a picture of me in one of my 3 uniforms last week, so I will put that up. The rest are from Mindo. I will take pictures of the other uniforms when I next have to wear them.



Uniform, obviously.





Zip line





I was going for that cool milky effect that you get when you leave the shutter open longer and shoot moving water, it kind of worked, a tripod would have helped though.





Where we swam and the smaller of the two jumps.

Late Nights and Hot Springs

As the title suggests the past few nights have been quite late indeed. On saturday I decided that I was well enough to go out, I think this decision was mostly based on my high level of boredom. I even started reading a book while I was sick, thats how little I had to do. 

So I met up with Claudio, his sisters and two cousins. It was kind of strange, the cousins had both recently returned from exchanges in Germany, Claudio's sister had lived there when she was in high school, and Claudio speaks German in Switzerland. This resulted in occasional outbursts of German in the car, none of which I understood, well except for, "Shiza!!", when we made a wrong turn. We went to eat at a cafe in Amazonas, the part of town with all the bars and gringos. The cafe was completely dedicated to John Lennon, the walls were plastered with pictures of him and his fellow band mates, and the Beatles were constantly playing in the background, mixed in with other classic rock as well. As usual, everything was dirt cheap, I had a full dinner for $4. 

We went to some bars to dance and when I looked at my phone to see what time it was, it was 1:30 in the morning. We decided it would be better for me to stay at their house for the night rather than risk taking a cab so late. 

Sunday was quiet, everyone had left in the morning to do various things in the morning so I had the house to myself. I borrowed Sharone's guitar, having not played in months, and started the long process of remembering songs. It felt really good to play again but was quite frustrating at times when things came to a grinding halt and I had to resort to the internet to refresh my memory. That night, at about 10:30 my sister asked if I wanted to go the movies with her boyfriend and another friend, having not left that house all day I went. We saw Atonement, it was in English with Spanish subtitles. I spent a lot of time reading the subtitles and was really surprised at the difference. Obviously some meaning gets lost in translation, but the subtitles absolutely slaughtered the dialog. English has so many idiomatic expressions and words that just have no equivalents in spanish. The words here can have so many different meanings, whereas in English we manipulate words and grammar to convey different thoughts. This resulted in me being the only one who actually enjoyed / appreciated the film, kind of sad in a way. 

I went to school on Monday, I had missed a lot, but it didn't really matter which was nice. I decided that I wasn't really feeling up to class in the afternoon so I left with all the other kids at 1:40. My course stays until almost 4. Not fun. It was very lucky that I left early because not only was I exactly on time for lunch at home, but also my family was about to go some hot springs up in the mountains so I got to go too. 

The drive was about an hour, but we could have done it quicker without all the stopping for me to take photos. It was really spectacular, we went up into the mountains and drove along these winding roads, often times with large drops just a few feet away. Clouds gathered around the jagged peaks and settled in the valleys like blankets of cotton. Then we passed about 20 or 30 blue hearts painted on the road. In Ecuador these hearts signify when people have died in traffic accidents, they are scattered throughout the city, but rarely more than one. It was really eerie to see them all grouped together, next to the twisted metal that used to be a guard rail and tire marks through the bushes and over the edge. A simple cross had been put in the hole in the guard rail, it was quite surreal, it stood still on the side of the mountain while the cold wind moved everything around it. 

There were two or three more sites like this along the drive. They were all different, some with only one heart, some with many crosses, others with nothing but skid marks through the underbrush, but each time I couldn't escape the strange feeling they gave me inside.

We stopped on the way to eat at a group of store bunched together on the side of the road. All sorts of fresh veggies, cheese and fried trout. The fish here is always served whole, head, tail, skin, bones, eyes... whole.  Needless to say it was really good, but quite a lot of work removing all the bones mid chew. 

We kept driving, slowly climbing higher and higher. Every 10 minutes or so we would see small shacks clinging to the hillsides, the poverty is really bad as soon as you leave the city. These dwellings were probably about 400 square feet at most, usually with a fire burning next to the door and cows or goats wandering around. It really makes one think... Eventually we reached a fork in the road and we turned off onto a dirt track riddled with rocks and potholes. We went down into a valley and then back up the other side. It was about 6PM and almost completely dark but I did see two huge pipes we drove underneath running down to the golden glow of a town in the distance. I figured these must be carrying hot water and that the thermal springs had to be close. We got there about 10 minutes later. 

The springs were not really what I was expecting, there was a small resort built around them with hotels, a few places to eat, and abundant changing rooms. The springs themselves were like swimming pools with rubber bottoms but there were rocks that poked up through the surface. The air was really cold due to how high up we were, about 10,500 feet I think, and because it was night. This made for tons of steam rising of the pools that created a cool fog everywhere. Unfortunately the steam made all my pictures turn out horribly which is rather a shame but I still have those from the drive. 

In all there were 8 or 9 pools, all varying in shape and temperature. One was so hot I couldn't go in past my ankles and others were so cold I thought I was going to get hypothermia. There was a river running down the mountainside next to the pools, a bunch of rocks had been moved  to create a pool inside the river, also deathly cold. 

Before we left I was wandering around, exploring, when I looked inside one of the changing rooms. Being the only places with light, these rooms looked more like an insect exhibit at a zoo. I spotted a stick insect on the ceiling, which I was really excited about because I always used to see them on the TV and hear that they are nearly impossible to find because they are so well camouflaged. This one kind of stuck out against the cement backdrop, but it was cool nonetheless. 

I was so tired on the drive home I just turned on my iPod and passed out in the backseat. It was too dark to see anything so it didn't matter. 

Volcano and a broken guard rail where a car went over the edge, it wasn't really a cliff though.

Light at the hot springs.

Not so camouflaged stick insect. 

Creepy Crawlies

So last night I was innocently walking into my bathroom to brush my teeth before bed, half asleep, quite medicated, all in all not what you would call alert. But that soon changed when I saw what was waiting for me in my sink. The biggest, hairiest, meanest spider I have ever seen had got itself stuck in the sick and was frantically trying to climb the sides of the basin, with little success. I thought I was going to hve a heart attack, this thing was massive. On the grand scale of things obviously this was not the biggest spider in the world, but it was easily 3 or 4 times bigger than anything I had ever seen in New England. So we both just stood there, looking at each other, not knowing what to do, it was trying to climb up the steepest part of the basin and had not tried the other side which would have been much easier, therefore I did not want to leave in case it discovered that it could escape. Then I would have some eight legged monster crawling around my room all night, a much worse situation. 

So I dashed upstairs to get Mama, a glass big enough to put the thing in, and of course, my camera. After taking some photos, it was time to extract this beast from my sink. Being a curved surface, it was difficult to make a seal with the glass, but eventually I got the thing in there with a notebook underneath and was able to put it out into the street. 

That night everything looked like giant spiders, I mean everything, shadows, crinkles in my bed-sheets, I think I even mistook my hand for a big flesh colored spider at one point. Mama said it wasn't a good idea to leave my window open an night because that is when all the little creatures go into the house for light and warmth, I had learned my lesson. I lay awake for ages thinking about how many nights I had left my window open, and how many more spiders there probably were lurking in my room....

Arrrggghhh

So I haven't posted in a week, for that I am sorry, but I do have excuses! 

Currently I am enduring my third bout with this Ecuadorian sickness I seem to have. I have been out of school for the past three days, not sure how many more to come, but I am alive! Numerous doctors visits and tests have revealed absolutely nothing about what is wrong with me, all the say is "you are getting used to the food".  That seems reasonable I guess but I hope this passes soon. In the mean time I am on a diet of rice, bread and gatorade, watching everyone else eat at mealtimes is tantalizing to say the least. 

Last weekend was pretty boring because I wasn't feeling great the whole time. Thursday I went out with Sharon and his crazy friends, emphasis on the crazy part. Friday I didn't really do anything because I wasn't feeling too great. Saturday I was going to go to the artisan market with Mama but the rain kind of ruined our plans. By the way, it has rained every day for  the past  week, the mornings are mild and then at around 2 or 3, it is like someone just turns on the taps, and the skies open. On sunday I woke up really early, around 6:30 i think and decided that I should go and take some pictures of the sunrise, well, I was a little late for the sunrise but I did get some really great photos. But I paid a price for my photos, being the clever person I am, I forgot to make sure that the keys to the house were in their normal hiding place and ended up getting locked out. I didn't want to wake anyone up so I just kept walking around and taking more photos to combat my boredom. Eventually people were stirring in the house so I knocked and was let in. 

The plan was to go the the artisan market and after to got the Ecuador vs. Chile game in the afternoon with Sharon. We went to the market which was really cool, full of gringos like myself and merchants ripping them off for trinkets and "handmade" cloth. I couldn't help but laugh at some of the Americans who spoke to the sellers in English thinking that somehow they understood. I thought about offering my services as a translator for a little while, for a small price of course, but we had to leave. Next time. We went out to lunch and, oh look at the time, its 2:30, time for the rain, and rain it did. Hail the size of large pebbles joined forces with the rain to make everyone in the streets miserable, I felt bad watching them scramble for shelter while i was sitting high and dry behind the glass of the restaurant. we decided that going to the game in the rain/hail would not be the most enjoyable experience so went to one of my Uncle's house to watch it on the TV. But the weather had other plans, none of the broadcasts were working due to the rain, so we went home and waited patiently for the final score. Ecuador won 1-0! A big relief. 

I am realizing I have kind of Taranito'd this post, starting with the end and then going back haha, but things like that keep my blog fresh. 

Here are some of the photos I took, I played with them a little bit on my computer too:

Gripe and U. San Francisco

So at the beginning of last week I started getting sick, mainly cold / flu symptoms with some other random stuff mixed in, not fun. Here they call it gripe, which translates as flu, but is applied to most any ailment. I went to the doctor at school, had a few tests and things and was prescribed some pills which seemed to do the trick. Then it came back this week, hard. I missed another day of school and went back to the doctor who looked at the results of all the tests I did and told me I was fine. I politely disagreed, so he dealt me a truly crushing blow, no cheese, eggs, or milk for 8 days. Usually my breakfast is cereal (obviously with milk), bread, cheese and eggs. I can tell you I am less than pleased with this new diet. I have been reduced to bread and fruit juice in the mornings, Tuesday cannot come soon enough. Mami said that all the exchange students they have hosted had similar sicknesses at about the one month period, so I think it could be just my stomach getting used to eating all this new stuff. 

I went to school yesterday, as normal it was very hard. I am thinking of changing courses because at the moment I am in the hardest level, called IB which is a high school curriculum recognized as one of the best in the world. The fact that none of the grades I receive here are going on my college transcript doesn't help the motivational aspect either. 

Last night I got a call from the XPLORER office asking if I would go with them to a University just outside of Quito to help promote the outbound part of their business, the part that sends Ecuadorians to work and study in the United States. I was already going to say yes, then they mentioned that I wouldn't have to go to school, needless to say I was in. 

So we went to the University, Angy and another guy from the XPLORER office, Emily and me. The ride there was an adventure in itself, steep twisting hills all the way, with terrific views at every bend. As we went down it got hotter too, strange seeing as it was only about a 15 min drive, but the difference in temperature was substantial. I actually just looked online and where we went is 2000 ft lower than Quito, so that does explain a bit. The university was called Universidad San Francisco de Quito, in the town of Cumbaya. As soon as I walked through the gate I was amazed by the place and had to look at everything, the campus was beautiful. Courtyards and fountains at every turn, sprawling lawns down to a small pond and all the buildings were old spanish architecture, so cool. I regret not bringing my camera. But, there is a concert / art festival / extreme sports show there in two weeks which I am going to try and go to, if I do, I will be sure to bring the camera. 

So back to what we were actually doing there. It was a day where all the exchange programs could come and set up tables in the main entrance hall to try and recruit students into their programs. We had the best set up, mostly because of the cotton candy machine we had going for free outside, but also, our table was more interesting than the others. Emily and my job was to hand out information to anyone and everyone who we walked by. In this way we explored most of the campus and bombarded countless students with green pamphlets. Eventually we ran out and then had nothing to do, quite boring. In total I would say that we handed out well upwards of 500 sheets. A job well done. The rest of the day was normal, I went back to Quito, swam, a lot. Put off writing this, until midnight, again. 

In other news, Emily was robbed twice in three days. Thankfully she only lost a few dollars the first time and the second robber returned her cell phone after a few minutes, very odd. We think he must have just been playing a joke with his friends, but she was still robbed, which is emotionally trying and not very funny. 

We only have three hours of school tomorrow because we are voting for school president, and voting is serious business here. Then we have friday off because it is independence day for Guayaquil, the other big city in Ecuador. We had to cancel the plans for this weekend which is lame, but I am sure there will be some crazy fiestas to attend instead. 

Fiesta and A Rainy Day

So at some point during school on friday, my memory is a blur of colored crowds and screaming children, so I couldn't tell you when, I was given what looked like a business card with some info about a party on it. So I talked with Claudio and some other friends and found out that a girl had rented out one of the discotecs in the city and was having a huge party on Saturday. All right!  Friday night and saturday morning were pretty uneventful, so I will skip to the party because it was awesome. We got a ride there from a girl from school, as Claudio and I had absolutely no idea where we were going, what a relief. The first we saw of the discotec was the creepy front gate and dirt road going off into what looked like some woods, all the signs pointed to haunted house but we kept going. Then around the bend there was this long old building with a windmill on one end and flashing lights inside, I let out an ever so tiny sigh of relief. Inside was a dance floor, some tables, a bar, and a whole load of Ecuadorians who were ready to party. All in all quite similar to the place I went to last weekend except on a bigger scale. Lasers darted around the walls and made lines through the smoke that hung overhead, while huge speakers caused the ground to shake with reggaeton beats. I remember at about 2 hours in, during some crazy Spanish techno song, all of a sudden glow paint seemingly came out of no where and covered everyone and everything, the people went wild. I thought the glowing blue spatter marks on the walls and our clothes really added to the atmosphere, however I doubt those girls who were wearing their favorite dresses shared the same sentiment. The party went on in this manner for four or five hours until everyone was completely worn out from dancing and people started heading home. 

Thankfully I also had a ride home. I am not sure how much success I would have had trying to get a cab at 2AM, well, actually I was more conspicuous than the other people up at that hour a a result of the paint, who knows?

When I got home I had a rather awkward encounter with Mama and my brother Fernando T the front door. They had obviously arrived about 2 minutes before me and hadn't got into the house yet. We looked at each other with a sort of  "Why are you getting back at 2:30 in the morning" look. But I think I had more reason because Fernando was dressed in a full Zoro costume, complete with mustache, and plus, they had said they were going to play bingo with some group. I had never heard of late night fancy-dress bingo before, but they validated their story by showing me some prizes they had won. 

Today I got up early, some how made some breakfast and then waited for Fernando to come because he said we were going to do something later. I supposed I could have written the first half of this post while I was sitting doing nothing, but I didn't, I am pretty sure thats what they call being a teenager. So now I am staying up late, my face illuminated by the glow of the screen, listening to the constant tapping of my fingers on the keyboards and the rain on the plants outside. And now I am off topic. Back to this morning. 

So Fernando got home and he said we were going out to lunch with a friend of his and then to wander around the historic center afterwards. Food sounded good to me so I was happy to come along. He didn't quite explain that I was going to be the third wheel on his lunch-date with some girl he obviously liked. I think he was trying to make it seem like a date as little as possible, but for what reason I don't know. Anyway, we went to this cafe/restaurant on the 5th floor of an old building in downtown. The buildings are all really small here, especially in the old part of the city, so we could see over all the buildings down into the narrow streets below. I bought a charger for my camera so I do have pictures of all this, links at the bottom of the page as usual. I had the best pizza ever for lunch, in case you were wondering. 

After lunch we started driving to a museum the top of one of the hills, got a little lost, found our way again and then we were told that the museum had closed 45 minutes ago. But this is Ecuador, so we gave the guard a little cash to help him change his mind,  to the tune of about $3 I think and he let us in and showed us around. It was a museum about water, which seemed quite dull when I first saw the sign, but then we saw a room with a large oddly shaped trough in the middle and people waving their arm around and really looking quite silly. Upon closer inspection we saw that the trough-thing was filled with soapy water and the people were waving large metal circles resulting in enormous bubbles. What fun. We did this for the better part of half an hour constantly trying to make bigger longer lasting bubbles. The rest of the museum was a little boring after having such fun in the beginning, in retrospect we should have saved the bubbles for last, oh well. 

Not much else to say, I edited alot of the photos this afternoon, and put off writing this. School tomorrow. Yayyy. (sarcasm and the internet don't work well together.) Please feel free to point out spelling and grammar mistakes because my English is definitely getting worse.

Here are the links to the photos:

Restaurant:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=165068&l=bc1aa&id=732860388

Museum:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=165081&l=aadcc&id=732860388

Odds and Ends

Just some random things that never found their way into previous posts. 

I love getting up in the morning, (can you believe it Mum!) its always dark but by the time I am eating breakfast the sun rises. But is no ordinary sunrise. The Sun comes up from behind the mountains which creates a similar effect to when the sun goes behind a cloud and there is a silver lining, it is truly amazing. One instant the mountains and black silhouettes and then next there is an explosion of gold and everything lights up. Throw in some pink clouds and snow-capped volcanoes in the background and you have the coolest sunrise ever. And the best part is, I get to see it every morning. One morning I will take some pics, but I currently have no camera charger and the only place I have found one is trying to charge me $50. If you know me you would know that getting me to pay full price for anything, let alone some crazy 50% markup, is like trying to get blood out of a stone. The search continues. 

Last week I was talking to my Literature teacher about what kind of books I liked, so I rattled off a few and then mentioned Siddartha, by Herman Hesse. It turns out she is a big Hesse fan herself, and in a moment of excitement she assigned me to read Steppenwolf, in Spanish. I got the book two days ago and have decided to at least give it a try, despite the fact that I literally have to look up every third word. Every time I pick the book up I can't help but laugh at myself. 

As I walked into school this morning I noticed several large banners hung from the side of the building. I couldn't help but do a double take, my thought process went something like this,

 

"What!? are those.....colors I see?.....and pictures?!....isn't this what they call.....oh whats that word....oh yeah! Creativity!....But wait! Whats creativity doing at Colegio Benalcazar?" 

When I got to class a friend explained to me what all this creativity was doing in a uniform wearing, military marching high school. It turned out that today was the first day of these big school elections. There are four "parties", if you will, each has candidates for president, VP, treasurer etc. and each party is represented by a different color. So, at recreo (recess, yeah we have recess here woohoo!) all the party members and followers get together and basically try and make the most noise / paint as many people their color as possible. It. Is. Crazy. There must have been about 15 bass drums all pounding out different rhythms, while people shouted into microphones, waved road flares and ran around like lunatics, myself included. The spray they use to paint their hair and clothes is not the kind you find at a party supply store either, its normal spray paint, you know, the kind that takes 2 weeks to wash out of you hair haha. This is scheduled to go on for the better part of a week and at some point we vote. 

Not much else is new, I am going to some place south of Quito next weekend with my family, I can't remember the name of the city, but I am sure it will be fun. 

Peace!