Ecuador y más allá: April 2013

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Counting Down the Days!

I have been a terrible blogger recently so I´ll catch you all up!

My classes are winding down and finals will be next week and the week after. I feel confident that I´ll do well on them but I need to study a lot for both ecology and archaeology.

Tomorrow is Labor Day and I don´t have classes so I´m going to go back to Otavallo. It is the artisan market about two hours away that I adore. I won´t spend too much money (because I´m basically broke) but I have a couple knick knacks and presents that I still need to get. I have a few pairs of worn out flats that I can throw away before leaving as well as extra toiletries so everyone cross your fingers that I´ll have room to bring all of my stud home. As most of you know, I was quite over the weight limit when I came so… we´ll see!

This past weekend I visited two beaches in the area called Las Esmeraldas. One was called Atacames and the other Tonsupa. Both were pretty and very fun. Tonsupa was very small but super relaxing and Atacames was bigger and had a lot of shops. Don´t worry, I didn´t buy anything! The goal of the weekend was to spend the least amount of money possible and we succeeded. Including hostel, food and bus tickets we managed to spend under $50. I had no idea that was possible for a beach weekend but it is! I´ll post pictures later.

This coming weekend I´m going to Tena. Wikipedia gives this description “Tena, the capital of the Napo Province, is an attractive and quiet city in the Amazon rainforest. It is known as the “cinnamon capital" of Ecuador.” Our plans are to go kayaking and visit an ecological reserve that has a lot of native animals. I´ll be sure to take a lot of pictures since this will probably be my last trip out of Quito while in Ecuador. Next weekend I´ll probably stay in Quito, study for finals and spend time with friends.

I have been getting waves of sadness as I realize a lot of things will be my last in Ecuador. This past weekend was my last time at the coast, this weekend will be my last time in the Amazon. It is so fun thinking back to all of the adventures I have had in Ecuador so far and I feel so blessed to have had this experience. Now that mom thinks I don´t want to come home and is probably crying… I´ll tell you all about the things I miss most about America.

#1 thing I miss about the US is my family. You never realize how great a big bear hug from your parents is until you haven´t had one for 5 months

#2 is the food… of course. Home cooked food is first. Then chipotle! And sushi! And chick-fil-a!

#3 Chivalrous boys that don´t hiss at me or say “hola princesa” when I walk by.

#4 The fact that every meal I eat in the US has only 1 carby food or none at all. I don´t know how many times my dinner has had potatoes with rice and French fries. (This is also the source of my growing belly, yikes)

#5 Drivinggggggg! I am going to have to re-teach myself how to drive after being out of capacity for 5 months (not that I was very good from the beginning anyways…)

That´s all I have for now. I´ll be home in less than two weeks. My how the time has flown.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Papallacta, the March and Cotopaxi

The weekend before last I went to a place called Papallacta [pronounced Papa- yacta]. It is right by Volcán [Volcano] Antisana and is the home to a wonderful spa. The spa has natural hot springs and a bunch of other pricey services. I picked just one and got an Andean mud wrap. I had to put on a hideous disposable bathing suit and lay on a massage table. Then a lady brushed hot mud all over my body and wrapped me in the biggest piece of saran wrap I've ever seen. Hot towels were put over me and then a thermal blanket. I was left to lay in the room for about 30 minutes and enjoy the warm mud and then I showered it all off.

The hot springs were very refreshing because it was chilly outside. There were various pools with slightly different temperatures and we hopped from one to the other. I had some scrapes left on my knees from the race the previous weekend so I [actually mom] was worried of getting an infection. My knees are healing just fine so no one worry!

Andean mud wrap

Antisana Volcano

Skip to this weekend... I was going to go to Mindo this past weekend but my stomach had other plans. I stayed home and ended up going to a women's rights march. I painted a shirt that said "Soy mujer, tengo valor, escuchame!" [I am a woman, I have value, listen to me]. It was very up beat and we marched the streets of Quito dancing and chanting. In Ecuador [and most of Latin America] there is a lot of discrimination against women. I wanted to join the fight for equality and march with some awesome Ecuadorian men and women. It was a very safe and legal march!

"Soy mujer, tengo valor, escuchame"

Yesterday I went to Cotopaxi and hiked a little bit up the volcano. It was cold and snowing so I was excited to see my first snow of the year! It was very foggy also so we couldn't see the summit :( The altitude was also affecting our breathing so we decided to turn back after a ways of hiking. The most exciting part was when we saw a fox. It was pretty close and so cute! I decided to not pet this one like I do all the stray dogs.

Cute little fox

Looking into the valley

Climbing up the volcano

I'm alive!

I realize it looks like I fell of the face of the earth. Time to update you all on everything that's been going on.

First, Iron runner! I did a 5k with my triathlon class that had 15 obstacles. It was a lot more grueling than I expected. Since it was at the coast, it was incredibly hot. The first 3 kilometers were basically all running with two or three obstacles spread throughout. There was one stand that handed out warm water during that portion and I was dying. Finally, my team arrived at a water obstacle and it was absolutely amazing. The water was freezing cold and we had to climb in and pull ourselves under cages. Our heads were still above water but it was hard to breath because the water was frigid. Some other obstacles included army crawling under logs and barbed wire, jumping through tires, swimming in the ocean, and climbing up a rock wall. I was proud that I was one of the only girls to master the monkey bars; the rings on the other hand... fell after the first one.

There was a large concave wall and of course I have no arm muscles so I doubted that I could get up. All of the guys just ran up, got a hold of the ledge and hoisted their bodies over. Ha! You should have seen me. I fell approximately 10 times and by fell I mean slid on my face and stomach and tumbled down. It was a little painful but I finally made it up due to the help of a teammate and a random man. As I hung on the wall I lifted my leg to the random mad and said, "Ayudame por favor" (help me please) and he grabbed my leg and helped fling me over the wall. Without them there was NO WAY I would have gotten up. Luckily, the other side was a slide into a pool of water. At the end of the race there was a voucher for a free beverage connected to our running numbers. Can you guess what it was...water, no... Gatorade, no... Powerade,no. It was Pilsner beer. That's right ladies and gentleman. I just ran a 5k and have bloody arms and knees and they tried to give me a free beer. I gladly gave away my voucher and hunted down the water.