Amazon!!!

Hola!

So tonight I´m leaving on a midnight bus to go to the Amazon Rainforest for 3 days. I´m going with 2 other friends from the program and it´s going to be absolutely amazing. The travel agency we booked it with was able to arrange it for us pretty cheap and I figured...when am I ever going to have this oppurtunity again? Also, we bascially decided to do it yesterday, so its a little last minute, but its going to be excellent. Look out for about 5 different posts on Monday with  full description of the amazing time I had.

Early Morning Baños

Sunday morning, the rooster alarm clock woke me up for Mass at the basilica. The hostel reception manager told me they have Mass on the hour every hour starting at 5, mentiras! Walking through the streets of Baños early in the morning was very peaceful. It is much quieter than Quito. The weather was a bit misty, but warm enough. I saw a dead dog on the porch of a storefront. There are a lot of cute stray dogs around Ecuador. I imagine this one was about to kick the bucket and found the porch as good as anyplace to die. I later saw the storeowner cleaning off her porch with hot water and soap.

Anyway, so I made it to the basilica only to find out Mass was in progress, the 6am Mass. There was no 7, only 6, 8, 9, 10. I struck out on that one, but it was a nice walk. On my way there I saw a woman at a restaurant roasting whole cuy skewered on sticks. Cuy is something I’ve been wanting to try since I’ve gotten to Ecuador. It’s definitely more commonly found in Baños, so I thought it would be a perfect place to try it (more about this later). But I decided to return to the hostel and come back for a later Mass. When I came back to the hostel, a group of people were headed out to check out the thermal baths. There are more open in the mornings and there are bigger ones available. We got to the baths for our morning soak (only 2$). It was still fairly busy for being 0730, but totally worth it. The locals there truly use the showers there to clean off. They have soap and shampoo and everything. They soak in the thermal pools and clean off in the cool water from the nearby waterfall. We could only spend a short time there, because breakfast was at 0800. We got back to the hostel, ate breakfast, and I went to the Mass at the basilica with 3 other people. The music there is guitar based, with a definite local flair. There aren’t really altar servers, nor a real procession down the aisle to the altar. It definitely wasn’t a high mass for the feast of the Pentecost, but the basilica is quite beautiful. It’s hard to really describe. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera on me, so I’ll have to get those pictures from someone else.

After Mass, I did some souvenir shopping and bartering and I went with my group to finally try CUY! So for those of you who are wondering what cuy is, I will now tell you. (I wanted to leave you in some suspense).Cuy is guinea pig. It’s rather exotic here so it’s expensive. We got half a cuyand split it between the four of us for a total of 7$. It was whole, but we got the lower half (no head). We all liked it. It kind of tastes like pollo. (Haha doesn’t everything that’s not pork or cow?) I even bit into the liver! It’s fattier than pollo though, a bit more succulent and rich tasting. It’s quite good though and I was happy to just say that yes I’ve eaten cuy! I also really like saying the name. It’s pronounced Kwee, like the noise a g-pig makes.

We had to leave earlier in the day around 1200 on Sunday, so after a bit more wandering en el Mercado, we returned to our hostel, packed, and returned to Quito. It’s taken me a couple hours to recount this entire weekend. There was just so much to do and it was amazing!!

The Best Day In Ecuador Yet

This is by far the craziest and best day I’ve had yet, full of experiences you only get once in a lifetime. So Baños is a very touristy place and it was originally named for its thermal baths heated by volcanic springs or something to that effect. They are supplied by natural spring water and the locals love them (more about that later). There are also a great number of waterfalls (cascades) and travel agencies offering everything from jumping off bridges and cayoning to renting ATVs and horseback riding. It’s an excellent place to be. So in the morning around 0600 the residential roosters woke us up bright and early. The view from our room that morning was gorgeous. The city is quite small and lies in a valley surrounded by the Andes Mountains. A ver, that morning we ate our free breakfast and schemed on things we wanted to it. A lady came from one of the agencies to tell us about the different things they had to offer. A big group of us decided to go cayoning and then biking along a route with waterfalls. Cayoning essentially involves repelling down waterfalls and needless to say, it was awesome. The agency gave us all our equipment (wetsuits, jackets, helmets, harnesses, shoes), transport to the site, free pictures of us, and guides for only 25$/person. We all climbed up, like mountain goats along small paths to the top of these waterfalls. Then they gave us a brief demo on how to repel down the waterfall and then we just did it. It was pretty amazing. We went down two falls, and walked to another set of three more. One we went down like a waterslide and the last one was about 100 ft tall. It was just a drop down. After you went initially down you were just hanging in the air and lowering yourself down from the top. It was scary at first, but totally worth it. No one got hurt, but my shoes (The shoes they gave us were like converse shoes with very little grip) had two pretty large holes that originally were there and started out small, but were much bigger when I was finished. So we all signed up to go biking after the cayoning. The agency brought us our bikes and bags with our clothes to the spot where we walked to afterwards. We were all quite wet and cold at that point and it had started raining. We decided to trudge onward since we had already paid for the bike rental (5$ for the day, awesome price!). So they gave us our bags and we changed our clothes on the side of the street. That was definitely a new experience, especially because we were in bathing suits and trying to change into dry underwear and clothes. We were definitely roughing it by the time I had to find a bamboo patch to pee in.

So we then continued in the rain along the roadwith the other cars. There wasn’t a separate path for bikes so whenever a car wanted to pass you they would honk at you and speed passed you. Obviously it was a bit dangerous, but nevertheless exciting. Most of the ride was downhill. We got to see several waterfalls and stopped to watch these people jump off the bridge. I mean, they had harnesses and what not, it was a bridge swing. I was tempted to try it out (that and the zipline) but we were all ready to get out of the rain and eat lunch. A lot of the waterfalls also had paths or gondolas that you could take to get closer, but in the interest of filling our bellies and getting out of the rain, we skipped those parts.

At the end of the trail, there was a pickup truck ready to take our bikes and us back. We were all standing in the back of this sketch truck with our bikes and about 15 of us, with no seat belts. The truck driver was taking slick curves at like 50 mph and people were trying to pass us on the road. This dunebuggy (like a go-kart) even bumped up against the side of our truck. No damage done though. It made me think about how in the states I would have had to sign about 3 different waivers to even get myself in that situation. It was great.

A ver, that afternoon we got back dirty and tired and ready for food. We ate at this cool place called Casa Hood. They had a variety of different ethnic dishes. Oh and people have been saying that Chinese food in Ecuador is not the same as Chinese food in the states—but it is. (That’s for you Claire). I had some very delicious fish. And to open the door to leave the restaurant you had to pull on this plastic banana (Haha I thought it was sweet and unique).

After dinner we planned to go to the thermal baths. Unfortunately they were insanely crowded and everyone in our group decided to check out this recommended place with a Jacuzzi up in the mountains, El Café del Cielo. One of the guys in our group is good at speaking Spanish and haggling, so instead of taking a Taxi up there he asked this random truck driver, if he would take us up there. We would again sit in the back of a truck, with no seatbelts, at night, up a mountain, but it was only 5 dollars for all eight of us. That was definitely the cheapest part of our adventure up the mountain. We discovered that the Jacuzzi, did not cost 5$ per person to use, but more like 15$. The original cost was 20$, 15$ was our group discount. The manager was rather bothered by us and since we came all the way up there. We decided to just go with it. The view of Baños at night is pretty cool and we were high enough up in the mountains we were feeling the mist of clouds around us. The jacuzzi was definitely relaxing. It was connected to this 5 star resort place and it was fairly pricey for Ecuador. We ended up getting a taxi ride down the mountain back to our Hostel for the night. All in all it was an excellent day. The best day yet.

Baños Hermosas

Our trip to Baños began around 1500 on Friday and we arrived at our Hostel around 2000. It took us quite awhile to get there, but the way there was fairly scenic. I noticed a lot of buildings that seems half-way constructed either along the side of the road with not much else, or within small towns. I’m not sure why there were so many what looked like abandoned constructions projects, but there were. We also passed a small town, which had about 20 small shops all selling Jeans, all in a row. It was seemingly odd. We weren’t sure how any of them survived with so much competition. As we got closer to Baños, we encountered a lot more mountainous two-lane roads, with plenty of curves. As we were driving in the dark, this line of cars behind us continued to try and pass our bus on the side of a mountain. So one of them would stick out into the opposite lane to see if a car was coming. There were two very close calls, where the cars were almost going to collide head on if they didn’t merge soon enough. So that was the ride there. When we finally arrived in Baños, we found our hostel, which was very nice. Only 9$ a night with free breakfast and our own bathrooms with hot water, towels and toilet paper. It was great.

We went out to find a late night dinner and ended up eating at a slightly pricey touristy restaurant. Compared to spending about $1.50 for an entire plate of food in Quito, it was pricey. After that we decided to check out the nightlife. We stopped at this one bar/discoteq which advertised free flaming shots and 2$ Pilsener. Pilsener is the beer of choice around Ecuador. The bottles are about the size of 2 beers and when not in a touristy place they cost about 1$. You can easily get totally smashed on 10$-so its pretty cheap here and no I didn’t have any flaming shots. I was actually not in the mood to do much having been accosted by menstrual cramps around dinnertime. I was without any analgesics, so I self-medicated with a Pilsener and it totally did the trick—muscle relaxant and analgesic effects all in one. So after fixing that problem, we danced to what the club advertised on their flyer as F***in’ Good Music…a.k.a. American music. It was pretty funny. Also, the policia came in and we were all worried they were going to be like…you’re drinking illegally (to the people in our group who aren’t 21) because as Americans we have that mindset. The funniest part is they came in there and said, “we’re looking for Cubans.” We just cracked up about it. So after an hour or so at this place, we decided to move on to a different club, where our other peeps were.

It had more Ecuatorian music, like Reggaeton and music in Spanish. So I was dancing and was asked by an Ecuatorian if I wanted to dance. So this time I said okay. It was actually a lot of fun, because he knew how to dance Reggaeton and do spins and dips. So that was great, until the music flowed one song to another which made it quite hard to leave. The music switched to more Spanish hip hop and I was finally able to plead that I wanted to go to the bathroom and then dance with my friends, after saying that, “No I don’t want anything to drink.” He was quite respectful though, so it wasn’t that bad. In the end, I had to start ignoring him and dance with my friends. He just didn’t want to give up. In fact, I saw his face when we went to the bar across the street and asked my friends to hide me. Haha. Anyway, no worries I was surrounded by friends and he didn’t try anything. But the point is these Ecuatorianos don´t like to give up.

So like I said, we went to the bar across the street after the second one. At this place, they had Karaoke. This one woman like sang 5 songs in a row. She was loving it—all in Spanish of course.  Then some of my friends picked songs to sing, mostly all American ones. I had originally wanted to return to sleep about an hour earlier, but I had to wait for other people to come back with me, so we got in around 130—not too bad.

Autobús Tour!!

On Friday, 6/10/11 most of us decided to skip clinic and go on a free tour offered by the language school. The bus we were going in sat about 17 people and we fit 19—a bit squished and of course, no seatbelts. The first stop was a beautiful vista of the city of Quito. To get there we were going up all kinds of steep roads and switchbacks. Most of the cars here are stick shift because an automatic would die trying to handle the hills of Quito.  I can only imagine trying to learn how to drive here. On the way there we saw many of the local people in the traditional indigenous garb. In general, they are all around Quito as well. After we stopped for photos, the second stop was El Panesillo, the Virgin Hill. On top of the hill is a giant statue of Mary—the only one in the world, which depicts Mary with wings. The people of Quito are quite proud of it, because it is distinct. We went up inside of the statue, which is Mary standing on top of the world, crushing a snake creature beneath her feet. She has her 12 star crown and wings, of course. It was pretty cool to go up inside of it and then there is a balcony where you can walk around the world. It’s a bit hard to describe—pictures will show it better. I also incidentally paid to use the bathroom for the first time in  my life. The bathrooms there were run by a little lady. I went in to use one—they were quite nice for being public. She handed us a napkin—an extra luxury in a public bathroom. Most of them don’t have toilet paper. So when we were done she expected a donation. All I had was a dollar and the only change she had was 5 dimes! So I ended up paying 50 centavos to use the bathroom. In comparison, she definitely was not happy about my friends 10 centavo donations.

So another cool thing about Ecuador is you get to barter and haggle over goods, taxi prices, and what not. At El Panesillo, there were lots of booths set up with tourist attractions and souvenirs to buy. So I got to experience some of my first bartering. I was able to get a knitted hat for 2.50 and a medium size purse for 4$. It was awesome. You just can’t do that in the states at all. It’s something I’m going to miss.

After the Virgin Hill, we made our way to one more lookout area on the opposite side of Quito. It was in a nice park area, but we were all about ready for lunch and to get ready for traveling to Baños for the weekend. The way back definitely included lots of crazy driving. This group of school-aged kids got really excited when our bus passed theirs. They were all waving and excited to see us.

Another note, Ecuatorians especially like to stare at white blonde girls. I don’t think I’ve ever turned so many heads in my entire life. They also like to make a point of staring. One man stared at me and continued to look backwards even after I had passed him on the street. Ha and I only looked back to see if he was still staring, which he was.

As promised…

I apologize for the typos in my last post. Spanish keyboards are a bit different and I was trying to type out that post quickly to save money ;)

Alright so Plaza Foch is like the center of the party district. Lots of gringos hang out there and there are tons of guys trying to recruit you into their clubs promising such and such this and free entry that or open bar till blah blah. So we decided to go to this bar that promised free entry for girls and certain free drinks till 11 and 5$ cover for guys. So that was cool and we were basically a group of 25 people filling up their whole club—it was pretty empty when we got there. They had discoteq music, flashing lights, and some pretty intense fog machines. After awhile other Ecuatorians started filtering in. We were using our salsa lessons and dancing and this Ecuatorian guy asked Nicole to dance. And she said she wanted to practice her salsa so she was cool with it for awhile. Although, he was like offering her drinks (which don’t worry she didn’t drink). Anyway, long story short I saved her by telling him we were going to the bathroom. This other guy tried asking me to dance and I was like No thank you….leaving now. One our teachers/friends from the Spanish school taught me how to dance Reggaeton, which was a lot of fun. So we finally had enough of the club and it was around 2330, when we decided to leave. Only the guys from the club seemed to be racking up the price to more than it was originally agreed upon. So there was a little bit of a problem getting out of the club, but all in all it was a good night. It was free for me, which was cool, but some people were feeling a bit chuchaqui the next morning J

Loco Dìa

This should be a good post. I hope you all enjoy it. So today was my first clinical day. I traveled with Maya another student to a clinic in the North of Quito up in the hills in los barrios pobrezas. There is hospital-clinic there, Hopsital Volzades. Many of the people come there from the surrounding area. But its really quite small. The first day I did some nurse stuff-took some vital signs and measurements for the patients before they were seen my the doctor. I also observed several visits with the doctor. One was a couple kids with varicella (chickenpox) and then the more exciting\sad case was necrotizing facitis. This 8 yr old had been hiding his infection from his mama. I suppose he was afriaid of going to the doctor. It was a super bad infection though. It looked like a second degree burn and was quite large. Close to the stage of IV antibiotics--whihc they would go straight to in the states. They dressed his wound with a dressing that had antibiotic in it, prescribed him antibiotics and told him to come back tomorrow. Unfortunately that was yesterday and  we did not see him today. I truly hope his mama gets him those antibiotics or he could lose his leg. Anyway, that was the most of my clinical experience. We then returned by taxi. Drivers are crazy here and I´m pretty sure there arent really speed limits here.
After that we had spanish class and we went to a place for some salsa lessons. It was a serious workout, but lots of fun. We got a bit lost following Alejo he said he knew where he was going but we ended up seeing some rich neighborhoods and taking a 30 minute detour.
In the evening we went out to the Plaza Foch where all the bars and discoteqs are. We found a place to dance and drink. It was an all around good time. I must close this post now, because <i don´t want to pay for more internet but I will tell you all more later!