visual aids part II

at the top stair at Santa Ana in Guayaquil

me with the view from the top of the stair walk

hanging out in the incan ruins - IngaPirca

church # 14732847 in Cuenca
This is all for grandaddy - saw this on the riverwalk in Guayaquil & HAD to take this pic :)

church #54565498 in Cuenca

IngaPirca from afar - the big thing is where I was sitting in the previous picture, the Temple of the Sun

chillin with the llamas at IngaPirca :)

visual aids.... part I

meat market in loja. disgusting. just thought id share

one of lots of monkeys at the zoo in loja

me hanging out super close to the giraffe. not sure if you can see my face but i was scared out of my mind he was so close

the "busy port" at jambeli

door to the city in loja

the pretty river we walked beside on our hike in vilcabamba

me with the lime green walls in our hostel in cuenca - verde limon (means green lime)

took this for daddy was the lifeguard stand in jambeli. what a collectors item, huh?

some of the iguanas in the park

fat boy

he was kind of cute

Semana Santa

In an attempt to get my mind off of the past week's events, I'm updating about my Semana Santa trip last week.....we will see if I can remember everything....


It started Saturday morning at 6am when I woke up. Our bus left from Quito at 8:30am for Guayaquil, the largest populated city in Ecuador. Whitney had bought the bus tickets for the 3 of us (she, Jackie, and I), so we all met there 30 minutes early and headed to the bus corral (or whatever you wish to call it) at the terminal. We looked around for at least 20 minutes wondering where the bus that was from the company named on our ticket was locacted. The ticket didn't have a parking spot number on it (like they usually do to help you find your bus) so we began asking the people around us if they knew. They all kept pointing and saying "19" - which is where we had randomly plopped down our stuff while trying to find the bus.
Now, there is a quality that all Ecuadorians have that some may find endearing, at this moment we did not feel that way. Ecuadorians really hate to say 'I dont know' or 'I am wrong'. If they dont know the answer to your question, they would rather make something up than admit to not knowing. Which is basically what happened this whole time. Eventually, Whitney asked a security guard who immediately ran to a window and then a man came running at us telling us to hurry up and get our stuff and follow him. We followed him, out of the bus corral, through the terminal, through a sketchy hallway, and out to the back of the terminal where our bus was ready to leave the terminal. Everyone else was on the bus, the driver was about to pull out of the place he was parked, all the luggage was already packed onto the bus, etc. Evidently, we werent supposed to go to the corral, we were supposed to go through the sketchy hallway.....ecuador.

And, thus, our trip began........
We were on that bus for 9 hours. Yep. Pretty long time. There was a family with 5 children. 4 of which threw up......in the aisle, right beside me. When we finally arrived, we went to our hostel ($12/night = super classy....seriously), unloaded and went to eat some dinner. This hostel was really nice, btw. To find dinner, we decided to just walk around some and find a place. We were all starving, having been on a bus for 9 hours and only feeding on amor cookies and chocolate animal crackers, so we decided that the best bet was to go to the harbor/boardwalk thing and find a restaurant there. We practically walked to one end of the thing before we found anything promising. We did pass up on one restaurant that looked really fancy and had a reasonably priced menu with something that we would all enjoy until.....as I began to open the door, a rat ran right in front of my feet and under the outside wall of the place. We all screamed, shrilly voices, and ran away.
The next day we woke up and decided to do some real touring of the city. Guayaquil is much like NYC, Boston, etc. There are huge skyscrapers (something which is NOT in Quito), lots of people, and pretty impressive stores, buildings, etc. We went to see some churches - we decided since it was Easter that that was the appropriate thing to do. However, they were all incredibly crowded and we were in the back and could not really hear/understand the speakers so we kind of 'church hopped' instead.
-----insert: Whitney got sick today.-----
We then went to 'Iguana Park'. This is a park where, yes, there are iguanas. Now, when you read this, you think, 'Oh, Iguanas, in their cages, playful little creatures living their protected life.', don't you? Well, I did. No. You are wrong. There were at least 50 iguanas, roaming throughout this park, in the middle of the city, just a normal park, trees, benches, etc. But then you see an iguana in a tree, peeing. DUCK!!! And you turn and see at least 15 of them crowding around this psycho man who is feeding them bananas and petting them! It was seriously one of the creepiest things I have ever seen. I was scared to walk, that I'd step on one, get peed on from the trees, get attacked by one, get rabies, I don't even know what I thought would happen but I was a little scared the whole time....
We then went back to the riverwalk thing and walked up and down the entire thing. It's huge. They just remodled it in 2000 and it's very nice, if I do say so. There was a park/maze thing with lots of trees and plants and very pretty.
At the end of the riverwalk there's an old neighborhood that has been remodled and upgraded. There are 444 steps to get to the top, its on a hill, mountain. We decided to go up. Really pretty houses, lots of colors, nice views, etc. 444 steps, did I mention that?

From Guayaquil we then headed to Machala, where we took a cab to Puerto Bolivar, and a boat to Jambeli. The book described Jambeli as, "Festive music, bamboo benches, thatched roofs, swaying palms, warm water, and gentle waves combine to give Jambeli a constant summer feel." We arrived on a boat with about 5 other people, all appearing to be natives of the island. We arrived on the island. And all said 'Are we in a ghost town?' There was no one there. The houses/hostels/restaurants/bars were ALL empty. So we began to walk to find a hostel. A man approached us and offered to show us the rooms at his place. We followed him, to the end of the deserted sidewalk (the one sidewalk in the whole island), to his house. A really cute house with tons of potential on the outside. We got a room, 3 beds, for $5/night. Our own bathroom (we were the only tourists on the island, mind you). A nice balcony with 2 hammocks, etc.
Dinner, we need dinner. There are 2 restaurants in the book. There are 2 restaurants open. Whitney picked. We sat down and had some lovely french fries and beer haha. Well, I did. I didnt think I wanted to try seafood in this place, I'm sure it would have been fine. As a matter of fact, the other 2 had shrimp and fish and were fine.
We walked on the beach a while, empty. No people. That night we played cards on the balcony (thanks, Mom, for those itty bitty playing cards thrown in my bag last minute before leaving for Ecuador) and sat on the beach - because it was the only thing to do. Evidently, the man has a family living in this "hostel" (their home), with at least 6 children, one of whom we believe to be autistic (or something of that sort....) who had quite a few fits throughout the night. The next day, we were praying for some sunshine, but we did not receive it. We sat on the beach, fully clothed, for about an hour, walked up and down it for a while, and then packed up and left around 11 or 12.

We arrived in Loja Tuesday night. We decided we wanted to go ahead and splurge for a hotel in place of a hostel in this town, considering the previous nights experiences. We found Hotel Podocarpus (which is the name of the national park nearby and we also later found out is the name of the only native coniferous tree to ecuador). I even paid for the hotel with my VISA. Classssyyyy. We then got settled and headed to dinner. The cutest little italian pizza place ever. We each had a personal pizza cooked in the adobe oven right beside of us.
Loja was a really nice town. I didn't expect it to have much to entertain us, but I was impressed. The next day, we woke up and got on a bus (again) and headed to Vilcabamba for a hike. We arrived and got some directions and began the hike. I don't really know if yall have figured this out yet or not, but I'm not much of a hiker persay. I about died, yet again. We did find a really pretty river we were walking beside and had our first encounter with some genuinely friendly ecuadorians. We were going to eat lunch at a restaurant they had told us was on the hike, but when we arrived, it was closed and no one was in sight. It then began to rain, pour. We began the treck back down the mountain to the town to eat. By the time we arrived back in town, the sun had come out and we ate at a really nice place where I had hummus and homemade bread, a little too limey for me, but still good.

Back in Loja, we decided to go out that night. There wasnt very many people out, but we went out anyways. We found a really cute place called 'Viejo Minero (old miner)' and sat down for a while. They had really good french fries, too, FYI :) It reminded me of West VA. Mining pictures and materials all over the distressed wooden walls.

The next day was devoted to Loja. We went to see the 'door to the city' which is a castle with a bridge that has a museum and art inside, and then to the zoo. The zoo was kind of ghetto but entertaining nonetheless. There was a squirrel exhibit (yes you can laugh), buffalo poop, a giraffe who spit on me, and an extended period of time was spent laughing at the monkeys.

The rest of our days were spent in Cuenca. We were really excited for Cuenca because it's supposed to be really great. We were a little disappointed. We did go see IngaPirca (the trip to which our bus broke and we had to stop and wait for another to come and get us and when it got there they fixed bus #1 so we just all got back on there anyways...), which are some Incan ruins nearby Cuenca - but we didnt have a guide so we didnt really know anything about what we were looking at.....dont worry, i did a great job of making up a bunch of crap so they felt like they were learning. We did see llamas there and it was pretty cool anyways...
We also went to a museum (which was interesting, although it said everything that i have already learned in my anthro class). Cuenca also has about 2373847329 churches, so we walked around and saw a bunch of them. And then Sunday night we came home to Quito(AIRPLANE, thank goodness!).
----insert: I got sick here.----

All in all it was a very good trip. I had a ton of fun. It was really nice to see those places that are important to Ecuador that I would not have gotten to see otherwise because they are too far for a weekend trip. I got to talk to people with all 3 different kinds of Ecuadorian accents (from the 3 divisions of the country). I got to see tons of cool stuff. It was VERY not stressful since there were only 3 of us. We had no problems logistically.....just that we had a small child puke on every single one of our bus rides, seriously.
Sorry I got kind of slack with the details towards the end of the story. It all kind of smudges together in my memory. And with everything that has happened this week its even worse. Pictures will be up later today probably.

Hope this gives yall something to take your mind off whats going on at home. - L

why, hello there!

In an attempt to put off doing my homework for the day, I decided to read some news on CNN.com. Here's what I found:

• Police have issued arrest warrants for country singer Billy Joe Shaver after he shot and wounded a man outside a Texas bar, the entertainer's attorney said

Shaver?

• A woman has died according to Atlanta's Grady Hospital following a shooting Tuesday at the CNN Center complex, in what Atlanta police called a "domestic situation."
  The woman, who witnesses said appeared to be pregnant, was shot and the gunman was then shot by a Cpt. Odell Adams, who joined Turner Security in 1996, according to a Turner spokesperson.

B, watch out for security guards, CNN building, and guns. kthanks.

• Bush is asking Congress for more money in Iraq (which will only lead to more war...) and discourage Nancy Pelosi from going to Syria to speak with their president (she has been received with a warm welcome and it is said that this will help the relationship between the 2 countries)

ugh.ew. is it 2008 yet?

• Also, found some new news on the Ecuador situation. In case you don't know, they are having some political chaos. Not so much chaos as drama. Which is NOTHING new for this country. They always have political drama. But, this is happening while I'm here which makes me feel kind of important in a far away kind of way....check it out if you're interested (it has stuff to do with the fact that the congress members, or representatives of some sort, are still not all on board with Correa & his plan of action for the country. A bunch of them were fired and a whole bunch were hired in their place....)

Just FYI. thought i'd share. in case those of you reading hadn't read the news today.... :)

umm

evidently someone wants an update.
but i dont have anything to say....i usually update after something interesting happens.

i had a dinner date with jackie saturday night. we went to a place called boca del lobo. i had salmon and it was marvelous. we then went and got dessert i had a crepe with strawberries, cream (that tasted like cake batter), and powdered sugar.

katy´s aunt and uncle are here. laura´s sister is here and her parents are coming within the next few days. brett´s family is coming soon, too. so basically i wont be seeing much of them in the next week or so.

jackie, whitney, and i have made plane reservations, and hostel reservations for our semana santa trip around ecuador. not sure if i already posted this but here´s our tentative itenerary:

leave for quayaquil by bus saturday sometime.
sunday night leave for the beach
we will be at the beach (an island thing) for a day and then head to Loja
we will be in Loja and the surrounding towns for 3 days (with a possible hiking and or camping excursion into the national park for a night)
then we will head to Cuenca for a few days (hopefully we will get to see IngaPirca while there, I´m pretty excited about that) and then fly from Cuenca back to Quito Sunday at 6:30pm-ish


I´m pretty excited about the whole thing actually. I´m suspecting the trip total will be around $500, giving myself some extra space in there in advance, too. Probably less. Who knows.
The 3 of us get along pretty well and I´m excited that it´s just a small group, it will be easier to get hostels and make plans on a whim if needed.

I had to write a short story for my LIT class for today. He said we could write in english or spanish. i had previously planned on writing in spanish - i am in ecuador you know - but it took me all day, until 11pm last night to think of a topic that i actually wanted to write about. i ended up writing about a bull fight. it´s not that great - not that i expected it to be - and its in english.

nothing else too exciting to report. only 3 days of classes this week. friday jackie and i are planning on finding some good friday festivities to attend - supposedly there are some parades and festivals during the day and id like to find a church service at night if possible.

anthro test tomorrow. worried.


okay. the end. hope this was satisfactory! :) ciao!

fotos of Mindo

yes. this is the river we went tubing in....

sketchy bridge. you cant really tell how unstable it was from this picture thooo

hammock room in the hotel 2nd night

balcony with sweet chairs and view at the 2nd hotel

one of the smaller waterfalls we passed on the hike to the waterfalls

random people swimming in the waterfall when we first arrived. they left and we took over. not sure if you can see it very well but theres the bigger one up higher through the trees where we went after climbing the rock on the left side of the picture, you can see someone on it behind that tree in this picture....

pictures dont do any of this justice though... :( you just have to take my word for it haha

Mindo es Lindo

well this weekend we went to Mindo, a 2.5 hour bus ride from Quito. We left Friday afternoon at 3:30pm and arrived to a dreary town. Evidently, Mindo isn't so much the toursity town as much as the nature and jungle tourist area. There was just a big square park about a block wide and a few stores and restuarants. We found a hostel that looked pretty nice for $7/night and checked in. We then went to get dinner (mine included platanos, veggies, and rice...not bad).
That night however, we found out the bathrooms of that hostel were pretty dirty, the sheets on some of the beds were dirty, and a rooster lived above my head. The hostel did have a tin roof though, and the rain was a pretty sweet sound....for a few hours....Laura, Brett and I didn't sleep at all. And around 5am or so, the rooster started crowing....for the day. So we were pretty exhausted. But we had breakfast and then decided to find another hostel. We moved and then found Kraig (who came that morning).
The new hostel was a hotel. Our room had 3 twin beds and a matrimonial bed, I got that one :) and an outhouse of a bathroom, in the room. Odd, but ok. The hotel also had a pool, hot tub, and a hammock area.
We then headed out on a hike to see some waterfalls. The 6km walk wasn't too bad, but the himidity was awful. We finally reached the top and got on the cable car that takes you across the river and above all these super tall trees to get to the waterfalls. It then started to sprinkle, but we trucked ahead anyways.
Down about a 15 minute trail and we found ourselves at the first waterfall. It was so sweet looking. I have never been so close to something so amazing. So we stripped down (bathing suits under clothes, mom) and got in. WOAH cold water. And sat under the waterfall. So sweet.
We then climbed up a rock on the side of the waterfall and went to the higher part of the waterfall, it was like a 2 for 1 deal. So sweet. The bridges were pretty sketch, but no one fell so I guess it's ok :)
After we all re-grouped and got dressed, Katy, Andrea and I decided we were wet and cold and in the rain and we were gonna head back. The others wanted to see more so they went to another waterfall and met us back at the hotel.
That night we ate dinner at a pizza place beside the hotel, so good. Also, I had pineapple juice, incredible.
Saturday AM we got up and had breakfast and then we went tubing. Now, don't for a second think this is like lazy river tubing. This is white water rafting in inner tubes haha.
We decided to do the higher level one, with higher class rapids for $10. We got in the back of a truck and were taken to the location. We had 2 guides, who let me tell you were the most EXTREME people I have ever met in my life.
The "tube" is one big one with 7 normal sized inner tubes connected around it, like a flower design, you know. We all get in our respective tubes and take off. This river was INTENSE. We were going over HUGE rocks and HUGE rapids and I thought I might fall out, but the guide kept making sure I was ok, which I appreciated TONS. I ate a rapid. I hit helmets hard with Kraig at one point. And, Brett was pretty much laughing at me the whole time for screaming like a little girl haha but it was INCREDIBLE!!!
When we finally 'docked' (after about 10 minutes of trying to get to the side of the river, about 50 yards further down the river than we were supposed to stop becuase the current was too strong for the guides to get us to stop on the bank...), they put the tube concoction of the top of the truck bed, tied it down, and told us to sit on top of it. This might have been scarier than the actual tubing in the river haha becuase the road was crooked, bumpy, rocky, windy (curvy, not gusts of wind, daddy), and all around crazy. Luckily, the guide was also beside me on this trip because I almost fell off the top onto the road and then down into the truck bed multiple times haha.
When we returned, we changed, checked out, got some food and just relaxed listening to the rain until our bus at 5pm.
I arrived back here at the house around 7:45pm and went to bed probably at 9pm. I was exhausted. My body aches all over haha, I guess we did walk for about 5 hours straight on Saturday and my muscles were definitely clenched for about an hour straight on Sunday trying to stay in the tubes, so that explains most of it.
I have bug bites all over my body - one on my butt, I'm assuming from when I had on my bathing suit tubing haha. But I will survive. It was an incredible experience and I'm so glad I did it all.
I didn't take my camera so I have to steal Brett's pictures, which he didn't take very many either because we were doing water activities and it was rainy so....but I will do my best :)