Weekend Trip to Mindo!

This past week we had no class on Thursday and Friday as some of the people in my program were going on a diving trip, off the coast of Ecuador. We wanted to capitalize on this little vacation and travel somewhere. It was decided over our facebook group that most of the people in our group wanted to go to this town, well really village, 2 hours north called Mindo. Best decision ever!

Since the bus for Mindo left out of Quito, the group of 8 that I was traveling with decided to go to the Visa Registration office Thursday morning, because it is also located in Quito. Our program directors gave us a list of things we needed, and this was very easy to get done. We all made it through with no problems, and have to pick our finalized visas up sometime after Monday.

Anyway, after we got our visa finished, we headed to the bus station on Monday. We got there at 12:15 for a 4pm bus, but we just wanted to have plenty of time to get things straightened out. When we got there, we found out there was a 1pm bus. This is when the nightmare began. At like quarter until 1 we head to the bus, and there is NO bus to find, not to mention no one we spoke to new where Mindo was. Eventually one of the men who worked there told us to get on some random bus, so we did. We asked every one on the bus if they were going to Mindo, and they all just looked at us like we were stupid Americans. Long story short, we were 8 white kids with no idea where we were going, but like 4 hours later, the bus attendant told us to get off. Sure enough there was a little sign on the side of the road that say Mindo: 12km...

Right when we get off the bus, we began to walk down this huge hill that we assumed led to Mindo. Luckily, with perfect timing, some of our friends that had already made it to Mindo texted me and said "White pick-up truck, top of the hill."

Sure enough there was a white pick-up and this was our taxi down into Mindo. Although they look scketchy, and this one happened to have a machetti (sp?) in the back, as well as some random local child, it did lead us to the little town of Mindo, and was actually a really awesome way of taxing.

This is a couple of us zooming in the back of this white pick up truck/taxi. Remember there are 8 of us, and this little child.

Anyway, once we made it into Mindo, the taxi driver dropped us off at our hostal. It was only 50 cents for each of us for a 12 km drive! Once we got to our hostal, we found the rest of our group. This hostal turned out to be this ladies house, where our group happened to rent out the entire place. We had 18 of us in this one house, and the lady and her family lived next door. The house was awesome. It had hammocks all over the place, and she opened the attic which turned into a huge bed room with like 10 beds and 2 hammocks.

Speaking of hammocks, I've grown this mysterious love for hammocks. This is one of the ones in the attack at our hostal.

That night, after dinner we went out looking for some sort of bar. They had a discoteca! It was great. All 18 of us walk in, and I'm pretty sure the look on the owner's face meant he had never seen that many "gringos" in his bar before. Which by the way, "gringos" is a term of endearment used in Ecuador meant for white people. In Mexico, it can be a derogatory term, but it definitely isn't here. People call us "gringos" all the time, and we definitely embrace it.

Anyway, we wake up the next morning (Friday) with lots to do. The lady that owned the hostal told us that a 2 egg breakfast was included in our $8.50/night rent! It was great, besides the fact that bugs were flying around the fridge and all, but hey everything was cooked so I didn't mind it!

So we head to one of the shops in the town that said they do like tour groups. First thing we wanted to do was the ziplining! We found a place that had 13 ziplines (not to mention over the Andes Mountains!) for only $15! And then for $5 dollars more, we got to take this like bird-cage looking thing across to another mountain that then led to "the cascades," which was a group of waterfalls! These were beautiful. The ziplines were the craziest/scariest/funnest thing I've ever done! Not to mention, all of our host mom's told us NOT to do the ziplines because apparenty some girl died on one of them some time last year or something. But the company we went too looked very professional. And this is where our phrase for the weekend came: "Whatever, we're only in Ecuador once!"

This is me going upside down on one of the ziplines. For each of the ziplines, one person in the group was allowed to do a trick, but they had to go with our guide. The trick options were 1.Superman, or 2. Upside down. I don't know what prompted me to try this upside down thing, but it was the single-scariest thing I've ever done. As soon as I flipped upside down I thought for sure I was going to slide right out of my harness. Obviously, I didn't; and my friend was able to get this awesome shot of me upside down!

So on the last zipline I did experience a minor injury. Of course we couldn't go through the entire course without someone getting hurt. As I was coming in at the end, I was going a little fast so when the guide pulled the rope to slow me down I ended up bouncing around and my arm grazed the cord and I got a pretty knarly like "rope burn" across my arm. But the guys at the equipment desk helped me out and got me cleaned up. Here's a pic of my scar!

Anyway, after the ziplines, we took this bird cage thing over to another mountain. There was 6 of us shoved into this little thing, and this was EQUALLY, if not scarier then any of the ziplines. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but I'll go ahead and show you what it looked like.

Although I may be smiling here, I'm terrified. This led to what we thought would just be the cascades! Well they didn't tell you there was a 4km like mountain climb down hill to get to these waterfalls. Not to mention we had been hiking all day with the ziplines and getting to/from each of these places. Oh but once we got to the waterfalls, it was soooo worth it! They were beautiful. And even though the water was painfully freezing, you know we had to swim. Here are a couple of pictures:

These pictures do not do it justice, but it was soo beautiful!

And of course, my friend wanted to test out her underwater camera before we got to the Galapagos, so we took some underwater shots! Soo cool.

At the end of this day, we were all sooo exhausted. We found this really cool Italian restaurant and got some awesome pizzas. There was also some sort of big festival going on in town for like "The Angel of Virgins," or something. We weren't quite sure. Lot's of dancing and lot's of people! We also had to go back to the good ole discotecha that night, as we had made friends with some of the Ecua's and couldn't leave town without saying bye.

Anyway, we woke up Saturday morning and knew we had to catch the 2pm  bus back to Quito. So the one last thing I wanted to do in Mindo was go rafting down the river. There version of rafting is a bit different then what we know of as rafting. They tie like 6-7 black intertubes together and we all sit in this giant raft. Each boat also had one guide with it to help us down the river. This was awesome but the water was FREEZINGG! We tried to stay as dry as possible but this was impossible as there were soo many rocks in this river, and all we were doing was thrashing around getting soaked! This was great though.

Someone on the other boat took this of our boat. One of the guys on my boat said something about how this reminded of them of  some sort of ride they had done at Disney Land. And it hit us that this sort of river is exactly the place where places like Disney land and Disney World were mimicking. We had crazy exotic birds flying across from tree to tree, and this 2 ft lizard looking thing chilling on a rock. It was awesome.

Anyway, this little weekend trip to Mindo really made me appreciate how amazing South America is, and how much there is to do in a tiny little village like Mindo. It was great, and definitely the highlight of my trip thus far! I hope one day to return to this little town of Mindo, but I know the odds are very low.

That is all for now, sorry that it is soo long. I had soo much to explain, and I'm sure I left out soo much!

Trip to the Quito Zoo

So I've been really behind on these posts. Just having too much fun here to sit down and type up a journal entry. Anyway, my first week of class is over with! We only had class on Monday and Tuesday, and then a field trip on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday we had off so that we could take our own trips around Ecuador.

So the Zoo was fun. Not exactly what I was expecting, but oh well. The class I'm currently taking is called "Wildlife Management and Conservation." I don't remember if I've mentioned this yet or not, but the way this semester is set up, I take one class at a time for 3-4 weeks, and then begin the next class. So I'm only take this class right now.

The point of the zoo trip was to discuss the illegal animal trade and how common it is in South America. All the animals in the zoo were animals that could not survive in the wilderness, due to injuries and such due to the illegal animal trade. The first hour or so was just listening to different people speak and going through power point presentations. These were interesting, but all we really wanted to do was look at the animals, naturally. So this is why it wasn't exactly what we expected in our zoo trip.

Toucan's are pretty popular here. I saw several of these guys.

 Giant Tortoise. I'm sure I'll be seeing much more of these guys once we get to the Galapagos.

 Jaguar. These are the common predators of Ecuador. I'm hoping to see one of these during my week in the Amazon!

Who knew there were kanagaroos in Ecuador? Sike, there's not. Not 100% sure why this was here.

Anyway, I went to this nearby town/village called Mindo this weekend. Once I get back from lunch, I'm going to add details from that trip. It was a highlight of my trip thus far. It was amazing! Get ready for that post.

Yall & Canella

So one of the things that I've realized since being in Ecuador, is that I seem to say "yall" a lot. I never thought this was a big deal, but all of the other students in my program (besides the 5 other ones from UNC) seem to think it is the funniest thing when I say "yall." Oh well, it is much easier/faster than saying "you all" or "you guys" or anything else. Anyway, that was just a random thought.

Below is a couple pictures of my campus, and where I am currently "studying." Well I'm not really studying, but from now on I will include updating this blog as studying because I don't get the chance to do this at my house. A couple of my friends are meeting me here shortly, before we go to get lunch. Oh one thing about lunch, in case you were wondering. I have breakfast and dinner with my host mom (at which she feeds me entirely too much) but we are supposed to have lunch on our own. Of course by nature all of our host families want us to eat lunch with them if we are not doing something, like today for example. But our program directors told us to make a point to plan lunch with our friends and such. During the school week, we have lunch at our school, but on the weekend we meet up with other people for lunch, just so that doesn't always fall on our host families.

Oh and here are the pics--

Oh so about Carnella... I know I have mentioned a bit about her being "spoiled" but let me tell you, this dog is unreal... So, I learn new things about this dog every day. One of the first things I learned about her was that her ribbon's around her ears and her collar must ALWAYS match! Then I learned that she gets her ribbons/collar changed when and ONLY when she goes #2, as in poops. However, this only occurs twice a week, according to Susanna. Again, this was one of the first days that I learned this, at which I could have definitely misinterpreted Susanna's spanish. But I am pretty positive this is the case. And yesterday, she did indeed go #2, and now today she has a new set of ribbons/collar. However, yesterday I learned that Carnella will only eat her dog food from Susanna's hand.... like not out of the bowl or anything. And to add to that, Susanna seperates the dog food because she wont eat the big chunks in the mix, you know how they're not all the same in a bag of dog food.... Yea it's rediculous. However, as spoiled as this little character is, I too give in to her. Below are some pics of me trying to get her to take a picture with me. However, I didn't want Susanna to know I was taking the pictures so I was being very sly. Okay, enough about this dog. Here are some pics:

Anyway, that is all for now. I'll repost tomorrow probs!
later!

Day 5 in Cumbaya, Ecuador

This is my first post since being in Ecuador, so it is liable to be a long one. I do not have wifi in my house so it is difficult to check the internet regularly. Once school starts on Monday I will be on campus every day and will be able to update this more regularly.

I'm going to try and go through a brief synopsis of what I've done so far.

Day 1: Tuesday
So I arrived in Quito pretty late on Tuesday night. As we were landing we could see all of the mountains and volcanoes that surround Quito. It was beautiful. There were 4 UNC students on my plane, and 4 other students that are in my program. We all met up when we got off and walked through customs and immigration together. This was relatively painless and went by quick, I was just super tired. So as soon as I grab my bags I meet my host mom, along with one of her sons and granddaughters.  My mama's name is Susanna, and her grand daughter's name is Andrea. She is also 20 years old.

This picture was taken yesterday, but I thought I'd add it anyway. This is the entrance to my neighborhood. Pretty much all of the neighborhoods are gated in, with a security officer at the front. They are very nice! Cumbaya is the suburb of Quito that I live in. The buildings at the top right of the picture make up the city of Quito! It is only a 20-30 minute drive into the city depending on traffic.

This is my building. It is sort of like 4 houses connected together. We are the top right hand one with all of the plants. Susanna loves her plants. It is only Susanna and I that live here, Andrea and her mother live in the next neighborhood over.

This is my room. It is soo nice. Slash, I've never slept in a bed this big before. No matter how nice I try to remake the bed every day, mi mama, Susanna always re does it. She is sort of a perfectionist when it comes to cooking and cleaning and such.

Oh and this is the third member of our house hold, Carnella. At first, I was not too thrilled to have a dog in the household, but I have fallin in love with this little fur ball. The first couple days I pushed her right off my bed when she jumped on it, but now she comes and watches my after-dinner tv with me every day. She is the funniest thing. And Susanna spoils this thing, more then she spoils me!

That was pretty much it for the first day. As soon as we made it home, around 9 or so Susanna made me a dinner, and I unpacked all of my things and went to bed.

Day 2:
Wasn't very eventful. We had our GAIAS orientation, which is the program I am doing. I got to meet the other 35 people in the program and learned like safety things and such. We got a tour of the campus, which is beautful. I tried to get my cell phone today and attempt number 1 of many was a bust. No phone at this point, and no wifi at home makes it impossible to communicate with my friends. I even had to call the home phone of one of my new friends and ask their host mother to speak to them. Embarassing. After dinner, Susanna's daughter (Carolina) and granddaughter (Andrea) came over and we just talked for a long time. All we talk about is the food, and how great it is! I hear "Que Rico!" after every few sentences. I love it tho.

Day 3:
Today we had the International Student Orientation which included the 35 students in my program plus the other 200 or so international students that are studying at the school I am, Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ). It as long and boring. But I got to skip out of some of it and ride with one of my program director's to Quito because the immigration office at the Quito Airport messed up my visa, and gave me a visa that only allows me in the country for 90 days. Whoops, haven't told you that yet, mom! Lo siento! Of course, once we made it to this immigration/police office in Quito we found out that their internet was not working because they were currently moving offices so I didn't get it fixed yet. Per usual in Ecuador, everything is complicated, nothing works out the way you thought it would, and no one here seems to worry about it at allllll. Long story short, I'm going back on Monday to HOPEFULLY get it all fixed.

After I got back from Quito, and finished up at the orientation, some friends and I went to look for cell phones. We went to four different places near our school, all a bust. Why is this so complicated, I literally was ready to buy one from any random stranger at this point. I just needed a phone. So we ended up having one of the student's host mom's drive us to Tumbaca, which is a neighboring suburb. We spent like an hour at the Claro store (similar to Verizon) and finally got our phones. Of course we had no idea how many texts/minutes we had on this phone so we then went to the convenient store and put $10 more on the phone. Who knows how long this is going to last me!?

After the phone adventures, I went home, eat and then met up with some friends at a bar called "St. Andrews Irish Pub." It was very nice, but a bit overpriced. All they showed on the tv's were futbol games. Gotta love South America!

Day 4:
Today we took a bus tour of Quito, including a stop at the equator, and the Old City of Quito. It was beautiful. I just added several pictures to facebook, so look at this album to see them all. I'll add a couple group shots here as well.

The tour was amazing, and it would be impossible to discuss everything about it. I'm also running out of time, because I'm about to meet a friend for lunch. But the pictures say a lot.

Anyway, to wrap things up- So far I'm loving it here in Ecuador. I really like everyone in my program so far, and I am just in awe of how beautiful this place is. I will try to add posts more regularly but this was to just catch you up with what I've done so far. Classes start Monday!

Wheels up

On my way to the airport... this is my last post in the states. Below is a pic of my nephew, Corey packing my luggage in the car. I'm definitely going to miss him, along with the rest of my family!

Whoa, technology~~

I just figured out how to add posts from my phone. This is convenient... I hope my phone works in Ecuador. We'll see?

Ps- Im taking suggestions for a title change, as mine is rather boring. But currently I just feel like I'm talking to myself because no one knows about this yet. Haha. I like it that way!

Packing...

Well this is my first post and I imagine this is going to be a rather boring one. I'm just trying this out so I know what I'm doing when I get to Ecuador. I'll go ahead and add a couple pictures of me packing, just to sort of learn how that works as well.

Well, it's rather late, so this will be a short post. Just FYI, I leave at 10:55am on Tuesday morning and I am set to land in Quito, Ecuador at 6:30pm. I'll try and post something that first night when I get to my host family's house. However, I don't know what the wifi situation is like, so I may not be able to do that. Oh well.