Okay so I know it’s been a ridiculously long time since I wrote, but my life has been a little loco here. I pretty much haven’t posted anything since New Years if I’m remembering correctly soo this will be a long one. Enjoy!

In January we had our first reconnect conference for my training group. They divided us into 3 groups and sent us to 3 different cities around Ecuador because it is more cost-efficient than getting everyone together in Quito. I was pretty disappointed to find out I wouldn’t be seeing everyone but excited to get to see a new city in the sierra (mountains). In the end I think it was wise for them to split us up – I can’t imagine sitting through 3 times as many presentations as I did. So anyway, we had to be at the hotel at 11:30am, and the city is 5 hours from Guayaquil, which is about 2 hours from my site. Do the math and obviously I wasn’t going to be able to leave that morning for the conference. So I went to Guayaquil the night before and stayed with a friend there, which ended up being really nice since we had to gether up and leave at 5:30am the next day. In addition to us volunteers going, we all invited 1 counterpart or work partner to attend the conference with us. We decided we would meet the counterparts at the bus terminal and had pre-purchased the tickets the night before. We told them to be there about an hour early (building in time for the hora Ecuatoriana) but of course we were one duckling short when it came time for us to leave. Thankfully my counterpart was there and ready to go early! Well, my friend’s counterpart was somewhere in the terminal (which is basically like a small mall) but we couldn’t locate her – it was very chaotic. Finally everyone else got on the bus and we held the bus until we were able to find our lost duckling. So finally we made it out of Guayaquil and headed for Cuenca. Along the way there were delays from construction/possible mudslide and an accident, but we made it on time and all together :) The conference was pretty interesting overall. We each had to present the findings of our community diagnostic interviews we did in site, which were 20 minute presentations each. This got a little long but it was interesting hearing about everyone else’s sites and their projects. We also had several days of planning, where we worked with our counterparts to plan a new project to start after the conference. I’m planning to start a mentoring program similar to Big Brothers Big Sisters, but it’s going to be a very long process starting with developing the youth group. The best parts of the conference were the city and the ‘nightlife’. The city is really pretty and looks almost like Europe (it is obviously a very well-off city overall). Also, the climate was great, it was jeans and tshirt weather with a sweatshirt at night – a nice change from the steamy coast! And the ‘nightlife’ involved us going out to an Austrian café (that had rouladin!) for drinks after the conference/dinner. They had 2 for 1 specials all day every day: Monday rum and coke, Tuesday gin and tonic, Wednesday mojitos. So we took advantage of those and wound down at the end of the night. However we had to be up at 7 every day so it was more of a night cap than a fiesta. We also found a microbrewery one night that had good beer, which is a change from the normal Ecuadorian options (which include Pilsner, Brahms, and my personal favorite – simply from lack of options – Club). We were provided all meals at the hotel which was nice but one night I went out with a couple volunteers to an Indian restaurant (far from Guru back at home but still a nice change of tastes). Overall in this week I’d say I gained 5 pounds because we were eating breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, and sitting in meetings in-between. Our counterparts left a day before us so we had a day to do stuff that was only related to volunteers. On that day they gave us a fun break and sent us out on a scavenger hunt to get to know the city. It was very relaxed (we had plenty of time to stop for ice cream) and we had to go see places like the markets and museums, which were really interesting. They had cut our conference short because threats that the indigenous population was going to blockade the roads in protest of unfavorable legislation, but the protests never happened. We were still sent straight to site a day early though because the possibility of turmoil  We had planned to have a get-together for our whole training group the Saturday after the conference but this had to be cancelled as well…

After the conference Ang came to visit! I had a full 2 weeks planned out with the campo, beach, city, and transitional zone all included but nothing ever works out as planned… We started by spending time here in my site. The days are all a little mixed up in my head, but one day we went to a finca (farm) with my host family to pick mangos, papaya, melons, and guava. It was a lot of fun and we made it out just before the rain started. I had a very interesting experience using an outhouse at the farm when I got stomach cramps. Lets just say there some confusion between using a hole in the floor and an old unused toilet. We also got to feed some mangos to starving pigs and saw a dancing dog. Not only did we get to take more mangos than we were able to eat, as we left the dueno gave us a melon as a gift (the 3rd I had been gifted for Ang and I). Another day we went on a tour of the nearby 3 towns, including a walk on the malicon of the Rio Daule, a tour of a huge church, window shopping for a hammock (which we bought later in the adventure), and a sampling of the best tortillas in the area. The reason we went on the excursion was so Ang could see the countryside and experience riding the local buses, 2 things that are integral to my life here. One day we just relaxed here in my town, went to the local free market, went to the Tia store, and just walked around with my host brother as a tour guide. Ang also got to try corviche, my favorite food here (fish, onion, cilantro and peanut butter in a ball of grated green plantain, fried). For one meal we went to the host family’s house and had ceviche that my host mom had made (which is undeniably the best ceviche in town). We also cooked chicken fried rice, chicken stirfry, and egg rolls for the host family one night (using the Oriental Wok sauce Ang brought me!). They loved it. Then Sunday we went with the host brothers and the whole group of jovenes and the host cousin Wendy to a nearby river to swim. This was my first time at the river and I wasn’t aware there was so much hiking to get there (it was kinda like that short German walk) so ang and I were both unprepared in flip flops. But once we got to the river it was gorgeous. It was a pool of water with a small waterfall feeding it, with huge boulders to jump off of into the pool (the boys did, we did not). It was pretty unfortunate to get all cleaned off and fresh feeling then have to hike back to the car, so I ended up sweaty when we got there. But it was definitely worth the trip. On the way back we stopped along the road and bought water, candies, and other snacks that are typical of the province of Manabi (where we were). After we got back to my site we showered, packed, and headed out for Guayaquil to leave for Quito (this was a change of plans – I had to go to the Peace Corps medical office in Quito for a bizarre rash I had on my body). We hung out in the terminal and had dinner, then Ang got to experience the night bus. It was one of the better trips I’ve had – we got the front row, had the leg supports that are on TransEcuador, got snacks, and had air conditioning the whole way. Ang was out in a couple minutes and I was soon following. We got to Quito in the early morning and took at taxi to the Peace Corps office, where we napped until the office opened (we were in the lounge not out on the street. There’s 24hr access for volunteers). Then I went up and talked to the doctor, found out when and where the appointment was, then we were able to leave and eat breakfast then go check in at the hotel. Skipping the boring details, we saw Avatar 3d (which I really liked! And we kept the 3d glasses from…), Ang tried cuy (guinea pig) at a restaurant in the mariscal (said it tasted like chicken), got to catch up with my old language facilitators, saw several volunteers I hadn’t seen since swearing-in, and spent lots of time sitting around the PC office. After some disagreements, we decided to let dice make our decisions about the trip plans. The dice said to stay another night in Quito, eat Papa Johns (my stomach agreed, mmm), and go to Otavalo the next day with one of my friends from training. So after she was done doing stuff at the office, we all headed out. Otavalo is known for the indigenous hand-crafts market, where you can buy pretty much anything for the right price. They have really pretty tapestries and stuff like that. We got there right before the market closed, which was a disadvantage because we didn’t have much time but was an advantage because we got better deals because everyone wanted to make some money before going home. Ang bought a hammock for her house, a scarf, a panama hat (which are made in Ecuador and marketed from panama), and an owl made out of a gourd. We also bought a pretty handcrafted chess set for my host family as a thank you for watching over my house. In my opinion we got some great deals. For example, the hammock we saw was almost identical to the one we were scoping out near my site. Price near site: $35, price we got: $20. My friend did most of the haggling for us, which is good because I hate doing it! After the market closed we headed back to my friends house to crash for the night. We ate some corn on the cob with cheese and tried to go to a winery to taste wine but since they were closed we bought some Pilsner instead. After sitting around chatting for awhile we went to sleep. I had forgotten how cold it can get up in the sierra at night! The next morning we got up early and hopped a bus to go to an Afro-Ecuadorian town called Mascarilla, where they make African-style masks (we had gone there on cultural trip). I thought it would be neat for ang to see/buy them because they’re so interesting. Some are made by kids as young as 14 but look professional. Ang bought a big one with its tongue sticking out for dad, and a small one for herself. The woman also gave her another small one as a gift, which is very illustrative of their community. We hopped another bus heading back towards Quito and stopped in Ibarra to eat a bite. Afterwards, we got on the bus for Quito, trying to make it back to the office in time for a meeting. Of course we were on the slowest bus ever, crawling up the mountains we finally got to Quito a couple hours late, but still were able to do the language interviews at the office. Afterwards we headed out to eat sushi at the nearby mall  it was delicious! The last time I had left Quito I had eaten sushi and felt like it was perfect to have before boarding a night-bus, so we did it again. Perfect again. We got to the bus office and unfortunately they had sold out of the “direct” route but we bought one that left around 11 so we would still arrive in Guayaquil around 8am. Buut there was something going on (accident, construction, etc) and we sat for about 4 hours in traffic in the middle of the night. I was pretty much asleep but kept waking up to see we were still sitting. It also got really hot on the bus since they turned it off to save gas. Then I don’t know if they took an alternate route or what but we finally were moving again. And we kept moving. I have no idea how it happened but we didn’t arrive in Guayaquil until 12:30 the next afternoon! We pretty much just hopped on a bus to come back to Pedro Carbo and relaxed the rest of the night. Then Saturday we left for the Marriot in Guayaquil (posh!). That night for dinner we walked to the nearby San Marino and had Italian that’s the Ecuadorian equivalent to the Macaroni Grill – it was delicious! That night I took a long hot bath and wow was it amazing. We got to bed early because the next day we had to be in Bucay, a town in the transitional zone, to go to a waterfall. So we got up at 6am and got on a bus (buses are the theme here) to Bucay. There we met up with my friend and her friend Juan whose family owns the waterfall. It was about an hour up into the mountains in his pickup, but we finally got there. Now, the plan was to basically repel down the 120 ft waterfall, which sounded great to me until we got there. Then it was more of “oh shit oh shit”. My friend went first since she’d done it before, then Ang decided to go so I could translate the instructions at the top of the falls for her. She made it down to the bottom intact, so I decided I could then go. I couldn’t believe what I was doing as I put my feet on the ledge and leaned backwards. But somehow I did it, and about halfway down I started having fun. I did some extra bouncing off the wall and had some fun but next thing I knew I was at the bottom. It was a little disappointing to have reached land but when Juan saw that we all liked it he offered to take us to another one. I had cut up my hand on the rope because I didn’t have gloves, but it wasn’t bad so I was up for another waterfall. So Juan got us more gear (the next waterfall was a little bigger than the one we had gone down) and we had to go down about 20 ft then there was the big waterfall. Well one by one we got down there and when it came time to go down the big one my friend was going first and was going to be our safety lines from the bottom (since we only had 1 guide with us). But it was a lot higher than we thought, and the water was falling much harder than we thought (I could barely pull up the rope that was hanging down the falls because the water pressure was so strong) which makes it more difficult, so we ended up chickening out. But then we had to get back UP the 20 ft piece we’d already done. Luckily the other guide came over to see how it was going (and mentioned that he wasn’t allowing his people to go down the bigger one because the water current was too strong that day, which made us think we definitely shouldn’t do it) and was able to help us out. Instead of climbing the wall (which I thought looked easier) we climbed back up through the riverbed, which basically involved the guides pulling us up slick algae covered rocks. A little bruised up and pretty embarrassed that we had to be rescued we finally made it to the top. Juan just laughed it off but I bet he’ll think twice about taking gringas down those falls again  Afterwards we went to a house along the road that basically makes moonshine and mixes it with jugo de caña (juice made from sugar cane). We actually made the juice though. It’s hard to describe but theres a machine that strips the sugar cane and squeezes out the juice but its powered by manpower like something in an old mining cartoon. We had to push big wooden poles in a circle while it stripped the sugar cane. Anyway, it was very interesting to try and part of the tour that Juan does when he takes people to the falls. Afterwards we got back to the town, changed into dry clothes, and went out to dinner before heading back to Guayaquil.

Ok I realize I am literally stopping in the middle of the story but I will continue it another day!