Just thought this was interesting.

-Thots

-Thots

We got kinda bored, decided to mess with Scott..

-Thots

Pirate Week:

I’ve lost track of the days. I suppose i could figure it out, but at this point i am admittedly too lazy to do basic math.

This week went by slow enough. Classes proceeded as usual, nothing out of the ordinary, just a lot of planning of what we might do the coming week. For some reason or another, the following week is designated as Party week. This means that we don’t have class until thursday, and have amble time to travel.

Thursday also happened to be pirate dress up day, for pirate week. Im not sure why the small private school supports pillaging and raping costal towns back in the day, but apparently we are fine with that, and wish to immortalize these brave pirates with an entire week of festivities and appropriately stereotyped garb.

However pointless it may have been — i wish we had anything to look forward to at K.

Trip to Montañita:

To even try and catalogue this trip in chronological order would be a nightmare, so ill just kinda ramble through it, like i do with all the others.

After classes on thursday i went over to Grant’s house and we decided to plan out some sort of travel event that might be educational and really damn fun. We agreed that no place could be more fun the coast. So, opting not to get sick on a 14 hour bus ride to the beach, we bought plane tickets for a descent price, packed what we imagined we might need (never with much success), and left the next morning.

The plane ride was a solid 40 minutes long. It was well worth the money. Once arriving in Guayaquil and checking into our hostel for the evening, we went out to explore the city. With a river running through it and anomalously large hills scattered throughout the landscape the geography of Guayaquil made an optimum place to have many many gay bars… apparently. Just kidding. But not really… So anyway, we wondered on the side of the river, grabbed some terrible food, then decided to take a nap before the night began. I couldn’t sleep much, because i was too interested in the tango performance the hostel had going on.

The night was alright. We climbed one of the hills that overlooked the city.. very beautiful. Then we ended up in club KAOS, which was very misleading and not very chaotic, or fun at all…..

The next day, we took a very hectic bus ride to Montañita, on which, besides being overcrowded, we had the distinct pleasure of having our very own cocaine addicted pimp freestyle in spanish to the entire bus, rather successfully i might add. I was very impressed at both his rapping skill and the length of his pinky fingernail.

We were lucky that the nice lady next to me overheard us talking about Montañita, otherwise we would have stayed on the bus till we were well past it. Ecuadorians continue to be very friendly. We arrived at our hostel, run by a late 20′s culinary graduate of Princeton that had bought the place because he was bored with the US, and got settled in. Our ‘dueño’ was nice enough to give us the grand 7 minute tour of the town of 2000 people; but i would imagine a 4 or 5 times that many people had already started the partying. The town was about 6 blocks from side to side, or at least thats all i really cared to explore. Complete with ‘cocktail alley’, enough artisan shops to make walking the streets difficult, and THIS DAMN SONG playing literally every second of every day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EAO3EzKwJ0 … sure its catchy, but it is about as repetitive as my alarm clock.

So anyway, we discovered this place “Por Que No’ which appropriately serves sushi and pizza; a combination that you wouldn’t really think of, but is delicious. We ate their almost every night. Whether it was because the pizza made my taste buds spew glitter and mentos or because the waitress kept wearing spandex and dropping things, i will never know. This marvelous institution, besides providing me with sensory overload, offered a very unique experience of Foosball. After our wonderful meal, during which Outkast’s  ‘Hey Ya’ came on, we challenged an 12 yr old to a quick game. The objective, was to get the lime and or ball of tin foil into the goal on the other side. I have to admit, i will never again underestimate the elasticity of citrus.

The beach was crazy. I am accustomed to not being able to start bonfires on beaches, thats generally the law at most beaches; but in Montañita you are allowed to smoke out the entire town with as many bonfires as you want. If your eyes start bleeding form smoke, build another fire down the beach a ways. I was very disappointed with the size of the waves here. This is the premiere surf town in Ecuador, but apparently the waves don’t get good until late december; around the time where the weather is no longer cloudy and freezing. Bummer.  The tidal difference made the beach look there was going to be a tsunami every low tide. Our hostel advertised that we had a water front view, this was false every 6 hours, you had to walk about 300 yards to get to the water. The cool thing about this was there were some amazing tidal pools in volcanic rock formations right next door. I have never seen so many animals move so slowly. The beach also posed some interesting obstacles: if the potentially rabid pregnant purple dog (yep, purple…) wasn’t chasing you, then you had to watch out for glass or more limes. Limes have a funny way of waiting inconspicuously until you step on them when they squirt their acid in the crotch or your eye, i don’t know why this happened so many times.

The clubs there were pretty fun. In one you could dance and enjoy the sand between your toes ( which was actually always the case, you couldn’t not have sand between your toes in Motañita) and another had quality American classic rock music, a wet t-shirt contest, and many ladies whom you might describe as the opposite of a cougar. One of these groups of girls were very insistent that Grant and i demonstrate every talent we have ever known. Somehow i ended up doing Capoeira in the street for money with this guy that had the most hair i have ever seen and also happened to be the person pouring the water at the wet t-shirt contest. Shortly after we left one of the clubs one of our last nights in Montañita, Jameson and I were swiftly offered pot, cocaine, and sex by two women at the same time. This pimp was not as talented as the last pimp we ran into, but significantly more aggressive, which after realizing we proceeded to sprint away from him.

The shops were small shanty looking things with the same assortment of pipes, wicker hats, bag clothes and necklaces that all the rest had. Although the artisan goods were interesting to browse through, i never ended up buying from one of them. Instead i was more interested in the fire twirls that looked like they their heroine addiction was replaced with pyromania, meaning they smiled a lot when they were around fire, but who doesn’t. I struck up a conversation with one of the performers and after little convincing, on both our parts, i bought his fire twirling apparatus aka Fire Poi. It is very cool. We also decided to commission a local bathing suit shop to make us custom suits, with secret pocket and our personal pattern selection.

Let me jump back to the hostel. We had three different hostels. The first one was pretty good, far enough away from the clubs so that we could sleep, dark enough so we could sleep until 3pm and with hot water. However, after one of got sick and vomited all over the place and i set off some fireworks in the room to wake them up, it began to stink. The second one had a more convenient beach access and hammocks, which i have come to know and love, but also had bedbugs, which is literally the most annoying thing in the world. Lastly, the cheapest hostel was RIGHT on the beach, no bed bugs, hot water (sometimes), nightly bon fire, and a awesome 11 year old neighbor. His name was Ziggy, spoke fluent spanish and english, and was my firework dealer. We have completely equal maturity levels.

Cocktail Alley: This is a strip of about 50 little stands that will make you cocktails or the most delicious smoothies you could ask for. I had one with 6 different fruits. I think i had 30 smoothies a day. I definitely fulfilled my daily fruit requirement.

Oh and i also caught a starfish and made a stalker…

Quito

When we got back to Quito, we still had the weekend to hand around, but all my homework had pilled up. Dana and I had a group project that we decided to work on in the park after a little skateboard session. As we sat down to write our skit, a VERY intoxicated young girl comes stumbling up about 30 ft away from us, practically carried by her friends, and collapses completely. We didn’t immediately noticed because she did so behind us. But for about the next 30 min, she rolled around in the dirt crying while her friends tried to make her come to. It was about this time that we realized they weren’t joking around and needed help, also about that time where the girl went from rolling in the dirt to not moving at all… Me and their concerned Ecuadorian friend lifted her lifeless body into their car, only for them to speed away without giving us an explanation. I really hope they went to the hospital, because im pretty sure i was carrying a nearly dead body.

It has been a while:

I haven’t updated or documented what i have done in a long time.. so im going to work my way backwards in my memory from the present; see if i can remember anything.

This weekend was pretty fun. I made friends with some Ecuadorian hippies who love to run around the city and jump do flips and generally get into trouble by the park security guards. I managed to learn how to do several variations of a backflip, but to my own peril. Turns out my body needs water and food, i had neglected to eat and or drink for the majority of the morning while doing copious amounts of adrenaline, thus, when i returned home i was unable to see and after a short nap my entire right side of my body went numb (including my teeth) until i shocked it with a cold shower. I am an idiot.

Currently there are bombs going off outside my window in celebration of the Liga soccer team making it into the top 3 positions. If they score one point tonight they win the whole thing. = major party.

I went to a Capoeira party this past weekend to meet up with everyone in quito that does capoeira. It was a lot of fun, and i met a bunch of people. Definitely beat hanging out with my american friends the previous weekend — but i will get to that. Everyone continuously asked me why i wasn’t drinking; i ended up inventing an elaborate story about how when i was a kid i had alcohol poured on me after being kidnapped and beaten in a alleyway in Barcelona. No one else asked me…

The week went by slowly. One of the harder weeks i have had here. Being the last week of classes, i suppose that was to be expected. I have a 16 page paper due on Avatar this friday, i got sick and i had my ipod stolen. Rough.

The weekend before was the infamous Fiestas de Quito. Meaning we didn’t have class on monday, there were concerts every day, large amounts of drinking, bull fights and general chaos. Instead of hanging around to watch more people get drunk (once again, im getting there), a few friends and i opted to go to the Amazon. I have fingered the trick to surviving long bus rides is to be able to look out the window. However, in near perfect darkness the ride to Tena was less than enjoyable. Not being able to see made it impossible to anticipate the hundreds of windy turns that made me want to throw myself out the window. Not to mention their movie selection for the trip was the Andes equivalent of the Donner Party and a Nazi sympathy movie. I was less than pleased.

Upon awaking the next morning i was graced with one of the more beautiful sights i had seen in a while. The Amazon is gorgeous, but more importantly the air was breathable, oxygenated and void of marble sized airborne pollutants. After a typical Ecuadorian breakfast we decided to go white -water rafting, 3+ level for around 4 -5 hours. This was quite the experience.

The view was spectacular. Giant marshmallow men like the ones from Ghost Busters 1 (clouds) played with crayons on their blue chalk board (rainbows) and climbed the luscious green playdoh mountains (rainforest) around us while we paddled through a long serpent (river) bordered by giant worm holes (caves) and cascading blue Mike and Ikes (waterfalls). Despite the beauty, the ever present fear of the occurrence of a ‘Penis Fish’ overshadowed everything.

Despite our guide having little to no concern for our lives, he was an interesting guy that incessantly pushed us into the river and smeared mud ( or monkey crap?) on our faces. He also managed to direct us into the most forceful parts of the rapids or directly into the rocks to see how many people would fall out. It was a good time.

From there we went to the nicest hotel in the world (or so it was advertised). Sure i was alright, complete with spider monkeys that would try and bite you, small anteater like things that would bite you, leaf cutter ants that did bite you, and exotic birds that bit each other (and squawked liked a broken alarm clock). It had a really nice pool also: if you were a polar bear. Wonderful fake white rocks, and irregular bottom surface to mimic your natural habitat in the arctic.

Ketchup:

So. I have been really bad at documenting any of my experiences the past couple months. So here is a lightning fast review of everything that i have done ( or everything i can remember i have done) over the holidays and such.

I went puenting, twice since i last wrote anything. Puenting consists of a series of ropes tied to the either side of a bridge. The object is to jump from the bridge and not die. It is different from bungee jumping in that you don’t go straight down, you swing and you go upside down. The first time i did it, it was about 9 at night, foggy, and there were cars zipping past me as i prepared to jump. Adrenaline is my favorite drug. Here is a link to a video of Jameson doing it.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1702532213437

The teleferico is a gondola type thing that takes you to the top of Pichincha ( the volcano nearest Quito) and you can hike around and ride horses. It is a beautiful view. At the base of the volcano, there is Volcano Park; a small amusement park complete with broken rollercoasters and indifferent safety workers. Like i said: adrenaline is great.

I don’t even think i have even mentioned my ICRP yet. This is a volunteer program that i am required to do for the Kalamazoo exchange program. Yes a mandatory volunteer program… Anyway, i chose to teach 9 year olds art. Its pretty fun, but also kinda difficult when all the kids are more interested in how big your muscles are than the collage clocks that they have spent the week making. Its a good time. The other day, i taught them all about the United States, and they learned fast. Faster than the taxi driver that asked me how far the United States was from Florida AND Texas…

Thanksgiving. It was fun. Our entire program and some went to Alana’s host families house and we stuffed our faces. Listened to music really loudly, played pool, jumped in the pool, chilled in the steam room, and then sauna…

I have recently watched the entire Star Wars collection

Classes ended.

The family came, and since they are the only ones that read this stuff, i wont elaborate. We went to Mindo, Baños, Otavalo, and Cuenca. The latter of which is has more churches than you can count and is home to all the beautiful people in the country (outside of USFQ). Cuenca is full of markets, restaurants and hotels, which were all closed because of Christmas, except for one, which made everyone unimaginably ill. Good trip overall.

New Years! My 2nd favorite holiday of the year. (only to be ousted by the 4th of July, but since that doesn’t really exist here… my favorite holiday) Let me preface with: the fireworks here in Ecuador are about 4 times more powerful than the ones in the states… And i have had a lot of experience with fireworks. Imagine professional grade fireworks that you would see being shot over a lake by some pyrotechnic company in the middle of nowhere (provided that there ISNT a burn ban) on sale for around $5 in the middle of the street so you can buy them from your car at your convenience. I set off around 9 car alarms, nearly blew off my hand twice, almost killed a child, woke up 2 angry 90 years olds, blew out a window in a day care center, tried to take down a plane, burned an effigy of Spiderman and almost Helmes Deeped an entire cinder block wall. (okay im kinda exaggerating…but not really)

and now… you are caught up.

There are millions of other awesome things that i did that i didnt even touch on. but if i dont write anything down now, i will never look at this again. Oh. and i have written this entry on like 7 different occasions and havent proofread any of it…

-Thots

Day 64:

Left early in the morning. My Volcanology class requires me to go on at least two trips and do a report about them. I opted for climbing Cotopaxi, the second tallest volcano in Ecuador, but also the most likely to be the demise of the entire country. Cotopaxi, as i have learned, is possible of erupting with a VEI (volcano explosively index) of about a 6 out of 8. To give you an idea, Krakatoa was a 6, and it kill 120,000 people and demolished the entire island. If you think I am in danger, don’t worry about me. Yosemite is a possible 8; and this is on a logarithmic scale i might add, meaning that when it blows, it will be 1000 times larger and possibly start the next ice age. So im worried about you.

Anyway, we boarded the bus to our destination at about 6:30 in the morning, driving until about 10 or 11. Stopping briefly to be lectured about volcanos and rocks and what not, which was all very interesting, but terribly hard to pay attention too, standing on top of old lava and stuff. Ill skip the boring details and tell you that we drove through this valley that was scattered with rocks in an otherwise desolate landscape high above the city. You could see the clouds rolling in over the other three volcanos surrounding Cotopaxi covering the peaks in snow. After about 200 switch backs and a movie later, we made it to the base camp of the Volcano. We had a brief lecture in the volcanos likely lava flow basin looking at different types of volcanic rocks. It is literally unfathomable to imagine such a large area covered in molten rock and ash traveling at 100 miles an hour towards the helpless cities that line the base. Mind boggling.

We were then given two hours to climb the volcano and experience what it had to offer. We climbed for about 30 minutes on red sand like substance before making it to the refuge on about 10 minutes from the glacier. Had a nice cup of hot chocolate, the only cup i have had here i might add, and some soup. Once regaining our energy, we managed to scale the rest to the edge of the glacier. It was indescribable. There is a permanent glacier at the top of a volcano a few hundred miles from the Equator! MOTHER NATURE IS SO COOL!

We drank some fresh glacier water, had a snow ball fight, took stupid photos and decided to hike down; or fall down. Im not sure which is more appropriate. What do you do at the top of a volcano? I tried rolling down the side, but volcanic rock doesn’t feel good when you have it in your eyes. I tried mooning the whole world, but my butt started to freeze. I tried sledding but ice isn’t always slick. Whatever we did, it was crazy.

We made it back to the busses just in time, and left for our next destination.

The city of Baños is very cool, i wish we could have spent more time there. Walking through the little artisan markets is always nice, and trying to barter for large knives you don’t need has its moments. Apparently we were there right during a parade, complete with fireworks and band. Not too shabby. Dinner was interesting, conversation topics hardly ever stray from inappropriate poop jokes or complaining about service. I mean really. Who puts left over pizza in a paper bag; greasy pizza, on a rainy day. That just doesn’t make any sense, and makes for a really awful motel room air freshener.

Day 65:

About 4 hours after i had fallen asleep, we were expected to be on the bus. As angry as i was at the time, I would soon come to forgive our MLP. (Most Loco Professor). I fell asleep on the bus to the waterfall, but wish i hadn’t. The scenery was some of the most beautiful i have EVER seen. I am not exaggerating.

We arrived at a small bamboo building covered in exotic plants and were instructed to hike through the cloud forest until we couldn’t anymore. After a short geological lecture about how the ENITRE valley had been carved out by one explosion by  Cotopaxi, and what i was seeing was the impact of a 250 yr old avalanche, it started to put the rest of the day in perspective.

Im going to try and describe this waterfall, but i know, that i will not even come close to giving it justice. After hiking for about 20 minutes through the cloud forest, and fighting the urge to stop every 23 seconds to take a picture or drink from bamboo aqueducts that jut out from the cliff providing water to the nearby web of vines and probably deadly plants, you come to a small manmade rock Kodak moment infront of the waterfall, which by the way is named Pailón del Diablo or Whirlpool of the Devil. This small rock outcrop also is the entrance to a small cave which leads you behind the Devil’s whirlpool, meaning you are literally standing behind the crest of a 200 foot waterfall that rips at your skin if you are brave enough to stick your hand in it. On my way back to the buses, i took a little detour. There is a bridge that crosses the river and leads to El Otro Lado, from this bridge you have the best view of the waterfall. The water falls between a large volcanic rock that looks like it is floating above the water Avatar style. Complete with vines and trees, the rocks are smaller at the bottom than they are at the top, giving the illusion that the rocks levitate. The clouds of mist rose over the sides of the floating rocks and up the cliff making it look like giant white cotton balls where falling down the sides of the green cliff face, or like cream on the side of an especially green key lime pie, and you are in the key lime pie. I thought i was dreaming.

The rest of the day was less spectacular, including an 6 hour drive back and a dirty fried chicken restaurant.

Day 666- 69 ( i think at this point my day numbering system is off):

This week, i…. i uh… spent a lot of money, learned how to break someones knee, did a back flip, played with playdough, ate WAY too many burgers and organized a break dance battle at my school. I cant think of anything else too memorable.

Day ~70:

Once again, another schedule trip for volcanology class. This is one of the strangest classes i’ve taken in a while. This weekend we are scheduled to go to the coast, an 8 hr bus ride from Quito. This means four lousy movies, a lot of pee breaks, 3 doughnuts and two ice creams later we arrive at the coast on an overcast day around 11pm. Not much to do but run around the beach, and lie in the hammocks.

Day ~71: Tempting Death:

Today was a day were, on more than one occasion, I could have fallen, drowned, blown up, choked or poisoned myself to death, but i suppose thats not much different from most days. (Don’t worry mom, i WAS being careful!). Today we woke up, had a nice beach front breakfast then boarded the bus to begin our adventures. We ended up at this escalation site where supposedly ruins of an ancient city were about to be found, but the government wouldn’t let them dig any more. Im skeptical. We were given an explanation of all this while we walked around looking at what is known as a ‘Black Smoker’. This is not a racist term, to my knowledge, but rather a geological structure that is responsible for the oceans saltiness. Apparently the one we saw, almost perfectly preserved, is one of only two that have similar rock formations. ( Forgive me, i may have my facts wrong. I was explained all this in a very costal accent ) The rocks we saw produced a bluish green mineral that had the texture of chalk, mixed with obsidian, or black glass. Educationally very interesting.

During our short break we went up to the main base of the excavation site and had a drink. And by drink i mean liquid 8th grade locker room stank with alcohol. It was repulsive. Our MLP (who shall remain nameless in order to protect his job) suggested we all try a sip of this water down orange juice like substance in a gatorade bottle. As the foul substance approached my mouth, the stench was so powerful, it reminded me of death and how i would probably meet him very soon. I sipped a drop, a single drop, and my throat burned for the rest of the day. Our MLP most kindly informed us later that we had just drank the guts of smashed spiders, snakes, and scorpions mixed with a powerful homemade moonshine made right there. Pleasant, right?

We descended back into actual blasting site for a small demonstration of two guys filling size living room sized rocks with explosives. After some deliberation about how far away we should stand, and joking about how rocks would be hurled at us like bullets, the six rocks exploded in succession causing splinters of Andosite and Basalt ( i have finally learned my rock types) flying at us and littering the ground with rocks the size of my head. It was quite entertaining.

After our close encounter with a possible landslide or cliff collapse, we made our way to the beach. Very pretty beach, with very powerful waves. We walked along the beach and talked about the pillow lava formations, which incidentally make very rough boulders that are not conducive for climbing barefoot. Anyway, after our brief lecture we went into some giant volcanic tubes that and formed caved in a boulder. Every few seconds the cave would fill up with water from the crashing waves, then drain just as quickly, it was pretty remarkable. Swimming there was kind of a challenge, considering the current pulled so hard that two of the students nearly drowned.

The boulder also has, if you chose to climb it, a very small bamboo bridge that is fastened to the rock with rising line, crossing this ~25 ft bamboo bridge was one of the scarier things i’ve done here, as it bowed about a foot in the middle, and cracked as i balanced across it. Once on the other side, i was able to jump from the rock into the water, provided that a wave had washed over the jagged rocks beneath, it being low tide and all…

We had lunch on the sand. Fresh fish, rice, some bananas, and a pepsi. Very good.

Later that night, things started to get crazy, in a different sort of way. We began by trying to start a bonfire on the beach (unsuccessful) and make a torch out of a piece of bamboo and someone’s lace panties. When the rest of the class heard about our endeavors, they joined in, rather drunkenly. The night proceeded for most with drunken wrestling, stumbling make outs, a strange nude man that instead on getting in the pool, but wouldn’t. I didn’t get much sleep because one of our in-bus-movies had provoked many drunks to scream obscenities at the top of their lungs in strange accents right outside my door. I suppose this is Ecuador.

Day 72-ish:

Did a report on the beach about different types of rocks, then tried to go paragliding. The weather was not cooperative, and only allowed the two lightest members of our group to fly to the beach. Bummer. Afterwards, we spent another 9 hours on the bus back to Quito.

photos:

-thots

Day 38: -  Day 41:

Almost all of our weeks, are now spent planning and preparing for the weekends. For the next 5 weekends, I have plans to travel to go somewhere, whether with the school program, or independently. There is so much to do in Ecuador.

Nothing really can be said about school, other than that it is very similar to high school in the states for me. I have to travel 45 minutes to get there, I am more or less unable to leave in between glasses and i spend too much time drawing when i should be paying attention. ( I have found that my best artistic work comes from when i am supposed to be doing something else altogether.)

Day 42:

This weekend we had planned several events around Quito, since it was our last time we would be in Quito all together for some time. Having just received our checks to pay us back for our lunches, ($260) we were feeling pretty large and decided to go to a fancy restaurant near a friends house. The food was nice, and there was a small live show to go along with it. However, the steak i was eating was too delicious to be eaten slowly, or in reasonable sized bits… apparently. As i was eating calmly and enjoying the mushroom sauce, my jaw dislocated. For the succeeding 20 minutes or so, i struggled between not talking, stretching my jaw and punching myself in the face in order to get it back into place. Very very strange.

After that wonderful jaw dropping experience, we received the bill…

The bill, little to our knowledge had an extra 80 dollars on it. With most of our party already gone, and not aware of the unexpected increase in price, we struggled to find enough cash to pay for our crappy service. Apparently the small live act that we mentioned earlier, although we were not told and it was not listed on the menu, cost us 8.25 per person. Let me describe the live act for you. A man got on stage, while we were literally the ONLY people in the restaurant (being gringos we eat earlier than everyone else), played some cords and blew air through a harmonica with little to no regard for musical ability. It was almost more of an annoyance than a show. Honestly you couldn’t pay me $8.20 to go back. This is the first organized crime I have encountered in Ecuador.

Day 43:

Tickets to a Paul Okenfold Concert on the Equator. literally…

I went to a rave on the equator. It was a lot of fun.

Day 45 – Day 47:

This has to be by far the most interesting week that I have had yet. More or less the week progressed as normal. Monday was pretty dull, except for Capoeira in which i learned how to do a back hand flippy thing (there is a technical name for all the moves i am learning but i cant remember any of them).

Tuesday got a little bit more interesting. Our spanish class has a substitute for about 2 weeks because our teacher has decided to abandon us. This new teacher has made it her goal to make us hate the language by scribing every minute detail of every tense which we have already learned on the board for the better part of an hour. Afterwards she try to make jokes and push us to do exercises which she has already done on the board. It couldn’t be more boring. So in order to pass the time a little faster ( not much) i have been designated as the ‘funny man’. I will audibly laugh at every movement and or stupid joke she makes. Even if my fellow spanish students tell me to laugh, i will laugh for no reason. This has caused her to believe i have Turrets Syndrome, and will wait for me to laugh after everything sentence she writes on the board. When i don’t, She becomes puzzled and doesn’t know how to proceed with class… it is becoming a sport.

Wednesday was dull…

Day 48:

ummmm…

So i am sitting in Spanish class, laughing hysterically because i was laughing hysterically… (one of those cyclical laughing fits) when a strange man opens the door about 15 minutes before the end of class, and says nothing more than: ‘No hay clases. No es seguro.’ (No more class, it isn’t safe.) Our basketball of a teacher rolls out of the room to ask why. . .

Cue Lawlessness, Chaos, Panic and Anarchy

Apparently the President of Ecuador had set into motion some laws that would cut the benefits and salaries of most of the police force. In response, the police force decided to take the day off, and may start a Coup d’état… Marshall Law was now in effect. Riots broke out all over the place, the bank near my school got robbed along with 4 others, everything closed down, we couldn’t leave the schools campus if we we looked white. Things got out of hand.

To celebrate not having to sit through the last 15min of class, me a couple others scurried to the roof of the University to enjoy the wonderful weather and bask in the glory of complete freedom. I had a delicious chocolate cake and watched as people fled from the school to return to the sanctuary of their homes, apparently several cars got stolen right from the schools parking lot.

Now, i don’t know many of the details. But when i got home after being released from school about 3 hours of being held captive, the news told me about the madness that was taking place. Apparently by about 7 at night, there were fires being set, tear gas being shot, the president being assaulted, and hospitals being looted. Certain sections of the military had sided with the president and taken the job of the police force– against the police force… This means that the Military was fighting the police force, recipe for violence? As i watched the TV, news men were falling because of gun fire, cars were ramming through gates, and military escorts were trying to free the president from being held captive in the hospital.  I watched as a man fell from a car after being shot in the heart and died right there on Live tv. It got really really intense very fast.

The president was able to make a get away and return to his rightful place in office, where he gave a very inspiring speech which i slept through. The riots and demonstrations continued through the night and gun shots could be heard through the majority of the evening.

Day 49:

Because of this wonderful Golpe de Estado, we were not sure if our weekend plans would be foiled. We had planned to go Papallacta, a small village located in the Oriental side of the Andes that would provide us with wonderful thermal hot springs. Having been instructed not to leave our house for two days because the country was in a state of emergency, the possibility of going was looking grim. To make the best of a bad situation. I decided to disregard the advice and try and get as close to the Police Hospital where the majority of the fire fight had taken place. I figured the best souvenir would be a tear gas grenade from a Coup, right?

As i made my way to the hospital via taxi, i received a call from a member of the Kalamazoo Gringo group that our trip was a Go, we had complete permission to go spend Ecuador’s coup at a resort in the clouds, but we were leaving in 2 hours. I had about an hour too explore the ruins of a police hospital without looking suspicious. I ended up leaving with the handle part of a hand grenade and some bullet shells. The only problem was, that tear gas actually lasts a really long time, and was really irritating. My eyes would literally swell when i was close to the action. It was quite the experience.

After quickly returning to the house and shoveling food into my mouth, throwing what i thought would be appropriate clothes into my now tattered backpack, and running out the door to catch a bus, we departed for the springs with little problems. All 19 of us. Two hours, a couple pee stops, a cloud forest and one llama later we arrived at the resort. It literally sat right above the clouds like the kingdom of heaven next to a glaciated lake. Everything around us was green, and you could see the near by super volcano – Cotopaxi. Once we got settled in to our private cabins, with our private thermal springs, we covered our privates with our suits in our private changing rooms and conversed privately about the privates of irate pirates.

I spent way too much time in the nearly boiling water starring at the stars. In quito you couldn’t see the stars if you went to a movie theater, but in Papallacta, there were no lights, allowing the falling sky to be seen from the side of a natural hot tub. I have never been so relaxed in my entire life. So relaxed in fact, that during our retrospectively overpriced dinner i couldn’t form words because my jaw just hung there.

Day 50

I got a professional hour long full body relaxation massage. That pretty much sums up the day; or rather i cant really remember what else happened.

Day 51 – 54

Apparently the relaxation methods extended past their intended deadline, because i cant even remember what happened during these four days. I think i listened to a lot of N.E.R.D. I think i went skateboarding. And i think i skipped a lot of class.

Day 55:

We left really early in the morning to catch the bus to the coast. I was really surprised that the buses were running at 6 in the morning, and were ready to pick me up; accompanied by an independent 11 yr old on his way to school. We arrived about 5 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave, and ended up being the first ones there; that is ecuadorian time for you. Once we had all gathered ready to board, we were asked if we all had our rubber boots… Rubber boots? Turns out that rubber boots were one of the most important things to bring to the coast. And i will soon understand why. Im going to try and skip over as much of the bus ride as possible because the only thing more boring than the actual ride is recounting it. Although admittedly the view was gorgeous, i was able to witness the deforestation that we had been talking about in our classes, and understand what it truly means to be a third world county. How do they rate what country is what world anyway?

We stopped to get lunch, which was in a town called Atacames. Atacames has a estuary (river formed by tidal change) that runs through the town. The reason i mention this is because we ate a nice seafood restaurant where i can only hope that nothing i ate came from the aforementioned water source. The estuary managed to make the entire town reek of trash; not surprisingly so, because there was literally garbage just floating in it. I was rather astonished when i watched a young man catch a rather decently sized fish with a small bit of fishing line and a rusty nail. Not because he did so with a rusty nail, but because anything could possibly live in such a disgusting environment.

We arrived at our lodging but quickly left to go see the village and swim in the ocean. After putting on our borrowed boots we left for the village. Literally EVERYTHING WAS COVERED IN MUD. Mud, is the leading cause of annoyance in Atacames, for me at least.

The towns people seems very poor but happy enough. I took notice that they had spent most of their money on very nice televisions and stereos, which one lady made sure we heard as we walked by.

The jobs are limited, stray dogs are everywhere, and the wild chickens mingle with the domestic fighting ones all to make a very interesting spectacle. It looked like a very boring place to live, and made me almost feel guilty for everything i had.

After walking about a mile on an mud road along side some pigs on their day off, we came to the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean has to be my favorite body of water, and here i got to experience it in a very different context. It was very warm, and there were no waves. This was quite different from what i am used to on the Southern Coast of California. But it was still refreshing. For some reason i felt compelled to cover myself in sand and sneak around harvesting drift wood to swing at people. The wild makes you do weird things.

After hanging around our lodging for a while, we decided to go back to the beach with some volunteers we had meet and start a bon-fire. Highlight of the trip. Bonfires on the beach cannot be topped. I love watching all the sparks erupt and fill the night sky with even more stars. Oh and swinging burning wood around like you are fighting the night is fun too.

Day 56:

I don’t think i have ever done so many things before noon. We woke up at 6, got on the bus, which took us to a boat, (on which we ate a fruit salad) which took us to a shrimp farm, which we hiked through to trespass on private land to go see howler monkeys, which literally threw their shit at us and peed on our heads as we passed under while returning by hiking back (after being assaulted by mosquitos as well) to the shrimp farm so we could take a boat to a island to have the second part of our breakfast (mayonnaise sandwich), but we had to do so before the tide went out or we would get stuck, kinda like the stuck-ness when we found the quick sand on this remote island, and then we went back to main island in order to take a tour through the mangrove forest and learn about pneumatophoros, button mangroves and the habitat they provide, while returning we went and collected coconuts and learned about the origin of shrimp farming in south america and its equivalence to drug dealing, we hiked back collecting coconuts and learning and once we got to the boat in order to return to mainland it was about noon.

The rest of the day we spent putzing around playing soccer on the beach with some locals, eating lunch, swimming in the ocean and peeing on walls. We went to an interesting cultural dance that was both very technical and very sexual in nature.   I will not elaborate. I was later told ‘this is why there is so much teen pregnancy here’

By this time the arches in my feet were no more and i could hardly stand. But we managed to make it back to the bus with some Ecuadorian admirers, or baggage, im not sure which description is appropriate. We left for the lodge in which i was glad to rest my head. Even if it was comically uncomfortable.

Day 57:

11 hour bus ride back.

Day 58- 62:

This week was fun. and busy. and tough. but fun.

I took one of the hardest midterms i have ever taken in my life. It was a volconology test in spanish that was prefaced with, ‘ you will not be able to answer all the questions in the allotted time, nor will you know all the answers’

The following day I took an even harder test. The hour and half that takes the can be crowd as the most clueless i have ever been. Horray for not knowing spanish.

Gringo birthday party on wednesday night, including decent mexican food and dance party. Cured my post test sulking.

Thursday night, I went to a Capoeira show. The body control that these people have is absolutely amazing. A man also literally spat fire at the audience, then swallowed the flame, i cant think of a more dangerous hobby. Afterwards, we took a taxi to go get burgers, the best that i have had since i left the states. We hung out with the Ecuadorian biker gang, ate fries, and admired the grinning moon.

Day 63:

Busy busy busy.

Went to my volunteer program at 8 in the morning. Apparently im going to be teaching and helping with art classes for 3rd grade special ed girls. Then i made friends with two Ecuadorian Graffiti crews while planning an graffiti art exhibition through the school. This country never gets boring!

HAPPY 2 MONTH ANNIVERSARY!

(pictures will be uploaded soon. My camera got stolen, so i have to rely on other people to document my adventures. :/ )

-Thots

Ecuador is in a state of complete social and political uproar! Everyone is freaking out! Apparently the police and the military are fighting it out. There is literally NO law right now. A state of emergency has been declared… And it is BEAUTIFUL outside. The only way this country could be cooler is if Cotopaxi erupted.

Chaos is a beautiful thing.

Im safe.

-Thots