Dancing with gringos and their moms

Once upon a time (I actually don't remember when this was since I'm slacking on the posts) we went on a class trip to Museo Tulipe! It was interesting, but I didn't have a great time since I felt a little carsick. I'll tell you a little of what I think we learned about it (again, my Spanish listening skills aren't perfect). I think within the last few hundred years, an indigenous group lived in this area. They don't anymore, because the last time the nearby volcano erupted, they all either died or moved to the Amazon. They would construct these large pool-type things to fill up with water, and they were places for purification and religious rituals. One of the pools is supposedly shaped like a Jaguar, which was a sacred animal for them. This was where they would do their purification baths. There were four other pools nearby; two were rectangles and two were half-circles. I think they used to look at the moon's reflection in those pools or something. One thing that I found pretty interesting was when he showed us this sample of the last 1000 or so years of dirt in a glass case. He was able to tell from that dirt when the land was inhabited (it would be real dirt with some artifacts) and when the populations were wiped out due to volcanic eruptions (that would just be a layer of volcanic ash). Thanks to Sara for the pictures, since I lost my camera on the bus until we got back to it :)

The Pueblo that lived here before the last volcano eruption used this for education. There are 5 concentric circles (3 existing now) that represent perfection and God.

Hannah and I with our new caterpillar friends! 

We took a little break to wade in the river :)

That night, some of us went over to my friend Alexa's house (luckily, she lives in the same set of apartments as me) to celebrate her 20th birthday with our families! I came a little late since Jessica, Kat and I had gone on a run that afternoon, but the latter half of the party was fun. :) After that we went out to Gringolandia (the name of an area of bars and clubs where you can find all of the foreigners), which was a lot of fun! We convinced my brother Jonathan to come, and I think he is the new favorite host-sibling of the group.

Saturday morning was Día de Deportes (sports day) at CIMAS! All of our families came, and we did things like a strange dance/workout routine, a game of soccer, and learned to salsa! I also had the most amazing hotdog of my life there, and cannot stop craving hotdogs now. (Don't know how I'll go back to being vegetarian after that...) Those who were there would understand. I only got a little sunburnt that day, but my mamá comments about me being burnt every single day. :/

That night, the conjunto girls (Sara, Jessica, Alexa and I) were told we had to go to the neighborhood Bingo party, so we invited some of our other friends along. It was an okay night! It was mostly what it sounds like - Bingo. We played the first round, then found out we had to pay $2 every round so we just watched for a while. Between every few rounds, there was a break for dancing, which was the same style from my last blog post with the band! I don't like that style, haha. It's mostly just bobbing and clapping. But the faces on the old ladies we danced with were priceless, so I enjoyed myself none-the-less! Afterwards, one of the old lady's husbands bought us each a round of Bingo and a big beer to share, so that was fun :)

Kat, me and Hannah playing our first round of bingo. Full board? C'mon.

They had dancing breaks every few games of bingo. We only stayed for one, since you can only play so much bingo.

Aaaand for the best/worst part of the weekend...climbing Quito's lovely volcano, Pichincha! We climbed over 2,000 ft, and I don't know if that's a lot or not, but it was the most intense workout of my life. A few of us got lost for the first few hours, so that tired us out more. The beginning part had some paths so we knew where to go, but the higher up we got, the more the paths disappeared, until we were blindly climbing up steep, rocky slopes, just hoping we were heading toward the top. I do really love the scrambling/climbing parts! It was pretty brutal near the end... it was freeeeeezing cold and the combination of strenuousness and high altitude meant we felt like passing out or throwing up for a good portion of it. But it was really rewarding to have made it to the top of that volcano we see every day and to have stood in the clouds! It might have been worth the altitude sickness I had that night and the next morning :)

The teleferico, which took us up to our starting point of 13,000ft.

Love it. 

Sarita and I with some of beautiful Ecuador in the background! :)

Off into nowhere.

Once we got lost, getting back on track was a little tricky. This was one of multiple ravines we had to jump/climb over. Some of my favorite parts though!

Our goal: the peak. Partially in the clouds.

Chaneen, who was with me the whole way!

This is a very well-defined path compared to a lot of the hiking we did. 

Some of the climbing involved. The higher we got, the more the path disappeared and left us scrambling up with hands and feet! 

At one of our many, many resting points. 

Just dying, in the middle of a freezing cold cloud. 

Aaaand FINALLY we made it! 

In a cloud, at the top of Pichincha!

Snow. It was definitely cold enough.

This part going down was fun, because it was all sandy and we could basically ski on it as we ran down!

Clouds rolling in :)

Mi amor.

That weekend was fun, though extremely tiring overall. I see now on facebook that Lawrence is in full-swing, and I miss it (and all of you!) SO much!! Adios!