Fri, Sat, Sun

Hello all! What a wonderful weekend it has been. On Friday we presented our plays at the Fundacion. Many parents came, so that was nice. Snow White went spectacularly. I actually had to fill in as the very handsome Prince because the boy who played the role did not show up. I had 4 very important lines (in spanish): "What a beautiful woman. What a shame that she died so young. I'm going to give her a kiss" and "I love you too." Everyone got a kick out of it. And it was hilarious when our 7 dwarfs said "heeeyooo heeyoooo heeyooo" because of their accents instead of "heigh ho." They sounded like pirates.

Saturday we woke up at 5:30am to leave for our first excursion. We first stopped at a market where people from the coast trade with indigenous people from the mountains of Ecuador. I bought some gloves made from alpaca (llama) fur and also a small tapestry of the countryside also made from alpaca. Then we got to our destination: Quilotoa. It is a a crater lake. You start off at the top and hike your way down to the bottom where the lake sits. The hike down was very steep, sandy, and rough! And when we got there, the water was freezing! A Quichua man (Quichua is the name of the indigenous people here and also their language) told us that he could take us in his boat to some thermal waters over some ways. We bought his claim and consequently were greeted with waters that were still freezing. The "thermal" part was a tiny stream of bubbling water running down some rocks and into the HUGE lagoon. We jumped in because we had made it that far already and were greeted with second coldest water i have ever been in (the first being when i took a shower in chemistry lab - as many of you know). But the best part is yet to come: instead of walking back up we rode donkeys! Quichua children were our guides and the way they communicated with the animals was by making these weird whisper noises that sounded like "qwitch whitch." It was great. Once we were back at the top, Galo (our host dad) took us around part of the top of the lagoon to take in the view of the Andes mountains (An entire circumnavigation would take 4 hours). It was spectacular. Since I'vebeen here there's one thing that's for sure: you NEVER get sick of the mountain view.

Today (Sunday) we got off to a later start to go to "La Cascada de Pita." It is a huge waterfall that you have to hike to. The hike was difficult! And our entire host family (Adriana, Galo, and their 8-year old Julio and 1-year old Paula) made the trek (Wow). On the way there we stopped at a market to buy some fresh fruit (granadia, tazo, pineapple, manderin oranges) and veggies (avocado) so that once we got to the waterfall we could have a little picnic. The day was hard work, but very nice. :)

Talk to you later...