Ecuador Days 1-3

It was just a teeeeensy bit crowded

Right now I'm sitting in my Swiss friend Fiona's room, in the midst of the 5 other sleeping people that are staying here. We're in Ibarra, a small city of about 100,000 in the North of Ecuador, but only got here last night.
I love Ecuador! It's so much fun, and so great to meet more exchange students, we're always awesome.







Fiona and another exchange student here in Ibarra, Sarah from Brazil, were lucky enough to be able to come on out Rotary trip to the coast of Colombia. They fit in right away, and we were all very sad to see them go. During the trip I had talked to them about maybe visiting, but I never actually thought I would be able to, because of the expense. Turns out it wasn't that expensive, and here I am!! I LOVE Ecuador, I still can't quite believe I'm here. I only found out Wednesday night that I could come, and for some reason thought I would be coming Friday, so I bought the tickets before hearing back from Fiona confirming everything (we'd been talking for weeks so I already had all the permissions and a place to stay and everything) Turns out she thought I was coming more like April 5, and was visiting friends in Ambarto, a city about 2 hours South of Quito. Thursday night is when we actually got everything worked out finally, it was a disaster but everything worked out in the end, thanks to my awesome chairman and Fiona's quick figuring-stuff-out.
I flew into Quito at about 3:45, over 5 hours later than originally planned. Of course me being me (I have a history of bad luck in air travel) I missed my flight from Bogota to Quito, though that was because there wasn't enough time scheduled for the connection. Only 45 minutes to do everything for an international flight, when normally you're supposed to be there 3 hours before! Luckily there was another flight only 5 1/2 hours later, not bad at all. The only thing I was worried about was that I had no way to let the person who was supposed to meet me at the airport know that I was going to be very, very late. I called my Chairman in Colombia who was able to let him know, but he had gotten there early so had already been waiting for a while when he got the call, oops!

Another American exchange student met me at the airport in Quito and helped me get a bus to Ambarto, only about 2 1/2 hours and $2.50 (Ecuador uses American dollars- it's so nice! I got a little teary-eyed the first time I saw them, it'd been a loooong time.) Fiona, Clo (Belgium), and Angelina (also Switzerland) met me at the terminal and we hung out there for a bit waiting for some Ecuadorian friends who picked us up along with Jessica (Mexico) and took us out on the town.  At one point we met up with the two other exchange students in Ambarto, Daniel (Washington) and Heinrich (Germany.) It was really fun, though my scarf got stolen by one of the Ecuadorians, grr. I stayed the night at Angelina's house, which was nice, she's a really sweet girl.

After the initial shock it's really fun, like a giant swing

The next morning we met the other girls at the terminal and took a bus to Baños, a touristy city less than an hour away ($1!) It's a really really cool city, small enough to walk everywhere but big enough to have a ton of things to do. We met up with Valdemar (Denmark) and started off the day by going bungee jumping off a bridge right in town. It was incredible, I went twice. The first time I did it the "girl" way, just falling forward, and the second time the "boy" way, jumping out as far as you can. The second time was definitely more fun, though both were awesome. That moment when you're standing at the edge of the platform and hear the guy say "tres" and making yourself throw yourself into a free fall is indescribable. I had to close my eyes just for the moment, or I don't think I would've been able to do it. The first few seconds you can't breath, only when you hit the bottom and bounce do you regain any control of your body. It was awesome.

AHHHHH

The view from the bridge where we jumped- incredible!

One of the waterfalls on the chiva tour.

Next we wandered around town a bit, looking at everything. We ate lunch ate Valdemar's family's restaurant and then went on a 3 1/2 hour chiva tour around the outskirts of town, following the river and seeing all the waterfalls. Ecuador, especially Baños, is incredibly beautiful. It's really amazing. We took a hike down the mountain a bit to go see the waterfall with the rainbow, it was beautiful!!

One of the parks in Baños

Another waterfall

The other girls had to go back to Ambarto for a Rotary dinner but since I can't come back as easily I stayed the night at Valdemar's family's house. After dropping the girls off at the bus station we walked around town again, looking for a place to buy DVDs, though didn't find any. We ate dinner again at the family's restaurant, and ran into another exchange student who was there for the weekend with her family, Geraldine (France.) We made plans to meet up with her later at the restaurant and then went to some hot springs nearby. It was delicious, though they made me wear a horrificly ugly plastic hair cap thing "So the hair doesn't fall in." It started raining at one point which was really cool, though freezing. That's the thing about Ecuador, a lot of it is actually pretty cold because it's so high. Refreshing for me after Cali's constant heat for 7 months, but sometimes a bit too chilly for my tastes. Winter in MN when I get back is going to be AWFUL.
We met up with Geraldine about 10 and went bar hopping, 5 different places in total. It was really fun, the city is just crawling with foreigners, so we met tons of people from all over. There was a girl from St. Paul and a guy from Uptown, I couldn't believe it!! He was from 24th and Sheridan I believe, crazy. Geraldine is a really fun person, if I stay/come back to Ecuador I'm definitely visiting her. She lives in Riobamba, only about 3 1/2 hours from Quito. I'm so jealous of everyone here in Ecuador, everything's so close and it's safe and cheap to travel in bus. In Colombia it's 10 hours in bus to the any of the other major cities, and you can't go alone because of the guerrilla. Geraldine is actually coming to St. Paul sometime this summer, to visit an exchange student who was in France last year. I really hope I'll be home by then!

Sunday morning Valdemar and I met up with the girls in Ambarto, then we all went to Quito. We had a few hours there before we had to take the bus to Ibarra, so we went and got sushi (I tried it- it was good!) and went ice skating on actual ice in a mall. Unfortunately while there I was stupid enough to set my camera down out of my line of vision and it got stolen, maldito sea. We got into Ibarra around 8 and had a low-key night, just hanging out at Fiona's house and watching a movie.