Spring Break Kick-Off 2011: Puerto Lopez

Yeah. Ecuador is weird. Our Spring Break is at the end of April. Crazy. Last day of classes was Wednesday, April 20. We couldn't find a straight-shot bus ticket to Puerto Lopez, so Ashley and I left Quito at 11:15 PM on Wednesday on a bus to Guayaquil with Rachele, who was going to Guayaquil to meet a girl she's been sponsoring for 6 years. The bus was actually incredibly comfortable except for the fact that Ashley and I were in seats 3 and 4 which are like right in front of the door that separates the driver from the passengers, so there was a lot of traffic. Also, around 3 in the morning some jerk asked the driver to turn on the AC. Really?! Quite unnecessary. We arrived in hot and humid Guayaquil around 8:15 in the morning where we parted ways with Rachele. Ashley and I bought tickets to Puerto Lopez and waited around until the bus left at 9:40. This second bus was definitely not as nice as the overnight bus. No AC so we were riding windows open. Guess where we were sitting? Again. Seats 3 and 4. It was hot as heck on the bus and they were playing some mariachi video with a wannabe half-dressed Shakira dancer. Entertaining. We finally caught a glimpse of the ocean and thought we were almost there, but we had to wind around the coast for another hour before we finally arrived in Puerto Lopez around 2 in the afternoon. This is Thursday the 21st by now. Found our hostel, Villa Colombia, and moved into a 3-person room with a girl from Poland. Put the swimsuits on and headed for the beach which is about 3 blocks away. Puerto Lopez is a fishing town so there were boats everywhere and the water smelled a little fishy, but it was a beach and not rainy Quito! Seriously. It has rained every day in April in Quito. Ashley and I hung out on the beach for awhile, headed back to the hostel to clean up, and then headed around town looking for a place to eat. We stopped at this one restaurant and we were about halfway through looking through the menu when the waiter told us that they didn't have any chicken or beef because it's Easter and the markets don't sell it. Yeah right. We left and found a restaurant that DID serve chicken. Sat on the beach to watch the sunset when Rachele called and said she was headed to Puerto Lopez. Her original plans were to go to Manta, but she decided she wanted to hang out with us, so we were pretty excited. She got in around 10 PM. We headed back to the hostel and switched into a 4 person room for the three of us. She told us all about her visit with the little girl she's been sponsoring. So cool. Then it was off to bed.

Friday morning we woke up and had breakfast at the hostel. Then we got our beach bags ready and took a "taxi" to Los Frailes, a beach about 15 minutes away from Puerto Lopez. I say "taxis" because they aren't cars. They look like this:

So we took that to Los Frailes which is an absolutely gorgeous beach. Almost Galapagos worthy. And since we got there at like 10:30, there weren't many people there at all.

We spent basically all day there (until 3:30) just chilling and chatting. So incredibly relaxing. It was exactly what I needed. We played in the ocean, too. The wave pattern was very unpredictable, though. One minute we'd be splashing through these dinky little things, and the next minute there were like 5 death waves in a row that came so fast it was nearly impossible to escape. We almost died. And that's only a slight exaggeration. Headed back to the hostel. I was burnt and crispy (you would think I had learned my lesson by now), but it was a great day. This is what we look like after a day on the beach:

(Rachele, Ashley, Me)

Beautiful. Then we headed out for supper and ate at the same place Ashley and I ate the night before. That way we're guaranteed meat in our meal. Chatted on the beach as we watched the sun set. 

There was a little doggie friend that came over to get some attention. Very cute. Then she started digging a hole right behind us and got sand everywhere. Haha. Quite comical. Then we treated ourselves to ice cream and headed back to the hostel to rest up.

We woke up on Saturday and ate breakfast at the hostel. Then it was off to Los Frailes again. Since we were already burnt, we rented an umbrella. We also brought oranges to lighten our hair. It's really supposed to be lemons, and we bought these yellow fruits thinking they were lemons, but it turns out they were oranges. You rub the juice in your hair and it's supposed to attract the sunlight to give you natural highlights. The verdict is that oranges don't work as well as lemons. Back to Puerto Lopez around 4. Shower. Then we went to a restaurant a little ways further down the beach where they serve you lots of high-quality food for a low price. I had a vegetarian sandwich which consisted of tomato, avocado, and cheese on thick slices of warm wheat bread. Yummy. Ice cream again and then Ashley and I grabbed our stuff from the hostel to head back to Quito on an overnight bus. Rachele decided to stay another day for more relaxation on the beach. Left at 8:00 PM and got to Quito at 5:30 in the AM. Guess what seats we had!?!? We actually had seats 1 and 2, but they were positioned exactly where seats 3 and 4 were on the other buses. They must be the gringo seats. Maybe it was because I was burnt, I don't know, but I could not sleep on that bus. It was terrible. Horrible. Awful. Taxied home and slept until noon on Easter Sunday. I know. I didn't go to church. God understands.

Leaving for the Amazon on Wednesday the 27th. Only 6 more days of school!  

Adventures in Baños

Friday, April 15
Ashley, Hannah, and I met at the North Station in Quito at 2:30. From there we took the trolley to the end of the line at El Recreo and then headed to Quitumbre, the southest station in Quito. For being the poorer end of town, the south station is quite the building. It's like an airport. Seriously. You get there and then there are booths all over where you can get tickets to go anywhere basically. Hopped on a bus to Baños. Maybe there was a lot of traffic or something, but we didn't arrive until 9:30. We were very happy to have arrived to say the least. Caught a cab to our hostel Santa Cruz. There was a private room for two, and a dormitorio room for two (shared bathrooms). And then there was one open bed in the dormitorio room that shared the bathrooms with the open dormitorio room. But that option would have required one of us to stay in the room with three British guys. The accent might be hot, but talk about awkward. So we decided to share the dormitorio room between the three of us (cheaper than the private room for 2). Got settled and then went out to explore the town. Found a delicious ice cream place that had soft serve that almost tasted like Dairy Queen. How I've missed that. Came back and were in bed ASAP. Turns out that the British guys across the way like to party all night and then come back drunk around 2 in the morning. And don't know how loud they're talking. And use lots of curse words. I wanted to cast Harry Potter spells at them, but Ashley said that would be rude.

Saturday, April 16
Woke up around 8:30. Got ready for a day of fun and headed out to find a place to eat breakfast. Baños is a tourist town. And that is an understatement. Tourist planning companies or whatever you call them are located on every street, on every corner, by every hostel. So we chose one and saw what they had to offer. We opted to take a chiva (truck-type vehicle) tour of the waterfalls. Left at 10 in the morning and stopped at about 4 different sites.
This was the first stop:

If you look closely, you can see there are two waterfalls. The one on the left looks clean, while the one on the right looks dirty. It's not dirty. It's just the minerals in the water. Cool, cool.
At one place we took a cable car down the cliff so we could walk across a rickety bridge to get a better look at the waterfall.

Got back around 2 where we met back at the tourist company place and they took us to go canyoning. Canyoning is basically repelling down waterfalls. Superchevere. We got to this place and they gave us wet suits to put on. Being the dumb gringa I am, I put mine on backwards at first. Had to fix that. Then we hiked up to this waterfall. About 8 meters. Quite the experience. You have to completely trust the one rope that is attached to you and attached to a metal piece screwed into a rock at the top of the waterfall. But I made it alive and it was exhilarating! The next waterfall was about twice as high. The third water fall was not very high at all, but our guide had us sit on our butts and slide down while he held the rope. Kinda hurt, but fun nonetheless. The last waterfall was not what I was expecting. 50 meters high and I couldn't see over the edge. I thought it was a sheer-faced waterfall. Turns out that after about the first 5 meters it just drops off. No rocks to stand on. Nothing. You're just hanging there, suspended, and you let yourself down. Crazy. I don't have pics because I didn't want my camera to get empapada (soaking wet). You'll just have to use your imagination. Headed back to town, changed clothes, ate supper at the same place we ate breakfast. Ashley and I ordered the nachos which ended up being Doritos with a side of grated cheese, guacamole, and aji. Classy. We went back to the tourist company place to schedule a horseback riding outing for tomorrow. Earlier in the day the guy had told us $15 each, but now he was telling us $20, so we found another place where we could get it for $15. Walked around town a little. Saw them pulling taffy. Huge strands of taffy. All up and down the street. We had to try some. And it was delicious. Stopped by the ice cream store again and then it was back to the hostel after an exhausting day. 

Sunday, April 17

Met at 9 at the new tourist company where they drove us to where the horses were at. We rented them for 2 hours. I got the big black one. We started in the town but as we headed further away, we went more and more into the countryside. It's been years since I've ridden a horse and it felt good. We stopped at a halfway point where our guia (guide) showed us these springs that are carbonated because they are connected to the thermal vents of a nearby volcano. Because the water is carbonated, it's safe to drink! Not a big fan of gas in my water, though. Then it was back on the horses and back to town. By the time we headed home, my butt was pretty sore from riding the horse. The trip back was pretty much all pain for me. I'm glad we didn't go for longer than 2 hours. Back to the hostel, pack up, check out, get on the bus, back to Quito. Remember how the trip to Baños took like 7 hours? Well, we left Baños at noon and I was back in my house by 5. Crazy. Quite an adventure. 

Here's the Baños club:

From left to right: Ashley, Hannah, ME!

Return to the Basilica, Mitad del Mundo, Partido de Liga, Quilotoa

If you remember from a previous blog post, we tried to subir (climb) the Basilica earlier, but were prevented from doing this by the strict timekeepers of the staircase. So we (me, Ashley, and Wesley) went back. April 2, 2011. Partly cloudy, but no rain. And we showed up around two so that we were guaranteed the chance to subir. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice....oh wait. You didn't fool us twice, Ecuador. So take that. There were several levels to the church towers. First was the "balcony" of the church where we could see the sanctuary and a gorgeous stained glass window at the back. 

The next level was a small balcony that looked south where we could look through a little telescope thingy and see the Panecillo. 

The next level was a souvenir store and the baños (bathrooms). Then it was up even further to a little rickety bridge that was in the "attic" of the church and took us from the south side, across the sanctuary, and over to a small tower where we had quite the 360 degree view of Quito. 

We thought our adventure was over then, but turns out that when you cross the rickety little bridge back to the south side of the church, you can climb the clock towers. There were about 5 more levels to those. No joke. By the time we got to the top, we were so high up that it was cold and chilly, but worth the view. 

Looking north: 

April 9, 2011:

Mitad del Mundo. Middle of the World. That's the name of the actual town. Again, if you remember from an earlier post, we already visited the equator with BCA, but we've been told that visiting this touristy equator site was a must. So Wesley, Ashley, and I headed for another weekend adventure. We got there and there must have been some conference tour or something because there were about 50 business men standing outside in their slacks, button-down shirts, and briefcases listening to someone talk. And what do they do when the gringas show up? Turn around and stare. Of course. So unfortunately, we had to share the park with these guys. Took pictures with the monument.

We were on our way to climb up the monument when one of the businessmen politely asked us if he could get a picture with us. We were at a tourist site, but who knew that we would BE a tourist site. Haha. Inside the monument there was a little museum dedicated to Ecuador history in general in terms of indigenous people. Can't say we looked around too much. Just went to the top and took pictures. From there, we walked around the town and checked out some of the other places Mitad del Mundo had to offer. We stopped in a bug museum where there was a bug collection mounted on the wall. So they were all dead thankfully, but it still gave me the creeps to see beetles the size of your fist with pincers longer than your pointer finger. And moths bigger than hummingbirds. And hairy tarantulas. And over half of these insects are native to Ecuador. Wonderful. I have no idea what I would do if I met one of those things in the wild. You can't kill it. I mean Wesley said you would literally need a sledgehammer to stop one of those beetles. 

From there we headed to the main square where an indigenous band was performing and dancers in native dress were doing their thing. We ate in a nearby restaurant where we sat on the balcony so we could enjoy the music. Entertaining. 

We had heard that there was this interactive museum that was a must see, so we spent the next half hour tracking that down. It wasn't within the walls of the touristy city part, so that made it tricky to find. This interactive museum is actually situated directly on the equator. The touristy town part has a line drawn for the equator, but that's a lie. Our museum guide showed us all sorts of strange occurrences that happen on the equator. Let me tell you, I had no idea how freaking cool a line can be. Seriously. First, we balanced an egg on a nail. That's right, a nail. I have a picture AND a certificate to prove it.

Then, we did the whole water draining thing. Northern hemisphere it spins clockwise, Southern hemisphere it spins counterclockwise. Directly on the equator? Directly down. None of this clockwise/counterclockwise crap. Straight down. Then we had to walk heel to toe on the equator with our eyes closed and our arms out to our side. Funny thing is that even though you walk heel to toe (which you would think would guide you straight), the pull from the poles makes it really difficult to achieve straightness. The last activity involved strength. Off to one side of the line we clasped our hands together and then put out arms straight out and up. Our tour guide pushed our arms down (with us resisting) with two hands. When standing on the line? She could pull our arms down with one hand. Same thing with squeezing your thumb and pointer finger together and having someone pull them apart. Strange, but very, very, very, chevere. That's where the museum tour ended and by that point it was pouring. It was quite an adventure finding a bus to take home, but we finally caught one after we were pretty much empapadas (soaking wet). 

Got back to Quito and went our separate ways, but then Wesley and I were invited to the Liga game that night by one of the soccer volunteers (Roberto), so I headed back to Wesley's house where she gave me some warm clothes (I hadn't had time to get all the way back to my house, so I was still a little wet). The game wasn't at la Casa Blanca (Liga's home stadium), but rather was at el Estadio Olympico Atahualpa, which is the home of la Sociedad Deportiva Quito, who Liga was playing that night. Inner-city match. Instead of being jostled and squished/smashed as we entered the stadium, we made a slightly different entrance. We were waiting in a long line to enter when news came that they had opened another door/gate. So we took off. Running. Found a spot just before kick off. I don't know if the stadium is bigger or if people were dissuaded from coming because it had rained earlier, but the stadium felt empty. We were in between the Deportiva fans and the Liga fans and unlike my last Liga experience, this game gave me a view of the ugly side of the people's passion for soccer. First of all, the game kinda sucked. It was a 0-0 tie and nobody played all that great. Second of all, tensions were high because it was two teams within the city. There were police everywhere.

Just before halftime a fight broke out on the Liga side of the stadium about 7 rows in front of us and across the aisle. Don't know what the argument was about, but they were punching and kicking a defenseless man on the ground before the police intervened. Then, during halftime, the Deportiva fans starting shaking a large Liga banner that they had stolen from the Liga side. It is apparently the worst of offenses to steal something of the other team's. In return, the Liga fans had somehow stolen a Deportiva banner and started waving that around, too. Of course we were caught in the middle of this yelling, cursing, middle finger fest. Things calmed down a little after halftime, but I saw another incident where a Liga fan was climbing on the fence, which was not what the police officer wanted. So he began hitting at the fence with his night stick, aiming for the hands. When the man wouldn't get off the fence, the police officer proceeded to punch the man in the face. So many distractions from the game. When the final whistle blew, we had to hang around the stadium and wait for the Deportiva fans to leave. If they would have let both sides out at the same time, there's no way the police could have controlled the chaos that would have ensued. 

Liga fans:

Andres from volunteering was at the game, too, and afterwards, he, me, and Wesley were having a discussion about a facebook post. It's too hard to explain. Anyway, we made a bet about it and had to check it on the computer, so we headed back to La Chacha. The bet was a free pizza. Wesley and I won of course, so free pizza it was. Haha. Then it was back home for the night.

April 12, 2011:

Met at Rio Coca at 7:30. Headed out to Quilotoa, a volcanic lake. The drive was at least 3 and a half hours. Stopped a couple of times for snacks/bathroom break. We also stopped at a town on our way that is known for its artistry work. Made it to Quilotoa by 12:30. Took some pictures at the top and then headed down the crater. Holy cow is that place beautiful or what. This is probably my second proudest moment in digital photography. This panoramic view is practically seamless. 

My first proudest moment? St. Louis. Summer 2010. Jumping picture timed from a distance? Can't beat that. 

Anyway, we head down the crater. It's pretty steep, and at one point for about 200 yards I'd say (although I'm horrible at estimation) we "skied" through some deep sand/dirt. Pretty fun. We had the option to request a mule beforehand to ride back up, but Wesley and I wanted to tough it out and climb. We took some pictures at the bottom and admired the view until it started hailing. That's right, hailing. Pea-sized and vicious. It finally stopped, but by then we were soaking and bruised (not really) and still had to climb up the crater. Quite the workout, especially when the hail covers the ground in some spots making it slippery as heck. But we made it. Finally. Daniel had given us all $12.50 provided by BCA that we were required to spend in the Quilotoa community, so Wes and I bought ecuapants to change into. Something dry and relatively warm. We ate lunch in a nearby community house and then it was back on the bus and back to Quito. Home around 8:30. Long, but awesome day. 

From left to right: Wesley, Hannah, Rachele, Ashley, me

Only 10 more days of classes before finals. Five days, then spring break, five more days, and then finals. Crazy, crazy. Things to look forward to: trip to Baños (a city, not the bathrooms), beach, el Amazonas, Cuenca, and whatever else I can squeeze in.

Catch you later, folks.