Shortly after breakfast we loaded the bus. It was very interesting cramming into the tiny elevator along with other Ecuadorians to get our luggage down to the lobby. Almost had a panic attack from feeling clostraphobic, but thankfully, I didn't. Driving through through the town was fun, the town was so neat, it reminded me of our main street but older, more broken, and dirty. Instead of barbed wire at the top of fences, they had shards of glass bottles lining the tops of the walls to protect their property. It was so gorgeous looking out and seeing the city covering the hills and valleys.
Our first stop was the equator. they have bathrooms there, but you have to pay $.10 for toilet paper. We toured the little town near the Equator after a group picture, the food smelled wonderful! we visited the little shops and tried to communicate while buying things. I bought a hammock for $18 and some cool pants for 5. The lady at the shop where I bought the hammock was so nice, she gave me a free coin purse because of my purchase. Most times Americans purchased something in Ecuador they gave you back silver dollars instead of Bills or change. While walking around with Karen and Lauren, Dave approached us With an attitude of panic and was saying that he had to tell us something. we followed him around while he seemed to be trying to find something. Eventually he told us that he found Lauren's cousin who was on site missionary there and it was neat that she was reunited with him. Dave told us to be careful because he noticed a man watching us and as he started towalk over, Dave Pulled us away. Later we were taking more pictures of the equator and Kara slipped and fell over the equator. While laughing, I noticed the man up on the balcony still watching us. I told Sara about it and she looked up at him and he beckoned us to come up there, we ignored him and eventually he approached us and started to talk. When he figured out we didn't speak Spanish or Russian he told us in English that the balcony would be a much better place to take pictures. We kindly refused in order to avoid being kidnapped...or worse.
After that we headed to the mall for lunch it was very much like our malls but it was outside, well parts of it were. It was very nice. We ate in the food court which had both foreign and familiar restaurants. we were told not to eat any fresh veggies or salad as well as not to drink any fountain drinks or water not bottled. My group went to tropi burger and ordered chicken strips with bottled water, it was pretty hard to communicate and It took us a while to order. Sarah wanted ranch for her chicken, so we went on an adventure to find it. And an adventure it was. first, we had to figure out how to say ranch in Spanish, then Sarah tried asking this Cajun place and was having trouble, so she had to ask the guy next to her help her out. It turns out he was Ecuadorian but had lived in Texas for a while. We took the ranch back to the table, but when we tasted it we unfortunately discovered that it tasted like tartar sauce/ mayonnaise and it was gross. So we tried again, we asked Quiznos for "salsa de ranch" and she thought we wanted a meal, we had to explain that we just needed it on the side. Sara tried asking for it "à la carte" and she still didn't understand. so I said "solo". finally, sara had her ranch. After lunch we walked the mall a little. we needed to get downstairs, but the escalators only went up. we had to take the elevator which was tiny and packed with people, it was super cramped and the people inside just stared at us. Awkward.
We got back in the bus and rode for many hours, maybe five? it was a gorgeous view and atI one point there was a valley with a river and the clouds came very low and we were basically driving through clouds and when you look down you could see the clouds below you. It was stunning! We slept a lot on the bus and took pictures of poppy with sleeping victims. at one point, bus surfing was our form of entertainment. we would stand sideways in the isle and try to balance along the rough path and around curves and turns.
We arrived at camp UNPES after dark. we set up in our rooms --I shared a room with Andra, kayla, Sara, Kara, and Taylor and Emma, the two interns-- Which had a small bathroom and a small shower room.
Dinner was amazing!! it was roast with gravy, rice, and vegetables. and juice! we had juice every day and I discovered I don't like papya. Eating that wonderful food relieved all my fears of having to eat strange foods for the rest of the trip.
I slept in my hammock. it got very cold at night and trips to the bathroom were tough. Eventually it got so cold that I took up Sara's offer and hopped in bed with her.
I didn't live down the fact that me and Sara cuddled, it was brought up through the rest of the trip.
P.S. I will add pictures to these post when I get my laptop fixed. It won't connect to Internet and I'm having to use my phone.
