Hallo-what???

Holy moly it´s been a while since I´ve updated. Sorry, kids...been busy...TRAVELING!! HALA!

So yea, last weekend was Halloween as you all know and Peace Corps has this big party for it every year. It was in El Chaco this year, which is about 4 hours east of Quito in the province of Napo. Which is considered Amazon territory. This was really cool to see because it is definitely different from my type of Amazon: it is about 3 times higher in elevation and it is a lot cooler. I was actually cold at some points...something I haven´t experienced in about three months.

Last Thursday I took the night bus to Quito (god that sucks...15 hours...) and was lucky enough to catch a bus with all my Omnibus 100ers...woo woo. Quite the coincidence. But it was AWESOME seeing everyone...a little overwhelming by all the gringo-ness going on, but it was great swapping stories and crazy experiences. The hostel we stayed in was really cool, had a green pool with a water slide (I opted out of that...) but we all stayed and there were at least 40 PC people there. Definitely felt like ¨the freshmen¨though, getting advice from Omnibus 97, or ¨the seniors¨ as they finish up in March and April.

Friday night was the big costume event and there were some great costumes: old-school WWF wrestlers (Hulk Hogan facial hair and all..), Crayola Crayons, Pilsener fairy (Ecuador´s beer), Jefferson Perez (Ecuador´s speed walker and only Olympic medalist), the Spice Girls. It was great. Yours truly was Sarah Palin...there was another Sarah Palin but she wasn´t quite as good...she didn´t have the accent!

But the beer was definitely aflowin´; we paid 5 bucks for it and it lasted us literally all weekend. I have never seen so many jabbas (cases of beer) in my life.

Saturday we woke up, pretty blurry-eyed, and trekked down to the river where we had a rafting competition. It was 6 bucks to enter and we had teams of 6. There were both Ecuadorian and PC teams...the majority being us. So we each did 2 runs down the river and the rapids were pretty intense. Our team, Sin Wagon (didn´t come up with that name but it was even funnier hearing them pronounce it), rocked the competition though. We were all girls and one boy (an Ecuadorian dance instructor...) and we won our two heats! So we qualified for Sunday, 15 out of 18 teams got to compete, and that day was just one run of about 10 minutes.

Was not in the mood to compete on Sunday, but hey...gotta support the team. They drove us all the way up the river, through the jungle and right as we were getting off the truck, a massive jungle downpour started. SO CRAZY! It was really cool though, got completely soaked, yet I hid under a banana leaf and it really worked. The movies are right sometimes...

So Team Sin Wagon jumped into the boat, got pumped and paddled our little arms off. At first, we were about 2nd in a group of four or five boats. Then we pulled ahead and managed to get through the big rapids (they were practically over our heads). The final rapid was big; we had to paddle through this rocky waterfall and we got stuck! But then the boat behind us pushed us off, but then they got stuck and 4 people fell out! Guide and everything! That rock had saved us because after that we just paddled like there´s no tomorrow to the finish line.

And....WE GOT THIRD PLACE! Our time was just over 9 minutes. It was awesome! We were so excited because we won cool t-shirts and $100! And we were the highest scoring Peace Corps team. All the buff guys and outdoorsy types didn´t come close to the new girls...it was great. Two Ecuadorian teams got first and second. But it was a huge victory for Omnibus 100...and the dance instructor.

Sunday night all the 100ers went back to Quito together and spent a night in the hostel. Got some Mongolian BBQ...DELISH! It was nice to eat something other than chancho.

But being away really made me miss Yantzaza! I actually couldn´t wait to get back and see mi gente, get out of the cold...people actually missed me too! Man, I have no idea what it´s going to be like this time next year...I can only imagine the stories I will have and the people I will have met. But that is what makes this so exciting!

Oh and SUPER STOKED ABOUT OBAMA WINNING! I was able to sweet talk my little crush, Jorge, into letting me come over to his house to watch CNN...he has some American channels. Very exciting...way to go Ohio and the rest of the US and A!