Lady Terps taking on Ecuador

Woo wee. I am pooped. This past week was one of my most memorable weeks so far, since Ms. Kristina Amelia Roberts came to visit me. Kristi and I were roommates in college for a mere semester, yet our ridiculous personalities and great sense of Wanderlust have helped us maintain a great bond.

I was super excited to meet up with her, mostly because this was going to be exciting to have a friend come visit me (one who knows me well) and I was anxious to see her perspective on things here in Ecuador. When she called me to come get at the airport, I was surprised at how fast she had de-boarded (is that a word??) and gone through customs. Dressed in her usual Kristi style---great bag, lioness hair and flowing scarf--I knew right away it was her. Yet, where was all her luggage? It hadn´t left the States... Great. Starting to sound a lot like my parents´ journey when they got here (took them five days to claim their luggage). But that didn´t stop us. Kristi had literally just gotten back from Italy, 24 hours before seeing me, so she was definitely in a go-with-the-flow attitude.

Perfect. Because that´s exactly what you need to enjoy Ecuador.

We took a nice tour of downtown Quito the next day: teleferico ride(gondola) up the Quito mountain side for an excellent view of the city (she left her battery charger up in the restaurant so we had to sweet talk the guy to let her back up...which we also found was one of my talents here: sweet talking), shopping at the local artesan market, lunch in historic Quito, and great cocktails in the Mariscal. All doing this in the same outfit, I was so far very impressed with Kristi´s traveling abilities. Finally the next day, after many calls to many different airlines, we claimed Kristi´s backpack (more thanks to our ¨investigative team¨ that we had put together...)

Then we headed off to Ibarra, about 3 hours north of Quito. It is known for its great weather and the weather was perfect. We actually lucked out with great weather the whole time. But met up and stayed with a married couple from my group, Jake and Erin. They were awesome hosts, got to walk around the city, sample some of their famous ice cream and then joined up with a bunch of other volunteers at a BBQ. That was a blast, getting to talk to the other volunteers, along with a local, and Kristi, I think, got a good sense of what Peace Corps and the people are all about.

After hitting up Ibarra, we had a long day of bus rides back to Quito to then go up to the coast to the province of Esmeraldas. I was super excited to see Esmeraldas because A) it is home to the majority of the Afro-Ecuadorian community B) it is, literally, on the opposite side of the country from where I live C) it´s the coast=BEACH

So we got to Quininde, which is inland, but is Geoff´s site, a youth and families volunteer that is also from my group. It was Saturday night, so we had a couple drinks and then went out on the town. We danced like crazy gringoes at this club, where everyone seemed to be around the ages of 12-15. But whatev...it´s the coast so I guess anything goes. The dancing was different from where I live. They played a lot more Reggaeton and they were gettin´all up in each other´s GRILLS so that was kinda like being back in the US, but with less clothes. It was hotter than the hinges of hell, but still a good time.

Sunday we headed up to the coastal town of Atacames (2.5 hours), which is pretty much a touristy beach town. Another volunteer, Chris, lives up there so we were able to crash at his place--which was a total ¨ideal Peace Corps¨ house: all wood, hammocks everywhere...it´s like what I thought my house was going to be down here. We walked to a couple beaches, hung out with some locals, drank giant batidos or fruit juices. It was perfect. Exactly what I wanted. Kristi and I got pretty burnt but that was basically the worst thing that happened to us the whole trip, so I´m not complaining.

We got to see some of Geoff´s work in his town the next day, the place where he does youth group activities and where he is growing a garden.

We traveled back to Quito Tuesday night so that Kristi could catch her 8 am flight back to the states. Overall, it was an amazing trip. Kristi was an excellent travel partner...I was surprised at how much faith she had in me, jumping in and out of buses and eating foods I told her was good. But I definitely needed this trip to re-center myself and I was anxious to get back to Yantzaza.

However, after Kristi left, I continued down to Riobamba to visit my other friend Darci and I got to check out her site. She lives an hour out of Riobamba, in a city called Guamote, and it was really cool to see because her site is about 90% indigenous. Thursdays are their market days so we got to walk around...it was a HUGE market, Darci telling me it´s one of the largest in Ecuador. I could tell...people were pushing through us, people were yelling, there were so many indigenous...it was a little overwhelming. But super cool.

Well I got back to Loja at 5 am this morning and I am spent. Luckily I have a weekend to recooperate.

But now I definitely know how much I can travel in a week and how to do it. It´s kind of exhilirating knowing how you can travel throughout a foreign country with ease.