A standard weekend. . .

. . .NOT.

I´ll start off painting the picture for ya´ll on Saturday. So two posts ago, I wrote about visiting the Teleferico with my buddies Eamon and Greg. Well, we decided to go up it again but not stop where we did. . .we thought it might be a good idea to climb the whole 16,000 ft mountain called Mt. Pichincha (or some number very close to that height). However, we didn´t really think this out too much. . .for instance, my friend Kaitlyn was wearing sort of workout capris, ankle socks and tennis shoes. Others were wearing tees with jackets without hats or gloves. My friend Greg was the only dude who brought along food, which were an 8 pack of cookies (probably not the best energy type food you want on a hike). Anyways. . .

On the way to Mordor. . .

It was more or less right before we hit this point where I realize we are NOT prepared for what we are about to do. I myself was more or less good to go, wearin multiple layers and with my earflap hat. . .however, I had no gloves and thus reached a point where I couldn´t feel my hands. It was pretty strange to go higher and higher and actually see MORE biodiversity, such as budding flowers and beautiful moss. It had to be because of the increased moisture due to the fact that we were in THE CLOUDS for the last hour of the hike, as you can see us headin into it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPVNHMjedfk

And here we are crossing a rock ledge, peering into the abyss below. Yea that´s Phil up above on the trail, and you can hardly see him because of how cloudy it was. Thank GOD it didn´t rain, or else we would have had to either 1. go back or 2. power forward rocky style.

Anyways, we finally reach the top of this mountain. . .but we couldn´t really tell because we literally couldn´t see 20 ft around us. The top of the mountain, as Greg prefectly described it, felt like being on an asteroid. It was completely rocky, cloudy with zero visibility, with an incredible chill and wind blowing around like it was REALLY ticked off that we were there. Needless to say, I won´t be climbing Cotopaxi more than likely due to the fact that it´s basically 2 Pichinchas stacked on each other haha. Coming back down the mountain was much easier, but also led to a nagging headache due to the change in altitude which didn´t go away for a while.

But that was made much easier, when I got home and ate multiple servings of rice, chicken, vegetables, soup, natural juice, fried plantains. . .I was a happy camper. I left the house to go with Phil and Kaitlyn to see a bull fight thereafter. . however, we got to the plaza and the cops had closed the whole thing down for some reason I didn´t really understand. Since we were out already, we didn´t just want to call it quits so we went to get coffee and ice cream at a shop near the Mariscal. I ordered a hot chocolate and a crepe, and when it finally came I was like this: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness

 

So I destroyed the whole crepe, drank my hot chocolate, and it was good. The 6th day.

However, I didn´t rest on Sunday. We decided to go to the Mitad del Mundo (or the middle of the world for those who for whatever reason can´t figure that out) to check out the museum, take extremely touristy photos, etc. Just getting there was a production. . .we took one bus to this massive station, got into another bus to another massive station, and then took a third bus which finally got us there. You think there might be a single bus to get you from the main city to what I would think would be a main attraction. . .but nah this is Ecuador, where buses do whatever the hell they want.

Anyways we get to the main site, which is more or less this HUGE plaza full of small restaurants, shops, and a huge tower where the main line is supposed to be.

Being a tourist

Here´s a picture to give you an idea of the huge tower which has all the directions on it. . .and here´s the sign that tells you exactly where you are. . .

Except this sign is a big fat LIAR.

So they built this massive monument and planted all these shops because back in the day, they thought this was the actual ecuator. But thanks to the marvel of Garmin and GSP units, this is actually NOT TRUE AT ALL. The actual ecuator is at another site maybe a football field away, at a much smaller venue that featured a museum of different activities you could do on the actual ecuator line.

With real G.P.S.! That´s more like it

 

So on the Ecuator, there are a few neat things you can do, such as balance an egg on a nail (due to opposing polarity forces acting upon each other). Water also flows straight down, not counter clockwise as in the Nothern Hemisphere or clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Finally, the force of gravity is apparently stronger on the ecuator. . .so walking the line with your eyes closed and thumbs out is extremely hard to do aka don´t ever get pulled over for a sobriety test on the ecuator. All in all, it was a fun experience. . .something you like to do once to say ¨Yea I´ve been to the ecuator before¨ because that comes up a lot in conversation. Also, this next picture has nothing to do with the ecuator or anything, but I love it because it shows you the typical height of an Ecuadorian in comparison to Garrett, a 5´11 American born in Montana:

This probably explains why we were asked to play semi-pro bball

And that my friends, was my ¨standard weekend.¨ Ok I was lying when I said that, but hopefully you enjoyed a lil of what you read and saw. Coming up, a day in the life!

barrio ballinnnnn

So some of you may have seen my facebook status that I played with a semi-pro ecuadorian team last night in basketball. That is SLIGHTLY true. Let me fill you in on the whole story. . .

So I wake up yesterday around 10, because we have afternoon classes all this week. Which means later this week will be a bull rush of going out at night and living our lives. By the way, saying ¨we´re just living our lives¨doesn´t translate at all over here. Nor does ¨I am balling (estoy pelotando).¨ Ok, maybe I took the word for ball, turned it into a verb, and conjugated it but honestly Ecuadorians should get that. But I digress. . .I wake up and go on the internet to check my emails. Garrett hits me up and gives me the run down. . .here´s more or less what he said:

Garrett: So I told my host brother that I play basketball at the Carolina park. Apparently my host brother took that to mean that basketball is my life, that I love to play, and eventually I´d want to play professionally. So he contacts one of his basketball buddies, asks if I can try out for the team, even with the possibility of getting paid. He then proceeds to tell me in english, ¨You had a dream and I made it come true in two hours!!¨ He then goes into about 6 motivational speeches, saying ¨I believe in you. You have to trust in yourself that you can do it!¨

Uh, yeah. So Garrett invites me to play. . .and of course I´m down. When else would you get an opportunity to play in a setting like this?

So we go to class from 1 to 5, and then Garrett and I get sandwiches which made us feel like absolute ASS because the dude smeared waaaaaaaaay too much mayo on them. I don´t even like mayo, so I was dying. After getting to Garrett´s house, eating some soup, and watching maybe a good hour of auto-tune the news (youtube it if you haven´t heard of it because it is HILAROUS), Garrett´s brother comes to pick us up at 8:15. Oh but wait, he was supposed to meet us at the stadium at 7 and this other dude was supposed to pick us up (who by the way, didn´t show up at all or call to say he couldn´t). Typical Ecuadorian time.

So we get in a cab which looks like something out of Tokyo Drift, almost kill a grandma and ourselves twice on the way over to what we are told is a colluseum, and also get told about 55 people are going to be there to watch us play. We also were told by the host brother it might be a good idea to get some pills in order to open up our respiratory system (or at least thats what I think he said) because the game might get tough. So obviously Garrett and I were looking at each other like WTF.

We arrive a good hour and a half late, walk into the gym, and see. . .maybe 8 people. 3 of them being girlfriends or female relatives sitting in the stands. Down below there is ONE semi-pro ecuadorian player, his uncle, his buddy, and this guy who kinda looks like a cross being Cheech and Chong. Apparently this was just to see if garrett and I could play on a legit semi-pro team, and needless to say we made the cut haha. I was insane tired by the second game, but was still draining shots because people here play with a girls ball. Not tryin to put ya´ll down ladies, but since the ball was way smaller it was so much easier to toss it up. Garrett was told that he was ¨very strong and had good form¨and I was ¨had very good technique and could create.¨ YEAH AMERICA.

We walk back to the semi-pro players (whose name is Miguel) house, where we have some water, talk about sports and his wife, get mauled lovingly by his dog, and listen to him play spanish songs on his acoustic while him and cheech-and-chong sang to us. It was just a really neat experience being surrounded by Ecuadorians (and Garrett) and just LIVING and being wrapped up in it all. I dont know how many opportunities one can get to do what I did last night (or other days / nights as well), so I just feel like I´ve been really blessed to do what I´m doing. Of course, I spend the time too wishing I could have certain people around to share it with me, but one day. . .

anyways I´m getting told I don´t post enough pics, so here is sort of near where we played at last night I think. . .It´s by the University of San Francisco, and this is the Plaza of San Francisco. So I assume it´s nearby. The churches in the colonial part of town here light up at night, some with vivid purple, blue, or rose colors. . .it´s gorgeous.

I´ll be doing a ¨day in the life¨ post soon, since some of you have been asking what a typical day is like. I guess I really haven´t done that yet haha, so I´ll get on it! Until next time. . .

walkin on cloud 9

So today, Eamon Greg and I decided that we would go on the Teleferico, which is this cable car system that takes you to Mt. Pichinca, one of the tallest mountains around Quito. As some of you might know, Quito is already stupid high in the air, so going up Pichinca is no small matter. We figured we´d go up, take some sweet pics, and hang out. Little did we know we were gettin ourselves into one of our coolest experiences so far.

To start off, in true Ecuadorian fashion we didn´t meet in the same place. Our taxis took us to two completely different locations and luckily we were able to meet up. . .30 minutes after we said we would. We get into the cable car with a daughter and her mother who were from NORTHERN VIRGINIA . .such a small world. Anyways, we get to the top where they have this large center for food, drinks, and small trinkets.

We decide we want to take the small path up to where we can get a better view. After about 10 minutes of walking, we were all dying because the elevation is ridiculous. I think we were 4,300 meters above sea level. . .no big deal. We get to the end of the path, and we see that it curls around more upward into more of the mountain. So whatever, we get up on it and climb.

From up top, we see the view that I´m showing you pictures of right here. It was incredible. Such a clear day. . .and the mountains had these bright purple flowers along the way too. Coming from the city, which is loud, crowded and polluted, to a place where there is absolute silence, crisp clean air, and breathtaking views really puts things into perspective. Greg, Eamon, and I were all just stunned.

And to make things even cooler, as we were takin it all in, a cloud starting flouting directly into our direction. We took some video of it coming at us (I´ll post it next), and soon enough we were engulfed by a massive cloud that just overtook our sights. It was sooooo cool. . .but then it started to drizzle. So we started to walk back. . .and then a bit more legit rain. Still walking. Then it started to hail and rain harder. Before we knew it, the rain was coming down hardcore. . .which maybe would tick some people off, but I was just thinking of how cool it was to be experiencing HAIL IN ECUADOR. That crap never happens.

We got some hot chocolate and grub and headed back down. I´ll load up the pictures eventually when I have internet that isn´t so freakin slow. But I hope you liked the pictures, and more are comin your way!

pick up ball with a side of robbery

So on tuesdays and thursdays (well, just this past tuesday and thursday but we will in the future), we all go and play a lil pick up ball at this massive park, La Carolina. Its about a 15 minute walk from my place, whereas the others have to bus it over. Thank God theres an advantage to where I live. The park itself is MASSIVE, its a place where one can run (because if you did it around the city, people would look at you like hey look at this massive toolbag), play soccer, play basketball, or vollyball.

I have to tell you a lil about soccer and vollyball here. They are BY FAR the two biggest sports. Soccer, as you could imagine, is something every south american loves. Kids are kickin around soccer balls along with 80 year old men. When I first went, I saw what appeared to be a whole team dressed in blue uniforms training hardcore. At first I thought, whoa this must be a serious bunch of guys my age ready to kick ass, because they were running around really hard and pushin it to the limit. But NO, these dudes upon closer look were around 40 - 50 years of age just truckin it. Man, I hope to be doin that when Im that age.

Vollyball is also a huge deal. They play a lil different, with 3 guys on each side and with a higher set net. When you think about it, the higher net makes absolutely no sense because Ecuadorians, for the most part, are really tiny. Im a BEAST here in this country if this gives you any idea. Anyways, people love this sport for two reasons: 1. its fun and easy to play, and 2. people looooove to gamble on who is goin to win. I saw one game where there must have been 40 to 50 people standing around watching, eating, drinking, and yelling at what they were seeing. Its kind of funny to think of dudes really kickin their own butts into gear, while other dudes are pounding beers, eating sausage, and throwin cash money down. But c'est la vie, asi es la vida, thats how it goes, etc.

Ok, back to BALLIN. So we go the first day (last tuesday) to see if we can get a pickup game. Fortunately, there are ecuadorians ballin. . .so we jump in, play for about an hour and a half, and dip out. It was fantastic. They actually arent half bad, I thought we were going to be literally like the Harlem Globetrotters but they had some semblance of a game. The second time we went (last thursday), it was a lil different. There were a few more dudes, including this one guy in black who thought he was a cross between Chris Paul and Allen Iverson. Except. . . . . .he wasnt. He kept tryin to do moves and drivin the lane through about 3-4 people and always got STUFFED. It was kind of funny to watch him struggle. What wasnt funny was near the end of the game, when my buddy Greg got his bag stolen from right under the basket. In retrospect, we didnt play it smart and put it near right in front of the court where it would have been incredibly obvious that someone was walking away with it. . .but still. 5 days in ecuador and already someone has their belongings jacked. NOT COOL.

All right, well that should do it for this entry. Until next time. . .

¨we are so lucky to be here. . .¨

Well, I saw that picture this weekend in real life. We went to the coast on friday night in a bus which was a story in itself. So we get on the bus, and more or less it is a tad bit cramped. Not too bad, I guess. But then the bus conductor puts on a movie. . .and little do we know that we are about to be shown 2 of the worst movies in the entire world, 12 rounds and the general (I think). If you dont know what these movies are, thank god because 1. John Cena is in them (if you dont know who that is, google him and laugh) and 2. they played the movies at a RIDICULOUS volume. I couldnt even really go to sleep in the second one because I heard no talking, just stuff blowing up and machine guns shooting. It was funny for the 1st 15 minutes but then youre like ok really this is stupid. When the movies were over, it started to go into an interview of how John Cena grew up. As if ecuadorians really care. So the bus ride to Puerto Lopez, which was 11 hours, kind of sucked. We got into the sleepy town around 7 in the morning on Saturday. The hostal didnt have room for us until 9 and served breakfast at 8, so they put out mattresses in the main patio for us to sit on. Imagine ecuadorians waking up and looking out their windows to see 15 white people, me, and our guide. AWESOME. We eat breakfast, put our things in our rooms, and head out to the beach in Puerto Lopez for a bit. The beach there wasnt too bad, a little dirty considering we saw a kid drop trou, go in the water, and proceeded to go to the bathroom. . .hussalin. We got in a bus and drove to Los Frailes, the badass beach I was talkin about before. Now this beach was absurd. Beautiful views, almost white sand, great water. . .I was in heaven. Until they packed us after about 2 hours and we dipped out. We then go to a museum to learn about the indigenous tribe around the area, with what was found in various archeological sites around the area. It was neat, but I was a little down about being away from the beach. Until they took us to a SULFER POOL. Now if you havent been in one, which im gonna go ahead and assume you havent, it smells like absolute ass for one. . .but apparently it does wonders to your skin. ESPECIALLY if you take the mud from the bottom and smear it all over your body, which is exactly what we all did. I looked like an extra from that movie apacolipto. Pretty cool, and it did actually feel pretty nice. So we get back to our hostal, shower up, and head out to eat dinner. I proceed to pound 2 big brewskis and a huge plate of seafood which came out to a whopping 8 bucks. We took our party to the beach, where we drank more and played the animal game. Finally, we went to a karoake bar where Garrett and Eamon became instant celebrities with their singing. All the ecuadorians were buyin em beers and askin em over and over and over what we thought of their city. After all of us busting out hotel california, we dipped out for sunday. . . which by far was the best day. After waking up early, we ate breakfast, got on a boat, and headed to La Isla de La Plata (which is considered the poor mans galapagos). We walked along incredible trails along the island offering views of the ocean, where we saw whales doing what essentially was a mating dance in the water. We also saw blue footed boobies, including one male tryin to get on a female, getting pecked at, attracting and getting another female close by, and getting hammered by the 1st female again. Finally, we ended on the island by seeing an albatros, a big ass bird which is gorgeous, endangered, and only found in la isla and in the galapagos. All throughout, we were just muttering how lucky we are to be given this opportunity. It really is amazing to see such sights and notice how blessed we are to be where were we are. We got back on the boat and went snorkling near a cave. It was my first time, and Ill be honest, I sucked hard at it. I gulped a huge amount of salt water at first, and that kind of just did it for me. I saw some neat fish, but I think I need to do more snorkling in the future to get used to it because I sure wasnt. Immediately afterward, we went whale watching. Now this was INSANE. Our boat driver got up SUPER CLOSE to the whales, where we saw them jump out of the water and crash back into it. That picture was taken by my friend Tobias, who I just met on this trip. Ill probably pepper my blog with his pictures, considering his camera is high quality badassness. Greg even got a 2 minute video, where you see the whales jump in and out 3 times. It might be the coolest thing Ive ever seen in my entire life. Afterward, we got back, ate sandwiches of peanut butter for dinner, and got on the bus back which was luckily way more spacious and didnt play atrocious movies. I know this post was insane long, but this weekend was just out of control. I think we might be going to climb a mountain this coming weekend, along with going to an indigenous market. . .we will see. Until next time. . .

Just a day in the life. . .

todos de los americanos son GRANDES

You might want to sit down for this one. Ive been takin classes in a center called Vida Verde with everyone else. Currently, Im in a class with Eamon and Phil and our teacher, who is named Martha. Now Martha is what I would probably call a little informal. For instance, the first day all we did was talk, talk, talk for 4 hours. Kind of exhausting and, well to be completely honest, annoying. We didnt really learn anything, but having the chance to talk was good.

Moving on. . .yesterday, she took us to an open air market. It was neat to go around and ask her about all these weird looking fruits. However, the plan was for her to have us talk to the vendors and then buy fruit so we could try. We didnt talk to ANY of the vendors (which was probably a good thing, considering they all looked pretty pissed off), and she didnt buy anything because Eamon was feelin under the weather. We then proceeded to talk about relationships and how Ecuadorians feel toward people from the States and vice versa. She was givin us advice on what to get girls, what to say, etc. She actually straight up asked Phil and Eamon too if they ¨liked latina girls.¨ Kinda awkward. She also called Phil´s personality cold and asked Eamon about his hair. I dont know what she was thinking, but I just chalked it up to it being the 2nd day.

Well I was totally wrong. Today Phil and Eamon walked into the classroom looking like absolute death. Phil actually left the class to yack because his stomach was feelin so bad. Martha really didnt have any idea on what to do. . .except when Eamon pulled out my shoes that he had in his luggage (dont ask). Here goes the convo. . .

Martha: Que grands estos zapados (those shoes are big)
me: bueno, son 11 y medias. . .no son tan grandes, son mas o menos tipicos (theyre 11 and a half, thats more or less the average i guess)
Martha: Bueno, yo he oido que todoooooo en los estados unidos es grande *wink* (well, i heard EVERYTHING in the usa is big)
us: . . .
me: estas diciendo sobre. . .ugh (are you talking about. . .???)
Martha: ayyy tengo un poco de verguenza. . .(oh snap Im a little embarassed)

can you believe that crap?! I mean wow. Well Phil and Eamon left early because they were feelin like butt, which left me alone with Martha. Yay. Im kind of painting her in a bad light, because honestly she is super nice and personable. . .but she might want to veer away from phallic references. Next thing you know. . .well, actually I dont even want to imagine where she could go even further.

In other news, we´re goin to one of the most beautiful beaches in Ecuador this weekend, Los Frailes. Google it and BE JEALOUS. Ill be sure to take mad pics and vids, stay tuned.

something familiar

Ok so this post will be relatively short because Im incredibly hungry and need to go back to my host moms to eat. Let me just put down a few highlights so far. . .

1. first night from the airport, I get taken to my host moms house only to be told my host family isnt around (they were at a wedding) and that I was going to sleep by myself in the apartment. No big deal. Also, my apartment is by far the farthest away from anyone. Everyone else is walking distance, I am a 10 minute bus ride.
2. The buses are crazy.
3. The altitude is something to get used to, we walked around for 2 hours around the old town part of Quito and I felt like I was an overweight old man. The town really takes your breath away in more ways than one.
4. So far, the food Ive had has been incredibly good. Lunch here is the biggest meal, which is also why I want to go home so bad to eat right now.- Lots of fruit, lots of rice, and avocado. . .im in heaven.
5. I was walking with Greg around town, and some guy yells out "WOOOOOW." I turn around and the guy points at Greg, gives me a huge smile, and then gives me a thumbs up. I guess hangin out with huge americans is a plus at times haha.
6. I had my first day of classes, where myself and 2 of my friends basically talked for 4 hours. My teacher asked us a TON of questions about the united states. . .imagine me tryin to describe the 2 houses of government and the system of representatives in spanish. In case you didnt know, Im not fluent either (although this 18 month trip will hopefully change all that), so it was pretty ridiculous / hilarious.

Ok time to eat. . .I promise Ill be sending another bigger update soon. let me know what you want to know too, and Ill make sure to find out (or at least try without insulting anyone). Until next time. . .