On Friday I left my house at 5:50a to catch a bus to Otavalo for my interview and to meet my placement family. Besides being way too early for anything, the trip was uneventful. Transporter 3, followed by Transporter 2, were on the bus television in Spanish. Judging by the action, I wouldn't have understood even in English. As requested, the driver dropped our early bird group of four off at a gas station where we called Nate's host parents, Marcela and Carlos, to come pick us up and drive us to our interviews. Nothing says "good morning" like being picked up in a big white van at a gas station by complete strangers.

I was first to my interview at CEMOPLAF (Centro Médico de Orientación y Planificación Familiar [Medical Center for Family Orientation and Planning]): it's going to be great. Dra. Quelal et al are going to have me working in the clinic as well as sending me to talk to high schools.

After the other interviews I got to meet my host mother, Tania. Her husband, Mario, is the mayor of Otavalo. Nice. She showed me Peguche, the village where they live (98% indigenous, mostly artisans - I can hear looms working from my house) and then showed me the house, pictures of the kids, and the dogs, Pancho and Laika. She was going back to Quito anyway so no bus for that afternoon.

Saturday morning I headed to the bus station with Brittany and Francisco to Mindo, a tourist town two hours northwest of Quito. When we arrived, we checked in at Hostal Rubby...

Pronounced "Ruby"

...and got ready for lunch and adventure. We spent the afternoon on a canopy zip line across the forest. Fun, but a greater lesson was learned: bug repellant, even "Deep Woods," only lasts for about two hours. Mindo bugs are not normal. I don't know if they were tiny biting flies or a terrible crossbreed between mosquitoes and lesser demons, but wherever they bit began to bleed. Currently I have eleven bites in two square inches plus others all along my legs and back.

We got back to town in time for relaxing and showers, then had dinner at a Venezuelan restaurant. Although good, Mindo is yet another town that sees no need to keep streetlights on for longer than fifteen minutes after sundown. We got back to the hostel with time to sit on the porch and enjoy not doing homework.

Sunday morning, we went to wade in the river to soothe our bites and enjoy nature before heading back into the smog of Quito. Once we checked out and had lunch we got on the worst bus back to Quito. Everyone felt sick to some extent, but we made it back within an hour and a half. Sleep-deprived, I did my Spanish homework and was in bed by nine.

Yesterday I went with Alberto and Amanda to Papallacta, a small town an hour and a half from Quito that supplies all potable water. We went to Termas de Papallacta, the local hot springs, to swim in the morning (we left before 6:30a). After a morning of swimming, relaxation, and almost fainting twice, we went to lunch at Don Wilson's where we had an enormous meal of chicken soup, boiled potatoes, rice and veggies, fried trout, and cheesecake with naranjilla juice. On the way back to Quito we stopped at a roadside stand for some cheese and asked for directions to a trout farm. Well, we found exactly what we sought...

Completely legitimate

Please take another look at the sign. It says 100m. It does not mention the 80 degree slope nor the plank and cable bridge over a ravine.

Alberto and Amanda crossing the ravine

Surprisingly we made it. A dry, biting wind blew across the pools of trout once we arrived. A middle-aged man wearing a wool cap and yellow rubber boots let us through the gate so we could pick our fish. We settled on ten eight-month-old trout and the man waded into a pool with a net to pick them out. His wife helped him out. She was also dressed entirely in wool. Smart.

Once all ten trout were in a plastic milk crate the couple took them down to a nearby stream. I knew at this point that they would be killing the fish because, well, that's what is to be done with fish. The woman drew a knife from her pocket and I stood by to watch her decapitate the fish. That would be just too easy. Instead, the man pulled out a length of PVC pipe to bludgeon the fish (which, by the way, doesn't work). The couple subsequently began slicing and gutting the fish, feeding the entrails to their two dogs. They rinsed the fish in the stream and, surprise, the fish still won't die. Even out in the air, on the ground, without the majority of their organs and after a firm blow to the head, these fish won't die. Fresh fish, indeed.

Sensible shoes are necessary for crossing ravines and navigating trout ponds

Last night, Santiago drove the carpool. This meant we found our way to somebody's house for a birthday party, Tokyo-drifted all the way to Parque La Carolina, wound up next to a different park waiting for a salsa club to open, scrapped that idea, hopped in a cab, showed up at a pirate party in La Zona, walked around, ended up in a rave, then finished the night on a rooftop patio before grabbing another taxi and heading home. Now there's the issue of actual work to be done, including an essay and track-specific reading for tomorrow when we split into our concentration groups.

Michita, Luis and some students on the trolé

La virgen del Panecillo

Monument to liberty outside the presidential palace

I have been back from scenic and terrifying Otavalo for not even a day yet. We went directly from our city tour to a rush hour bus where some members of our group were hanging onto backpacks and poles barely two feet from an open door on the bus. We climbed aboard an already moving bus marked "Otavalo" and finally relaxed for two hours.

We arrived in the town of Otavalo at about 6pm. By this point it was just about dark and for some strange reason many Otavaleños turn off every single light. Including municipal street lights. We decided to discuss our plans in the single remaining light of a bakery as a man with a stocking over his head strolled by. Nine of us decided to keep with the plan of heading to a hostel up in the hills while the other eight decided to stay in town and enjoy the music festival.

It took three taxis to carry us to La Luna through dark and winding stone roads. After we surprisingly left the taxis with all of our organs still inside, we were greeted by three great dane-bull mastiffs behind an imposing iron gate. One of the hostel owners let us in and led us to our cabin before they served dinner. La Luna was quite the pleasant surprise after our in-town experiences. The main building looked like some kind of hobbit house and rolling hills with grazing horses and cows surrounded the property.

The main building at La Luna

My new friend

When we awoke the next morning we took pictures of the landscape and monstrous dogs, laid in the hammocks around the main building, then left for an adventure after breakfast. We used a hand-drawn map to navigate goat paths and muddy fields to find a magnificent waterfall. Some of us went into and under the frigid waters while others were content to sit on the rock behemoths surrounding the cascade.

We fell into a vortex and wound up in Tuscany

The waterfall

Francisco and me before we lost all feeling in our skin

After check-out we headed into town to see the market and have lunch. The market was much to big to see in one day and carrying our backpacks slowed us down, but some still managed to find bargains. After we had our fill of Otavalo, three of us hopped on a passing bus back to Quito.

Last night Santiago took me out for the best hot dog in the world at Los Hotdogs de González Suárez. It was a foot-long hot dog on a split piece of bread with onions, ketchup, mustard, crushed potato chips, and pineapple jelly. It's probably for the best that I don't have a car and can't go there for every meal.

Snow-capped Corazón from across the city after a rainy night

When we awoke Saturday we ate our breakfast, enjoyed some more free time, then sat down for a lecture on the positioning of the equator and Incan knowledge. Since we were so close to the equator, magnetic fields could be observed merely feet apart using metal rods and an egg could be balanced on a nail. After lunch we boarded the bus for Quito.

When I returned to the house I met my house brother, Santiago. We watched the Ecuador-Mexico soccer game then drove to La Zona with his girlfriend so that I could better know the city. Tomorrow begins actual classes because apparently our orientation activities didn't count.

The group at CIMAS upon arrival on Tuesday

El Pichincha in the afternoon

Comin' down the mountain

Straight outta Sarasota

Morning fog at El Encanto

Balancing egg on a nail

What.

Tomorrow is the first excursion and, thankfully, the end of orientation week. It's not that I'm not enjoying the city or meeting new people, but orientation of any kind is marked by hours of speeches and pounds of handouts (for this reason I have no photos to share yet). We leave for San Miguel de los Bancos, a riverside ecological preserve, at 6am and return Saturday at 5:30pm to enjoy a day of team building and nature exploration.