Mothers' Day Thanks (and extra photos)

When I started to spend more and more time away from my family as I traveled and went to school in another part of the country, I started to recognize more of the traits that I’ve developed that reflect the people whose presence in my life has impacted the woman I’ve become. I see my stubbornness, my passion, my desire to learn, my ability to fall in love with a place, my appreciation of the simpler beauties of life, among other things. I realized that most of these are traits that I’ve learned or that have been fostered in my soul from the start through the help of the people around me.

This Mothers’ Day, I saw even more than usual the influence of the women in my life. Whether friends or professors, grandmothers or aunts, cousins or great-aunts, my host mother or my birth mother, family friends or my best friend, the women in my life have all contributed to my development. As I travel and find my way around, I can see how fortunate I am to have such wonderful, strong women to support and encourage me.

Last night, my friend and I had our going away party in Quito. As I prepare to leave Quito, I just wanted to say “thank you” to all of the wonderful women in my life. You have each been so important to me, and I cannot express my gratitude enough. 

Here are some random photos, that don't have to do with Mothers' Day, but show a few more of my experiences:

Dogs in Centro Historico in Flying Vee formation in front of Church.

Making dinner for the goodbye party

Chao to us

The three guys and Jenna and I

Because we're wonderful

Graffiti in front of my apartment. "Assault zone"

Johnny and I

Quilotoa

This weekend, I went to Quilotoa with the same friend who accompanied me to Baños last weekend. After catching a bus from Quitumbre to Latacunga, and then from Latacunga to Zimbahua (where we were actually transferred to another bus because of the traffic and construction ahead), we grabbed a taxi/truck from there to Quilotoa, getting us there around 4:30pm. After we found a hostel that included dinner and breakfast (it’s not exactly a happening town), we walked across the street to see the crater lake, which is a stunning lake of a depth of approximately 820ft in the top of a volcano that is technically still active, but which hasn’t erupted in 300 years. We took the short hike down to the lagoon itself and then back up, before going to rest up (and get warm—I forgot that 12,000ft at night with humidity is basically freezing).

On Sunday morning, we got up around 8 and started our hike around 8:15am. I still don’t actually know how far the hike is, but it took us 4 hrs and 20 minutes to complete. The view is simply stunning. Not only can you see the lake, but you can look out around the crater at the sierra and the surrounding villages. We passed one family taking their goats and sheep and llamas to feed down within the crater, but other than that we were pretty much the only people doing the hike. It isn’t as difficult as other ones, but it is still a workout, with repeated ups and downs. The trip was definitely worth it. I chose to visit Quilotoa instead of attempting a 17er and a 19er, since those just didn’t appeal to me as much. And I can honestly say that I am happy with my decision, and I can rest easy, knowing that I made the right choice for me by circling the crater instead.

Baños (hasta Puyo)

This weekend, I went with a friend to Baños. Unfortunately, my camera decided to reject the memory card so there aren’t many photos. However, I did manage to do several fun things while there!

First, I went puenting. Puenting is basically jumping off of a bridge on a cable of about 70m into a canyon and swinging. There is no bungee, nor is there a safety waiver. Basically, you pay $20 and get harnessed up and proceed to jump off a small platform. For me, the conversation on the platform went (in Spanish):

                “Are you ready?”

                “No.”

                “Okay, 1, wait, no?”

                “Yes I’m ready just count.”

                “1, 2, 3!”

All went well (as you can see below). To get me back to solid ground, they lowered the rope from the bridge slowly so that a kid with another rope could throw that to you to reel you back in. And, like any good college student, I encouraged my travel buddy to also jump off the bridge.

After puenting, we went up the river a bit and found a ziplining place. The first zipline hurls you about 800m across the river and into a little gorge, and there’s significant doubt at any point that you will be able to stop before you hit the stone wall. Luckily, again, everything worked just fine. From there, we had to take a cable bridge (which is tiny and you can see through it and it moves a lot) across a small part of the gorge. Then, we used the clips to attach ourselves to another cable and climb the wire steps up the rock wall to get to the next line. As we were climbing, one of the little rocks fell on my head (I had a helmet, don’t worry), so I basically decided that I should just get moving and off that rock face. Then we took the final short zipline back across the river. From there, we walked back into town.

Given that the original reason for going to Baños was to do a bike ride to Puyo, we decided to embark on that adventure on Sunday morning. We rented bikes for $5 each, with helmets and a repair kit. The ride is about 57km, which ends up being around 35 miles. Although the trip is mostly downhill, there are some brief inclines that made me question my decision to participate. We’d heard that the trip would take between 5 and 8 hours depending on the length of stops along the way. Apparently, we weren’t stopping a lot, because we finished the ride in 4 hours. That being said, 4 hours in the sun at the equator, having forgotten to apply sunscreen to my arms and legs, means that I have a solid burn, but it was completely worth it.