Just your average fin de semana

My weekends around here technically start Wednesday...but I'll skip the details. Saturday morning a few of my friends and I took off to Mindo, a quiet little town about 2 hours north of Quito famous for fun outdoor adventures. We bought a tour package when we got there to go hiking and later tubing. First, we all climbed into the back of a pickup truck and SPED along this bumpy, windy dirt road, which was a sport in itself. It reminded me of riding in Tim's Jeep, only faster and standing up. After about a 15 minute drive we arrived at a little cable car that took us across the valley. The view was great, high above the trees as you can see in the pic above (that was a decent sized stream!)

From the other side we hiked to a few cascadas (waterfalls) and jumped in the freezing water. Mindo is technically rainforest, although it's not exactly tropical. A lot of the leaves are gigantic, and there are plenty of ferns, moss, and vines. We didn't see any wildlife aside from some big red ants. There are 7 waterfalls in total on the hike but some of the girls were catching a bus back to Quito later in the day so we didn't have time to see all of them. The ones we went to were small but very pretty and tranquil.

After hiking back to the cable car we hopped into the truck again and sped off to the river to go tubing. The river was about as wide as the Shetucket or Willimantic, shallow and fast. We were on a round raft that consisted of 8 big round black tubes tied together. Two guides came with us to maneuver around all the rocks in the river. It was SO much fun, I want to go again during rainy season when there's more water and more rapids! Much different from floating down the Shetucket on pool floats. =)

4 of the girls went back to Quito Saturday night so they could go on a trip with the hiking club at our universidad on Sunday, but my friend Kathy and I decided to stay. We got beds in a quiet little hostel in town right next to a small river. It was basically a roof and some walls, a few windows but mostly open and airy. The kitchen area (see picture) was outside and unenclosed. It was a huge difference from Quito with gates and high walls topped with glass to keep out "undesirables." [Bree, punctuation inside quotation marks? Juggling 2 languages is killing my grammar.]

On Sunday after breakfast we headed back up the hill for our next fun activity hundreds of meters above the trees. Ziplining was AMAZING. We went on 10 different lines zig-zagging over the canopy. I wasn't scared at all, to the point where I was thinking, Shouldn't I be scared? A little? Oh well!
That's me!!====>>>>
You could go by yourself just leaning backwards standard issue, or with a guide doing the "mariposa" (upside down) or "superman" (hanging from your back, self explanatory). The guides were very nice and told us about some of the flora and fauna, pointing out medicinal plants and a kind of palm tree that's endangered because people chop them down for Palm Sunday. Anyway, if and WHEN Tim and the Johnson kids visit we are definitely going ziplining! I can't wait to jump off bridges in Baños...just kidding Mom.

From ziplining we walked back to town and stoppped at a little organic coffee plantation. It was cool to see the coffee plants and how the beans look before they're roasted, plus a free sample at the end. We went to this great juice bar too with swings for chairs and 15 different frutas to choose from.

I finally got home to Quito around 8:30, exhausted and ready for dinner and bed. Instead I was greeted by a chaotic bilingual chatter from the dining room. Ibis's husband's brother, his wife, their son and his wife were all visiting from the U.S., and a few relatives from Quito were there as well. The brother has been living in Baltimore for about 20 years and speaks perfect English and his wife speaks minimal Spanish. The son was born in the states and understands some Spanish but hardly speaks it, and his wife doesn't either. Everyone was talking and translating from one language to another. A few times Vicente (the brother) would be in the middle of a story and say "Wait, am I speaking English or Spanish?/Hablaba inglés o español?" The funny thing is that I couldn't even remember. It was fun to talk to people from the U.S. and hear about their family. It just seemed strange to me that I could understand the older relatives but their son couldn't, and he's half Ecuadorian.

After a long, exciting weekend it's back to classes for the week! My life is tough. Here's a link to more pics! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2328613&id=9031237&l=8e98c4b96c


Oh yea...did I mention I spent less than $70 all weekend?