Hello, everyone! Hope you are doing well! I am doing just fine. So today marks the halfway point of my days in Ecuador. It’s all downhill from here. It’s crazy that it’s already been so long.
Well, this past weekend I went to Papallacta, natural hot springs located in the colder, upper parts of the Andes. Emily, Samantha, and I hopped on a bus and were relaxing in the hot springs about three hours later. There were about twenty different pools of various temperatures and a really cold river. Later we got massages at the Papallacta spa, but only because they were such a good deal. Pretty hard to pass up. Anyway, Samantha left early so Emily and I were on our own for the evening. There was a really nice hotel in Papallacta but it was super expensive (the price of typical hotel in the States) so Emily and I stayed in a hostel and pretended we were staying in the hotel. We had dinner there and chilled in their lounge until we were ready to head back to our hostel to sleep. I think we confused the hotel workers when we left at 10pm after being snuggled up on their couches all night.
We returned to Quito just in time for the Liga v. Quito Deportivo fútbol game. Both teams are from Quito and it was one of the games in the “Classic Series.” It was intense. The stadium is just a block away from my house (kind of like living in Wrigleyville) and everything was just crazy. Emily and I scalped some tickets and bought some Liga jerseys (a mistake, I didn’t realize that I lived in a Quito Deportivo house). Just getting into the stadium was intense. Emily and I were cutting it close on time and were unaware that all of the entrances into the stadium, save one, close once the game begins. People were going crazy.
Do you know that scene from Titanic when the ship is sinking and the crewmen, scooping coal in the lower levels of the ship, are freaking out because all of the doors are shutting and trapping them? This was EXACTLY like that (minus the sinking ship). It was chaos. People were frantically running from door to door pounding and screaming to be let in. People in the stadium were lowering ropes for bags and buckets of beer. Police on horses. Fire extinguishers (but no fire). It was a madhouse. Eventually everyone got in through the one door that was open and made their way to their unassigned seats. Just our luck, another near-riot broke out in our section of the stadium. The fight was so big, the entire stadium could see it (we had friends on the other side of the stadium). People all around us were fighting and pop bottles were being hurled so that they would explode all over whoever they landed near. I was legitimately worried at one point. Ecuadorian SWAT team members came and calmed the situation. Regardless of the commotion, the game was fun. Liga won.
The next day was Sunday so I went to mass with Marcela. She arrives to every mass a half hour early to say the rosary and she prayed the rosary aloud for us both. After mass we went to the hospital (the best in Quito) to visit Daniela and her new baby (not the Daniela who is my host brother’s girlfriend but the Daniela we hosted the baby shower for). He was lovely and doing well. Afterwards, we met up with some of Marcela’s friends to go out to lunch for Fanesca, a traditional Ecudaorian Catholic meal typically served during Holy Week but because it’s so delicious you can now get it throughout Lent. It was really, really good. It was kind of like soup and stew, but cheesy and it had all sorts of stuff in it. Way too complicated for me to ever make though. Que lástima.
I am on the hunt for a rope to climb (I have to climb a rope to pass Air Assault in August) so I visited Quito’s sport complex, Concentración Deportiva de Quito, where all of Ecuador's Olympic athletes for nearly all sports train, including squash, speed skating, and jujitsu. Although they didn’t have exactly what I needed, they got me set up on some climbing structures and gave me all sorts of tips. They recommended I talk to the military high school here in Quito. Not sure how I feel about that. We’ll see how desperate I get.
Other than that, I’ve mainly been going to classes. I can’t get out of Quito this weekend because I have way too much homework. Club de Andinismo didn’t have any one day excursions going on this weekend so it looks like I’ll just be doing some mini-excursions around the city in between working on my two presentations, essay, project, and studying for an exam. Joy.
Anyhow, here are some FACTOIDS!
· The Condor, a vulture and Ecuador’s national bird, is near extinction. There are only somewhere between 17 and 27 remaining in the world (all along western South America). Needless to say, they are extremely rare. But I saw one when I was in Papallacta! Pretty cool.
· At the fútbol game, after the ref made a call that angered Liga fans, the men behind us began repeatedly screaming, “Homosexual! Homosexual!” at the ref.
· Rebe’s annual salary is $3,740. Marcela told me; I didn’t ask. Rebe’s monthly salary is a below-poverty line weekly salary in the States. Things might be cheaper here, but the cost of living in Quito is definitely not that much cheaper.
· I achieved my goal of winning all of the records for Buscaminas (Minesweeper) on all of the computers (6-7) in the IES computer lab. Sadly, it didn’t even take that long. I played way too much Minesweeper in middle/high school. But in my defense it’s been years since I’ve played.
· Ecuador has only ever won two Olympic medals, one Gold and one Silver, both by the same man, Jefferson Pérez. He won them in the speed walking event. Pérez is a national hero. He can walk twelve miles at a sub 6.5 min mile. Embedding was disabled on the best YouTube clip I found but here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2urNVmKnEaQ Check it out! His skillz are ridiculous. This isn't his Olympic win but after this 20km race his whole body seized up and he had uncontrollable spasms. Extreme.
Well, I should probably get to work! Blogging is so just much more enjoyable than psychology projects, though. Meh. ¡Hasta luego!
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