This is why I love 4 wheel drive

Anna and I on the top of Pichincha, please notice that our eyes are glued shut due to the cold...sexy, kinda
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This last week has once again been filled with lessons and adventures…I guess it’s a good thing I picked this fabulous third world country after all. First off, my surfing skills are improving daily due to my bus standing skills. I don’t even have to hold on to the rails. I have also been able to cross more streets…on my own. I have gotten sick a couple more times, thanks to a few more 25-cent meals. I have learned to know where I am going before I actually get into the taxi, after being dropped off mid-trip because the driver didn’t know where I wanted to go. After a short walk through a ghetto I found another kind yet creepy 60 something taxi driver that asked me to marry him (hear that parental units, a marriage proposal).

the group enjoying the cold...and the view (of fog)
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My days are pretty much filled with school and hours of bus rides. I am taking a very challenging aerobics class, where I am always 5 steps behind everyone else because I can’t understands our professor (it is not my fault, she teaches class AND talks on her cell at the same time.) Its not like I stand out at all, I am the only gringa and my professor kindly yells (screams) “ vamos mi gringita gordita” which translates to “come on my fat little white kid.” My other classes are a blur and I mostly look forward to having an espresso in the Nescafe vending machine (yes I have given in).

this is a picture of my professor lecturing....as you can see it was very foggy
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This last weekend I set out for an evening on a chiva, a sort of bus where the roof and sides have been cut out and transformed in a “party bus.” And so we packed in about in about 80 white kids and well, had a party. They handed us Ecuadorian flag straws (The Ecuadorians are good at multitasking when it comes to alcohol and being patriotic), whistles, and bottles of some hot sugar cane alcohol. To sum up the evening there were 80 drunk white kids blowing whistles and waving their Ecuadorian straws/flags as they drank their once again shady alcohol.

frozen grass on Pichincha, about as frozen solid as my toes
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The next day my alarm went off around 2.40 am as one of the other three girls in the room yelled out “I hate my life.” This was the beginning of my first volcanology excursion. The taxi picked us up late (as usual) and we headed to downtown Quito to meet our classmates. My three friends and I piled into some man’s truck and made our way to Pichincha, a volcano about 1 hour away from Quito. We soon learned that our driver was a professor at our school and spoke fluent Quichua, but most importantly had a passion for American rap. So we sped up the side of a volcano listening/blasting g-unit and p diddy. Next thing I know the doors lock and Klever, our driver, turns around admitting to us girls “I am, what do you say? lost? And so there we are, 4 gringas and one Klever lost in the countryside somewhere in Ecuador. Instead of taking the road, Klever decided to 4x4 it straight up the side. His plan worked out well, until we got halfway up the volcano. I was the first to explain to Klever that in order for the truck to actually move we needed to exit the vehicle, because I as my aerobics prof kindly put it I was a “gringita gordita.” There we were around 3 in the morning, on the side of a volcano watching Klever’s truck getting dangerously near the edge. Next thing I know we are pushing the truck in the snow and then attempting to run after the truck…..we would then jump into the truck (just imaging little miss sunshine here). We made it to the top (long after the others) with all 4 girls sitting in the bed of the truck to balance out the weight on the tires as we held on for dear life because of the sharp perpendicular angle of the truck.

view from Klever's truck as we came down pichincha
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The snow swirled around us as we walked along the crater of gaugau (which means baby in Quichua) Pichincha. I could not see one foot in front of me. I was loosing air. Out of nowhere my asthmatic friend Michelle jumped on my back and I spent the next 20 minutes trying to not fall off the side of the volcano and guessing where there was land and where there wasn’t. As my feet lost sensation the sun came up. Quito spread out below me and the fog lifted slightly. Our professor lectured, but I couldn’t listen, I was too preoccupied eating chocolates as to not pass out (at least that’s my excuse.) Our stay on the crater ended around 7 am.

looks more like Ireland then Ecuador.
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There was a short stop in a doughnut shop for some coffee, and then we headed to papallacta. We took our rightful spots in the back of the bus, began some camp songs (which didn’t catch on…but we still tried to teach the locals the lyrics). The scenery changed, we passed through Tumbaco (that’s right deek I went to your old home) and the mountains changed to waterfalls and forests. As we exited the bus, with our eyes barely opened, we bought some cheetos and set out. We crossed a thing cable bridge, and jumped right into the raging river. Next thing I know I am hip deep in mud diving in after my shoes. I abandoned the shoes and scaled up steep mud walls. We held on to roots for dear life and in the distance one could hear the gringos screaming as they slid into the river. Next thing I know our professor is down, so we are leading the way. The Oregon kids are pretty good with forests, but this was something all together different. The rainforest is no pine tree farm. The rain came down harder and after 2 hours of making our path through the jungle without a machete we wanted to die. As we sang beyonce’s “to the left, to the left” to guide the others we came to a wall. Our professor hobbled out of the forest, we all saw him laughing hysterically as he pointed to the prefect trail that the locals have been using for years. We had been fooled. We got to the bus, covered it mud the best we could and made our way to the hot springs where we relaxed and finally realized that in one day we had almost died pushing a car up the side of a volcano and then fought our way through the Ecuadorian jungle.

my new pet, and I shall call him vaca (alissa, what movie is that from)
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And so more lessons were learned; never trust an Ecuadorian to drive you up the side of a volcano and if you want an excuse to eat chocolate, blame altitude.