Cuenca

This past weekend I went with two of my friends to a city in Southern Ecuador, Cuenca. It was pretty fun--we got to take a plane and everything. Cuenca is the third largest city in the country with 400.000 people. It has a well-preserved colonial part of town with many nice churches. Here is a street in Cuenca. You can kind of see the two blue domes on the left. Those are the trademark of Cuenca.




















Cuenca was nice because it was kind of low-key compared to Quito. Much more relaxed. We walked around and looked at all the churches and streets and everything. And we had some delicious milkshakes! Cuenca was made even better by the fact that it is where I found my second stick-your-head-in-it thing. Success!!!




















This is me as a Chola Cuencana. That is the name of an indigenous group that lives in and around Cuenca. This is their traditional dress. We found this at a place that sells Panama Hats. Panama hats are actually from Ecuador. They are called sombreros de paja toquilla. They are associated with Panama because when people were working on the Panama Canal they wore the hats, but they originally come from Ecuador. The hats come in various quality levels, depending on how fine the weave is.
Almost better than a stick-your-head-in-it thing is getting to dress up. There was a place where we got to dress up like the Chola Cuencana. The guy laughed at us because we don't look like them--we are way too white. But all that dressing up gets pretty exhausting.















In the actual city of Cuenca they have some ruins leftover from the Incas. These were more impressive than Rumicucho. And attached to the ruins was a park with llamas and a variety of exotic birds. There was also a museum there which had some shrunken heads on display. Pretty cool. Here are the ruins.















About two hours from Cuenca is another site where there are really good ruins. The place is called Ingapirca. We got a tour of the place, and it's quite fascinating. Here is a picture of the temple of the sun. The Incas worshipped the sun, Inti. You can't see it that well in this picture, but the stones are almost exactly the same height. The Incas didn't use cement, they just made the stones the same height and stacked them on top of each other.















From Cuenca we went to Loja, another town about 5 hours south of Cuenca by bus. They don't like emos there. (This says "No more emos").














We saw other things about emos around town. It was kind of weird. They were definitely very pro si on the consitution though. And in case you were wondering, the constitution passed with about 70% yes. Since this past weekend was the weekend they voted, the "ley seca" (dry law) was in place. Liquor stores and bars closed, and no restaurants served alchohol. It was pretty quiet in town on Friday and Saturday since the clubs were all closed.

Also in Loja we went to the zoo. It was interesting. You could get really close to the animals. Here's the giraffe.




















One of the main reasons we went to Loja was to try some cuy, a delicacy here. Cuy is guinea pig. We each got a half cuy. It came with potatoes and salad. I liked it. It's just a lot of work.















It was a successful trip. We definitely got to see a lot.

On another note, last night I was at a cafe in town, and on the tv was an ad for visiting Colombia. There were beautiful pictures of the country and all of that like a regular tourism commercial thing. At the end there was a sort of slogan, and it translates to: The only risk is that you will want to stay. I found that quite humorous. Anyway, I will leave you with that. Have a wonderful day!!

Otavalo

This weekend I went with the international students from PUCE on a trip to Otavalo, a town north of Quito that is famous for its artisan market. The indigenous community that lives in the area (Otavalenos) makes all sorts of crafts and then sells them at the market. You have to bargain with them for the best price, which can be tedious or fun, depending on your mood.

The place we stayed was super nice. It was a little community of cabins around San Pablo, a lake in Otavalo. It was gorgeous. Here I am at lunch with my yummy dessert in the restaurant. The restaurant is practically in the lake, so it made for a really nice view.



















Here's a man holding a rooster.



















The hotel had some pretty sweet amenities. There was a fireplace in our room, which we made use of. And in the back yard, a sweet tire swing/zip line contraption where you could zoom from one side to the other in a tire on a cable. Here I am with a little girl after having gone for a ride.












Don't worry, we let her have a turn too. We even helped her. It was pretty sweet. There was also mini golf, so we took advantage of that. It was definitely one of the hardest courses I've played, rivaled only by that one in northern Minnesota with the huge mosquito and such. This one didn't have grass, just cement. And there were many water obstacles. And, of course, for one of the holes there was a little cage with various fowl. Right in the middle of the hole.












On Sunday we went to a waterfall, Peguche. It was pretty.




















After the waterfall we went back to the cabins for lunch. The food at the restaurant was amazing. They served excellent juice, and the main dishes were very tasty. Apparently other people enjoy it too, because the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, was there. With the vote for the constitution only a week away, he must be relaxing a bit before the last big push to vote si. How nice of him to pose for a picture with us. Here I am with my buddy Raf.












(I know I'm not looking at the camera. There were too many pictures being taken at once. Oops)
We got back around 5:00, and then we went out for sushi to celebrate a birthday. It was a very enjoyable weekend!!

Ruins

Hello! Hope everyone is well. Thanks for the birthday wishes. I had a nice birthday. My friends surprised me with a cake and trick candles and everything. It was really sweet!! I played cards with my friends at night, and that was fun too.

I know I haven't updated in a while, but here goes. On Saturday we went to see some ruins. The place is called Rumicucho. The adventure was probably more of a story than the ruins themselves, but it was pretty fun. Here is a pic of the ruins. It's the snakey wall thing on the mountain.











Here I am at the top of some ancient steps. I'm trying to look like some powerful ancient ruler or something. Can't you just imagine it?



















There were some pretty amazing views. Here is my friend on the edge of the hill.











In other news, I almost got to meet the president of Ecuador. He was in the building where I was having class, talking to some director of the school or something. We waited for a while to see if he would come out to his car, but we didn't see him. Some of my friends got to meet him and take pictures and talk to him and such. Hopefully he'll come around again.

That's about it for now. Que te vaya bien! (Hope all goes well with you!)

Because you were probably wondering...

Como va? September treating you well? I don't have any major events to report, but I thought I would post some random pictures of things around Quito. First of all, here is my sweet bus stop, Jipijapa:




















And I'm sure you wanted to know what Ecuador license plates look like. So here it is:








Pretty dull, I know. But it does the job.

So every day, except maybe Sunday, people are learning to drive. Driving here is a little crazy. They use their horns a lot. I haven't seen a car/truck/bus with automatic transmission yet. There's a driving school very near the IES center, so if you look out the window at the right time, you can see all the student drivers lining up to go for their lesson. I tried to capture it on the camera, but it's a little tricky to see. The first two blue ones in the line and at least the majority of the white cars are with the driving school. I thought it was kind of funny.




















The fruit here is amazing. I've tried lots of fruits I didn't even know existed. There is also lots of wonderful fruit juices. One of my favorite new juices is that of the Tree Tomato (Tomate del arbol). Here is a picture of the fruit (with a Sacajawea dollar coin FOR SCALE!!)












Speaking of those dollar coins...
If you were wondering where they all went since we don't really use them, I have the answer. They are all here in Ecuador. They use them a lot. Kind of weird, but I'm glad they are being put to use.
The name that nobody came up with for the picture from last post is culpeo. It is the Spanish term for an Andean fox. Good eye to all those who saw it though!

Finally, a little preview. On Saturday I went to a futbol game. Ecuador versus Bolivia. It was really fun! And we won! I'm hoping to maybe have some pictures from the game, but for now, I just have a picture of the stadium. Or about 1/3 of the stadium. It's the blue, yellow and red thing. It's within walking distance of my house, which is very convenient. Hope to have more later, but that's it for now. Chao!