Saturday March 13

Our bus ride back to Quito on Friday seemed like it took FOREVER. When we left the bus station around 1:30, they were playing "The Final Destination" dubbed over in Spanish and one of the screens was directly above our seats so it was super loud, even when I had headphones in. But, I read The Giver which was nice because I've started that book so many times and never finished it, so it was nice to finally read it cover to cover. When the movie was finished I enjoyed the ride much more thoroughly. When we took the bus to Atacames the first time it was dark out, but now it was daytime, and the landscape here really takes your breath away. I've never been in the middle of mountains so high and valleys so low, and the mountains I've seen have been either desert or snow-covered. These mountains were so lush they seemed to draw me in, it's indescribable, I stared out the window for hours. When it finally got dark and I lost the comfort of my scenery, I started getting a little anxious and just wanting to be in Quito, so I listened to the album that never gets old and never fails to make me calm, Give Up by The Postal Service. Finally, we got to Quito around 8 and were dropped at this huge bus terminal where we found a much-needed ATM. I called my mom to say hi, we grabbed a Coca-Cola, and found a taxi to take us to our hotel, Hostal la Carolina. We checked in, got online, Skyped Seth with a terrible internet connection at the time, and passed out.

Today, we got up in hopes of finding breakfast. When we went downstairs, we were told that it was included with the room, so we sat down in the small restaurant at the hotel and immediately were served eggs, bread with a jam-like condiment, coffee (they pour hot milk into your cup, then you add the grounds like they're instant), and a drink I believe is popular here but I can't remember the name of which is sort of like a limeade.

We then walked down to the mall which was about 4 blocks. Kevin wanted a hat and we were unsuccessful in finding one he liked, but he did get a Whopper from Burger King, which was the only thing we got at the mall (he said it cured his homesickness). But, on the way home, we stopped to look at a movie store (they were obviously pirated) and we bought 6 movies for $10, then watched Ninja Assassin which was intense and we loved it. We might be going back there, so if you're reading this and you want us to get you a movie, let us know which one!

After being a little lazy and watching the movie, we went to Plaza Fosh which has been dubbed "Gringolandia" because it's apparently a popular spot for local white people and tourists. We forgot the camera, but are planning on going again before we leave Quito, so I'll get photos then. There was a small market with handmade items in the middle of many bars, restaurants, lounges, etc. so we sat down at one called "Dragonfly" and had some nachos and Pilsner. We looked around the market a little bit after that, then sat down at a bar called "Chelsea's" watched a little soccer and had some good conversation with my apple mojito and Kevin's long island. After a two-dollar, seven (or so) minute cab ride, we were back at the hotel and ordered a pepperoni pizza (they don't really use tomato sauce here) and watched Crazy Heart, starring Jeff Bridges, and it was absolutely an amazing movie. Goodnight!

Thursday March 11

Last night we ordered some food from the restaurant at the resort called Mogli’s (like from the Jungle Book), again without having a clue what we were ordering. It was called Mixto and it ended up being a sort of chicken fried rice with different seasonings on it and plantain (if you haven’t had plantain before, is basically like a cooked banana, but it tastes better than it sounds, or looks).

Today was our last day at Green 9 Resort so we’re leaving Same tomorrow morning to take a bus back to Quito. We slept in and packed all of our stuff today so we won’t have to do it in the morning. We’re both pretty tired and not really looking forward to traveling tomorrow because we don’t know where we’re staying yet and it is a little exhausting to be on a bus that long. We also have been daydreaming about the food we miss from back home; things like homemade salsa and buffalo wings (or anything really spicy, haven’t had that here). Kevin said he misses his guitars a lot, but he mostly misses Seth. But even though we miss our family, friends, and conveniences of home, we are both looking forward to getting back to Quito for a few days and even more excited to meet up with the Hands for Humanity group and get to Portoviejo to start working with the kids! Alright, time for bed

Wednesday March 10

El cielo es azul! When I woke up today it was about 9am and the sun was shining brighter than it has since I’ve been here. Kevin was still sleeping so I went and used the internet for a little while, had to send a few quick emails and got to Facebook chat with Jeanine (Kevin’s mom) which was nice! Then I went back to the condo, Kevin woke up, I threw on my bathing suit and grabbed the sunblock because I didn’t want to miss the rays. We went to the beach for a few hours and it was nice and hot, the water is warm here too. A few guys were trying to surf but the waves aren’t very big so their attempt didn’t last very long. There are butterflies everywhere here and on the beach there are little crabs that scuttle around and poke in and out of holes in the sand. It’s about one o’clock now and we’re going to grab some lunch, I’ll let you know how it goes!

So we went to get lunch and ordered something to share, Arroz de Cameron, and we had no idea what it was when we ordered it. It ended up being rice with shrimp and seasoned with a few peppers, with some plantain on top. It was pretty good, cost about $8 and was more than both of us could finish. We hung out with our amigos at the bar on the beach and watched Jet Li’s “Fearless” voiced over in English, but subtitled in Spanish so all of us could understand it.

There is some sort of light coral colored lizard that keeps poking out from behind a frame in the living room of our place.

Tuesday March 9

Last night we hung out with some of the locals that work at the resort, there are 4 guys that work at the bar/restaurant on the beach: Daniels (22), Roosevelt (37), Jose (28), and Bimba (16). Bimba is his nick name, it means “lips” in Spanish. Roosevelt speaks English pretty well and his girlfriend Tina was here too; she’s from Slovenia and also speaks English pretty well. We were the only people in the place, and had a blast talking to them and despite the language barrier we had amazing conversations about life, love, and happiness.

 Jose, me, Roosevelt

Bimba, Daniels, Roosevelt, Jose, Tina (and Kev of course)

Jose makes the most beautiful drinks, with the most fresh pineapple, coconut, strawberries, oranges, etc. and he also really loves “bailar” so we salsa danced to their favorite music. We brought the guitar down to the beach so Kevin played some music for them, and I burned them a couple CDs of music that we like. We all agreed on loving Bob Marley and we watched a tribute DVD on the TV they have in the bar. For snacks we ate “salchipapas” which is basically deep fried sausage and potatoes (french fries, I guess) and it was delicious.

When we woke up this morning it was overcast and had poured all night long so some water leaked into our living room and the entire pool had been overflowed. Throughout the entire day they’ve been pumping all of the water out of the pool because it got so dirty, and the pump they’re using is insanely loud. Our condo is right next to the pool so it was a little bothersome, but it’s 9pm now and they finally shut it off. We wanted to watch movies again today but something must have been damaged with either the rain or the amount of electricity the pump requires because all of the TVs in the resort went out. So today we took a nice long walk on the beach, said hi to our friends, listened to music, and bought a pack of playing cards to play the one and only card game we can remember the rules to.

Kevin thinks I use way too much bug spray, but he just complained about mosquitoes flying around him.

Monday March 8

I finally used the internet for the first time today. They don’t have wireless anywhere around our resort that I’m aware of, but they let me use the (only) computer at their check in desk at the resort. I was only online for about 10 minutes, but good thing, because my mom was starting to freak (rightfully so) since we hadn’t had contact in about 4 days, since we left the comfort of Robbie and Joanna’s house to attempt to make it to our resort without complications, and I thought I’d have the internet every day here. But it was nice to be able to respond to my mom’s emails, and then to be on Facebook for a minute. My sister Ellen was online so I got to share a little bit with her and got an update from little Ben (he wanted to tell me that he was eating a cookie).

Anyways, yesterday we basically just slept in, went to the beach, had an amazing esalada de fruita con helado (a huge fruit salad with ice cream for $3) from the bar on the beach, along with a couple of the local beers, Club and Pilsner.

Basically, the rest of the day consisted of relaxation. I made some pasta for dinner, the only pasta sauce that Kevin could find at the tiny market was basically Ketchup, and we’ve deducted that they don’t do a lot with tomato products here, but Kevin liked it. We found a TV station that was playing movies in English that were just subtitled in Spanish (everything else was voiced-over). So, we watched the movie Bad Boys and made popcorn.

 ketchup crap.

Not planning on doing a whole lot today, just got some cereal and milk from the store, I don’t find it super delicious, but better than nothing and Kev likes it. Oh yeah, and yesterday someone gave us a fake five dollar bill with our change, and we didn’t notice until we tried to buy something and the girl at check out told us it was “falso”. Really, who makes fake fives?

Saturday March 6

We don’t have any internet connection right now, so I’m writing this hoping that I can post it soon. On Friday we took Robbie, Joanna, Wilson, and Johana’s friend out for lunch (they eat lunch late here, it was about 3:30 I think). The meal consisted of fritada (platter of potatoes, plantain, avocado, pork, corn), morocho, quimolitos, cerveza, and manzana.

Then they went to Alice and Wonderland at a movie theatre that was inside a mall, so Kev and I walked around the mall for a little while. We laughed about Sunglass Hut being called "Sunglass Hot" here, then we decided to grab a beer and strangely enough ended up at TGI Friday’s. Over a glass of the Ecuadorian beer, Pilsner, we listened to some live music, a girl singing and a gentleman playing jazz guitar, they were truly amazing musicians. After that we met back up with Robbie, Johana, and three of her friends that had met her at the movie. They got some ice cream before we said goodbye to her friends and went back to their house to pack. Robbie and Johana (and their awesome dog, Aragorn) helped us get our tickets ($8 for a 6 hour bus ride) and we made it to our resort, Green 9, in Same after a just a little bit of bus confusion that was a little scary...

We got on the bus in Quito at 11:45, falling asleep shortly after that, and waking up again not having a clue what time it was. We were stopping at a transit station and there were busses all around us. We were getting our belongings together to get off because we assumed this was Esmeraldas, our destination, when we noticed that only half of the people on the bus were getting off. Then we thought maybe this was a rest stop along the way, but when those people never got back on the bus and we were driving again, we freaked out a little bit because we were pretty sure that we were supposed to get off at that stop. (The bus driver never announced anything, and we had assumed that there would only be one stop, Esmeraldas.) So we were back on the road, arguing about whether that was our stop or not, and finally went up to try and ask the driver. A man sitting in the front attempted to help tell us that we in fact did miss our stop, and told me that it was about 20 minutes to the next stop. We got off at the next one with no clue where we were, thinking that maybe we could find a cab to take us to Same. There was a very nice woman that spoke English and saw that we were confused, so she helped us walk down about a block to get on a bus back to Esmeraldas ($0.80 per person). While on that bus a man got on with a live (more like half-dead) chicken and was holding it by the feet. We laughed about how we’d never, ever, see that on a bus in the US. Finally, we were back to the transit station that we were intended to be at in the first place. We told the driver that we wanted to go to Same, and he put us on another bus. This is when we realized that we were headed in the same direction as before, when we missed our stop, but it was in fact the correct way to be going. So we told the driver “Casablancas” which is the area our resort is in. We were dropped off in front of a road with some security gates, they let us through, and we walked a little bit to finally see “Green 9” and get to our destination around 9:30am.

Basically we walked around, slept, bought a bunch of water just to realize that it was carbonated (oops), ate some food (Ecuadorian version of burger and fries) at a little bar on the beach, realized how terrible that room-temperature pina coladas are (we can’t drink anything with ice in it), slept more, went to the resort restaurant and had some delicious pizza (the pepperoni is basically just sliced ham) and went to sleep.

Yo no habla Espanol muy bien...

We made it!

I slept on the plane from Minneapolis to Atlanta, and on the flight from Atlanta to Ecuador watched two movies (Distract 9 and Whip It, both good). So the traveling went pretty quickly. We arrived in Quito at 11pm and after getting really strange looks and questioning from customs (because of having a huge duffel bag full of teddy bears, which were for the orphanage, but they obviously didn't know that) Robbie picked us up from the airport and brought us to his house in Cumbaya. He lives here with his fiance, Johana, her brother who is currently in Germany so we won't get to meet him, and another room mate, Wilson.

 

the walk back to Robbie's

It's been about 80-85 degrees today. Kevin and I walked to a little bakery/convenience store this morning for breakfast (the pastries were 10 cents each) then came back and watched a little Family Guy with Robbie and Wilson before they went to play basketball, and we just walked around and explored a bit. There's a park not far from Robbie's and there is a school nearby; the people here, mostly the children, couldn't seem to pry their eyes off of the "gringos" (white people) which we heard them saying to each other on every block. I'm just trying to soak up the culture here because it's such an extreme difference from Minnesota. The only thing that makes me a little nervous is the language barrier (even in Spanish speaking areas of LA I still always knew that I could find someone who I'd be able to communicate with). I wish I could say I remembered more from high school Spanish class, but I've got the utmost basics, and a phrase book that will come out when needed. I've realized that since I learned French more recently than Spanish, I tend to make my Spanish words sound French which is even more confusing, but also slightly entertaining.

 

the park

Johana had a big exam today, she's in med school, but when she gets home we're taking everyone out for a late lunch. After that, we'll be getting on a night bus to Esmeraldas which will probably take 6 hours or so, and then a short ride to Same, the beach we're staying on. We'll check in at Green 9 tomorrow morning and I just want to lay on the beach for a few days!

Adios amigos.