Banos: Chiva Tour

Last weekend was the first time I felt like we were on vacation. On Friday, we took a bus to Banos, a town built in the valley of the Tungurahua volcano. Banos is known for it's natural thermal baths, and it also has more waterfalls than I've seen anywhere else. By happy coincidence, Bri and Ameen were also there, and we spent the day with them on Saturday. We took a "Chiva Tour", which is an open air bus that took us to a few different spots. In this post I have some pixs from the beginning of the tour when we saw waterfalls from afar and took a gondola ride across the canyon. Gabriel's favorite part of the gondola ride stop was helping two guys pull corn nibs off ears of corn. Also some pixs of what we saw from the Chiva, and some silly boys in the Chiva. ;-)

Did I mention the hats?

I think these are the less traditional hats...modeled by a non-indigenous boy...

The textiles are as colorful as the fruit

As is the jewerly and everything else at the indigenous market in Otovalo.

It's all about the hat...

That was my observation at the indigenous market in Otovalo. I was facinated by the faces, and hats, and scarves, of the people I saw. Here are a few examples...

Graffiti, Food, and the Mall

Three days of heavy rain in the afternoon means my camera has stayed home. We have been using our phones instead.

In the afternoon's we have been going to lunch with a professor from the school and having "typico ecuadoriano" food. I am not as adventurous an eater as Noelani, but I've enjoyed it.

Here are some graffiti shots from Noelani's phone. Gabriel took the shots of the smurf graffiti - it is one block up and we pass it in the morning on our way to a little park to work out. It pleases Gabriel so much! The smurf movie was his first in-theater experience, with Bailey, so it's a family favorite. :-)

The other two were from our Sunday in the park with Bri and Ameen, there is a huge mural on the skatepark tunnel. In all of these, Gabriel set the camera to some crazy filter, but the effect is kinda cool.

The arcade shots are from my phone, now that I have a memory card (purchased at the mall). As is true in the states, the mall is a great rainy day adventure! And, as is true in the states (and perhaps other places in the world), wack-a-mole is a big hit (no pun intended). ;-) We also hit the pinball games...it was not quite Asbury Park, but still fun. Our favorite game was a Mario roadracing game. G sat on my lap and steered while I hit the gas. It was surprising exhilarating. We have plans to return to the mall soon...did I mention there is a Dunkin Donuts there?!?

A day with Bri and Ameen

Today, we had the immense pleasure of hanging out with my sister and her fiance, Ameen. We met in our favorite park - La Carolina - had lunch and then went up one of the beautiful mountains that surround Quito. The trip up is in a gondola, with amazing views of the city. Almost as soon as we got to the top the clouds rolled in, and we couldn't see more than 10 feet ahead of us, which was very mysterious and cool ( Bri and Ameen are suspiciously good at acting like zombies). We saw  3 local people herding horses down the mountain. A little startling to see them come unexpectedly out of the fog at us, but a cool sight once we realized what they were. The white with the black lines is a view from the gondola on our way back down.

Cotopaxi is no joke...

Just to add to Mary's post about Cotopaxi. Despite feeling a little headachy and dizzy, I was determined to make it to the refugio. It looked close, but the sandy terrain (from the crumbly lava) and the altitude made it much much farther. I almost gave up twice, but with the mutual support of a class mate we made it - 5 steps at a time. If I went longer than 10 steps my lungs would start to burn and my heart would be going like crazy. There is a saying here "valer la pena" - it's worth the pain. And it so was, as you can see. The weather was great on the way up, the view amazing. I was loving watching the clouds come in,  and then they started dropping hail, and it started to thunder - very dramatic. We couldn't see a thing on the way down this crazy road, but the driver somehow managed to get us home safely. A great adventure!

Cotopaxi (aka Our Mountain)

The school arranged a day trip to Cotopaxi, a volcano that last errupted in 1999. We rode for ~2 hours on the bus, through new sections of Quito (rural farming areas; everyone had a cow tethered in their yard), then parked at the bottom of the day's challenge, a 45 min hike up the volcanic trail to the yellow lodge for hot chocolate. Even that prize could not convince G and I to do it - the altitude was making us really tired. Noelani took the challenge, though, and she MADE IT! :-)

About the time she got to the lodge, the beautiful weather shifted. Our host mom told us to ask the mountain for permission to visit, and we did, but perhaps not everyone did...it got cloudy (as in, we were IN the clouds), windy (ok, it was no hurricane sandy, but still), and rainy/hailing. G and I, who had been chillin' on the bus, playing "cards uno" (uno with regular playing cards), stepped out to experience the hail, and greet Noelani upon her triumphant return.

A few pix of G moving volcanic rock, and the before and after pix of the weather surrounding the trail and the yellow lodge (pix 2 and 8).