Traveling

I am so excited everybody!! Lindsay and I just discovered a plaza with wireless pretty close to my house!! This means more of everything, skype, e-mail, picture downloading!!!! I am so excited about this discovery!! I just got back from Ban‘‘‘‘os, it is a city about 4 hours from here, but actually first we went to a small town called Hausalata. I think I’m getting ahead of myselfJ

Saturday morning a group of us met up with Maria, our program director, for our first excursion! We got in a van and traveled 4 hours to an Indigenous village called Hausalata. It was an amazing experience; I’ve posted some pictures so you can see what I mean! We stayed in a hostel in the middle of town. It was a beautiful cottage made by the people we stayed with. Jose and Francesca were our hosts, they were so welcoming and gracious! Everyone in the town speaks both Spanish and Quichua, their native language. We arrived and put our stuff in the house, after that we started exploring! We were given a tour of the town. First was the house of Maria Teresa, she is very important to the community, she leads a group for the women who live in the town. There were many children who came to great us while we were exploring! We played soccer with them and they showed us their school. There are about 30 kids in the school at this time, there is about 230 people in the town. The kids kept us busy chasing them! I was quite tired by the time we were done! For lunch we ate cui, I think that is how it is spelled, it is guinea pig!!! I was so nervous about eating it but I’m really glad I did it, it tastes like chickenJ I recommend it to all!! After lunch we went for a hike to the river. They go every day to collect grass for the animals. They don’t buy anything, that includes food for the animals. They make only enough to survive. The trek down to the river was beautiful! But that was only the half of it, after we got to the river they took us up a mountain bear foot! I have pansy feet but I did it! It was kind of a hard trek up but the end result was well worth it. There is a spring with sacred water flowing through it. If anyone is sick they bring them up there to be healed with the water. After soaking up the view for a while we headed back down the mountain, slipping and sliding the whole way but having a blast! After that we went back to the village and went to the workshop where they make all the tapestries. Really amazing how they do it, we were able to watch as one was made. It was so fun to play with the kids and learn all the games they play. They loved our digital cameras and loved taking the pictures themselvesJ They also enjoyed piggyback rides, man was I tired! That night was so great, there was a group of musicians who played for us and we learned how to do traditional dances. We danced the night awayJ We also played with the kids and taught them dance moves, they loved it and so did we! It was such a good time I really hope I get to see them again. I was pretty tired after all that so I crashed pretty quick. That next morning we woke up at 7 so we could help milk the cows! That was a funny experience. Check out the pictures for proofJ Then we ate breakfast and hung out with the kids until we had to leave. We drove for awhile and stopped at some markets along the way. We arrived in Banos, it was about a half an hour away from where we were. There we walked around the city, stopped in a beautiful church and ate lunch together. We also say some waterfalls and tried sugar cane. It was a great time, we are definitely going to go back sometime when we have more days to spend there. We had to head back at that point but we were all pretty tired. That about sums it up!! I hope you enjoyed reading about my weekend, don’t forget to let me know how you all are doing! Tomorrow is school so I should head home soon but I’ll keep you updated!!

Lots of love