Oooooooooooh, we gotsta go to the beach this weekend!!
Journeyed to the north coast of Ecuador to a lil town called Atacomes. This is a very long holiday weekend for Ecuadorians, still going on, ends tomorrow, Wednesday. Currently it is very quiet in Quito, as if it were Sunday. Many, many shops and restaurants are closed with their big metal doors pulled down and locked. It is a very popular weekend for trips out of town, we had to book our accommodation and bus down to the coast about a week in advance. I enjoyed the bus ride immensely! We drove through GORGEOUS scenery, winding roads up and down over green hills, through small towns and commercial strips, passed so many cows and chickens freely roaming, groups of young and old boys playing pick up games of futball (soccer) on cement basketball courts. Such a wonderful opportunity to get an overview of other parts of the country and see what it´s like outside of the major capital city. I had my ipod playing the entire time and the battery lasted just long enough for the 6 1/2 trip. I was with 5 other students from Yanapuma (mi escuela), two Dutch, an Australian, and two other Americans. The Australian and I were both sitting next to strangers, and by the second end of the bus ride we were being passed cups of red wine and all kinds of chips and biscuits. South America LOVES their junkfood. There is more cheap accessible junk food here than anywhere else I´ve ever been; pastries, candy, ice creams, around every corner, and everything is fried, french fries come with every meal standard. I said to my teacher the first week how surprised I was that the people of Ecuador were not all morbidly obese, he just laughed at me. Alright now, back to the beach. We got into town late, after dark, had some greasy chinese food and checked into the hostel which was quite adorable. The next morning we realized we were less than half a block from the beach. It was amazing to get into the water! We had a little sun, but only a little, although it was quite a bit warmer than Quito, it was a bit cloudy. There were identical open air bars lining the entire beach, as far as we could see and walk in either direction. The first day we had the most delicious piña coladas from one of them at 2 in the afternoon made from fresh pineapple. We watched them blend them up and the glass came dripping with fresh fruit tooth picked together all over the sugar rim. Delicious! I read an English Vanity Fair cover to cover and got to vacation with all the other Ecuadorians. We were the only white foreigners we saw the entire weekend. We grocery shopped and cooked all of our meals in the hostel kitchen and how adorable family dinners and breakfasts. One of the girls from Holland had a boyfriend from Africa and he had taught her to make these really cool traditional sauces and one night we had one with pasta and vegetables, a nice change from the Ecuadorian merienda, rice and french fries with lentils. (and meat, of course, for the omnivores).
okay speaking of omnivores I finally cracked last week and got flexible and got myself a hot dog...and I LOVED it. Ha. It came with diced tomatoes, onions, basil and cucumbers. I´m hoping the meat came from some of those happy country animals I saw during the bus ride. Though I have to think that Ecuador´s production of meat is just as bad as the United States, with such an abundance of cheap meat on every corner it must come from some kind of factory farm situation... or imported from Argentina?
Well tomorrow is my last "ladies night" in Quito, then Thursday I am off to the farm about an hour and 1/2 from Quito to commence volunteering. I am very very excited to get started! I´ll be living in the Volunteer House with the four or five volunteers up there currently and cooking communal vegetarian meals from the bounty of the garden and learning all kinds of who knows!
love, peace, and harmony y´all! and equality.
COOOOL
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