Mindo y Esmeraldas

Things are getting busy here in Ecuador.  This past weekend I went to Mindo, Puerto Quito, and a beach in the coastal province, Esmeraldas. 

We left at 10am on Friday for Mindo.  On the way we had some delicious bread with chocolate and juice boxes. We first went to a butterfly garden.  The butterflies were giant and super friendly!  After the butterfly garden we went "tubing" down the river.  It felt like extreme rafting on large inflated tires.  We had life vests and much needed helmets.  To stay on the craft we held on to little rope loops.  It was a lot of fun, but not the safest thing ever. We were steered by two men on either end of the craft, they were wearing rain boots and steered with their feet. My feet could not reach the other end of my tire so every time we bounced up my legs would go flying into the air.  At one point, we went under and everything was strangely calm.  All I could hear was the water.  A second later we were above water and all was well.   

Giant butterfly on my hand

After Mindo we went to Puerto Quito.  The halfway point between Quito and Ecuador's coast.  We spent the night there.  It was very hot and humid.  During the day we walked through a tropical rain forest.  We stopped at a waterfall to swim, I was too scared to go under the cave next to the waterfall with everyone. The current was strong just standing, and I'm not confident enough about my swimming skills.  Something to work on.  After the long walk we made sugar cane juice with orange and lime, delicious!  After lunch we went to a cocoa farm, and tasted fresh cocoa seeds.  Then we made chocolate!  It was a soupy concoction that we ate with small bananas.  Yummm. 

Walking through the forest.  Ecua-Pants!

From Puerto Quito we headed to a beach in the Esmeraldas.  On the way there we popped a tire, no big deal.  The road conditions were pretty bad.  Just about when everyone was falling asleep we would hit a giant pot hole and everyone would be airborne.  Once we got to the beach, we hopped in the back of a pick-up truck and drove to our cabins.  Our cabins were right on the beach, it felt like we owned that part of the beach for the next day.  The food we ate was delicious, and everything was amazingly clean and beautiful.  Some of us woke up early on Sunday and swam in the water or went for a walk.  I walked for a while and realized that the tiny lines in the sand were the tracks of tiny snails heading towards the ocean.  I felt kind of bad since I had been stomping all over them... sorry little guys. Then I got a little philosophical, because when you're walking on an empty beach by yourself it's bound to happen. All the marks on the sand made me think of the marks that people leave during their lifetimes. Some people have the opportunity to leave more marks then others, but in the end as time passes and the tide rises the marks disappear.  Some may stay longer than others, maybe I'll be blessed to leave one of those.

Anyway, we all took a walk on the beach after breakfast and it was unreal. It felt post-apocolyptic as one girl pointed out.  It felt like our program was the only group of people in the world.  We saw tiny crabs running around, apparently they had just hatched.  Again, sorry little guys.. we're just going to walk all over you.. may the luckiest and fittest survive.  There was also some quick sand.  We took a boat around some mangroves. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach, swimming, "studying," and relaxing. 

On our way back we boarded the same tiny open air boat as before but this time we went through some serious waves.  It was actually really scary since no one had life jackets and the boat was tilting a lot.  By the end of it I was soaked and feeling quite salty. In retrospect it was fun.  We had a strange group of people greet us when we got to shore.  One shirtless Ecuadorean holding a sickle yelled "Hello" in Japanese "to the Japanese looking girl."  I would be the Japanese looking girl.  When I got close to him, he shook my hand using his non-sickle hand and started talking to me in Japanese.  I told him I'm not from Japan and he said, "Fake-Ass Japanese!"  I would have been more offended if the situation hadn't been so ridiculous.  

The bus ride back home took almost 8 hours. It was a little miserable by the end, but we got home safely.  When I was walking home 2 usually calm Lumbisi dogs that I always walk past during the day got aggressive and ran at my heels barking angrily.  Quite scary, but I just kept walking and once I crossed a certain point they fell back.  Apparently the dogs barking alerted Rosa that I was back.  I made it through the weekend with less bug bites than I thought I would have.  Unfortunately the majority of my bites are on my feet, specifically my right foot. I think I have about 10 bites just on my pinky toe.  It looks slightly diseased and it itches terribly.  Also I'm slightly sunburned, the combination of bug bites and sunburn is unfortunate. 

Pictures should be posted soon to the same February album.  I'm going on another trip ( http://tiputini.usfq.edu.ec/) this weekend... a little tiring but it's too late to change my plans.  I asked Rosa where I can buy loose fitting long sleeve shirts for the trip and she told me she would take me this morning before classes.  Well, before I knew it I was being measured in a small shop in Lumbisi.  By "let's go buy shirts," my host mom apparently meant, "let's go get shirts made."  Anyway, blogging time might be limited this week.  Hope everyone is doing well!