Ecuadorian Churches are Gold

So yesterday Kendra and I went to El Centro, which is Old Town in Quito to check out all the dope colonial architecture. For those of you who have been living under a rock, or just don't know much about Ecuador, it has the lasrgest concentration of Colonial architecture in the world (I think this excludes parts of Europe where it all started.) As you will see in the picutres, the scale of the work is quite grand and they wernt messign around with the churches... I mean they aint no St Patricks on Main st Falmouth, but they are pretty nice I guess. One Church, La Compania, took 160 years to build and the inside, is all gold... all covered in gold leaf! Even though it was against the rules to take pictures, I did anyway I couldnt pass up the chance to take picutres of a gold church, comon! Today at school, I sought out a man I heard of who was a flyfisherman, obiously a gringo. To my suprise I found him; Bill Ross, and I talked to him for a while about places and fish here so hopefully I will do some fishing while in Ecuador! Saludos!

Ecuadorian Lynching, Valentines Day, And Pictures of my house

So First off I would like to say Feliz dia del amor y la amistad, because here in Ecuador we celebrate a day of love and friendship!
Next off to all you anti-globalization types out there such as myself, you will be happy to know that Western values have not taken over all of Ecuador. A few days ago in Otavalo, where you may know I went about 2 weeks ago, there was a lynching. Now don't start thinking this is a normal thing for all of Ecuador, but in some areas, Indigenous rule is over police law. The Otavalenos have 4 rules, one of which I cant remember, but they are as follows, do not lie, do not steal, work hard for what you have, and ------. The two men who were lynched 3 days ago were guilty of breaking the second rule. Now all of this may seem gruesome to some of you, so I say this, don't be so ethnocentric. The two Colombian men were found stealing from members of the community, so it is local custom to make an example out of them. Mind you when I went to Otavalo everyone I met was extremely, kind, gentle, and small, but when you break one of their cardinal rules you pay for it and you are made an example of. They don't have much so what they do have sure means a lot to them. Typically whistles are blown throughout the town to gather all of the citizens together, the offenders are then whipped with thorn vines, and set on fire int he middle of the town square. I know, it sounds terrible, but now you will never steal from an Ecuadorian Indigenous person. You may ask yourself, why didn't the police step in? Good question, but you try stopping a few thousand angry little men and women from taking justice for a cultural offense with only a handful of officers, it wouldn't work. Moving on I will be returning to Otavalo, but there is nothing to worry about, I'm not Colombian which is an offense in itself here, Colombia is blamed for all of Ecuador´s internal problems, and I wont be taking, ill be spending a lot of money.
So Ecuador received a package 2 days ago from my parents and grandparents, getting it into my own hands was a a true task. I received a notice saying that there was a package waiting for me at whatever place they all go, why they could not have delivered it to my house I could not tell you. So yesterday I took a taxi to the western part of Quito to the office and was shocked to find out how difficult and bureaucratic even the simplest of tasks is. Rightly so I had to bring two copies of my passport, but I did not know that until I got there, so I had to go across the street to get 2 copies, come back, having lost my place in line, get back in line, present my notice and two copies, sign some papers, only to pay a dollar and receive my number. Now think of the RMV... this is the office I was in, i waited for my name or number to be called behind a number of other gringos, and was finally escorted into the back room where the woman proceeded to rip open my package right in front of me in search of narcotics, firearms, or any other capitalistic forms of propaganda only to find baked goods and pair of shorts. I then had to leave the package to sign more papers, pay 8 more dollars, go back across the street to make more copies and then sign more papers. Finally I was instructed to go back into the package room, which was overloaded with packages from around the world, pick up my goods and I was free to go. The trouble is when I went back, my package was gone! Imagine my anger when neither I nor the worker could find my baked goods! Finally after a few mins of searching we came across the valentines day treats and I went on my way! I can surly say it was worth all the trouble, and i thank all of you involved in the 45 dollar shipping, baking, and love that I received yesterday. I have already eaten a whole bag of cookies by myself. Well I hope you all are enjoying the frigid cold as much as I am enjoying the warm sun, brownies, bread, cookies and candy here in the southern hemisphere! Here are some pics of my house!

My river name is Sapo!

Hello all, just as a prologue I want to say, to all those who do not enjoy my mis-spellings... too bad, Spanish has forever ruined my grasp on English spellings and grammar, so as long as you would like me to continue to study, you'll have to deal with my terrible orthography. Saying this lets move on to the body of my text; white water rafting in Tena.
After a 5 hour drive SEE of Quito through some of the most beautiful mountain paths I have ever seen. After driving through highlands for 2 hours we reached the edge of the famously fabled Amazonian Rain Forest. The Roads, most of them one lane because of landslides and constant maintenance, were all settled about 5 or so feet from the edge of the mountains we were driving though... one wrong turn and, Zip! you're gone! buhbye buddy. The roads were littered with crosses of those who had met that terrible fate going east into El Oriente. But hey, keep a positive attitide and you'll always be kept safe! Finally we arried in Tena at about 8 under an almost full moon, that lit up the whole mountain chain. becuase of the lack of affordable electricity in this region, there is minimal lights in the city if Tena, which is only about the size of Woods Hole... some city huh? We picked a random hostel and dropped off our gear to go in search of some provisions. Once our bellies were full we went off to bed, sober i might add, to rest up for the adventure that awaited us the following day.
We inquired about a day of rafting with a company called "The River People" whom I highly recomend if you ever make it to Ecuador. It is a Family business own by none other than a team of Irish imagrants who had decided to check out Ecuador and decided to make Tena their home. The parents, now retired from running the business, handed it down to thier Daughter and 2 sons, one Tim, our guide, dropped out of school at 13 to start working the river fulltime and has been, 7 days a week for the last 13 years. As you can see from the picture above we brought quite a large group and all piled up into the bus to our drop off spot. This was no normal rafting trip, we were not dropped of at the river, nay we were driven into the jungle, loaded up with our gear and then proceeded to hike a mud road a bout 3 km into the selva. This was no regular muddly path, this was a 3ft deep, 10 foot wide, up and down hill, slippery, dirty, glorious walk to the river. By the time we reached the river, a number of us, who decided to take part in ritualistic boyhood mud baths, needed to bathe before getting in the boats.
We got in our boats and proceeded down the Jondachi river wich eventually meets up with the great Amazon. Of course with my luck I was the first one to be tossed out of the boat, sitting in the front right position, I was caught off guard and rolled right out, with only a few minor scratches on my back and shoulder I jumped right back into my spot. The rest of the first half, though some of the toughest and most exciting rafting ive ever done, did not produce any other major wipe outs in our particular boat, though we did do some swimming though rapids, were airborn, and rafted under waterfalls. We stopped on the side of the river for a bit of lunch and were pleasently supprized to see the guides and saftey kayakers accompanining us flip one of the rafts over and wip out all sorts of goodies! We feasted on tacos, beans, doritos, cookies, pine apple, ect ect ect. After eating our fill we retuened to the boats to continue the class 4, 38 km stretch. It got harder an dmore exciting as we went on, blasting through huge rapids, riding on the front of the raft, bull style, getting thrown out and going through rapids with our eyes closed to find ourselves flying into a rock wall. One particular crazy mess started with one particular girl Jessalee falling forwards out of the boat, the guide Tim tried to throw her a rope bag, but missed and, being so distracted we forgot that we were in the middle of a huge rapid stretch, another girl coleen fell of the side, our guide then realized what a predicament we were in and proceeded to yell, "Oh shit oh shit, we're in deep shit!" the raft then folded in half causing zach and i to hold on to each other and hana and Kendra to smash helmets and then smash into me! After all was said and done we had more trouble recovering from the laughter than the mayhem.
We then continued to be thrown about, swim, jump off stuff, do flips, push eachother and the guide out of the boat, loose the boat, swim in waterfalls, and ofcourse in between, relax! After the 8 hour ride of my life we were met by the bus and of course beer! A photoshot comenced as cameras were ripped out of dry bags and we all swap stories of crashes and felicidades for finishing in one peice. Not one person was apposed to going back again soon. I have to say the rafting, the senery, the stories, and everything about Tena will be with me forever. Hope all is well at home I love you and miss you all!

Otavalo aka the reason why I came...

So this weekend we went to Otavalo, and it was awesome. Otavalo is known for its indiginous handyworks and extramly skilled artisans, oh yea and its dirt cheap prices! I only speant 95 dollars there and came out way on top with a hammok, an alpaca blanket, and chompa which is basically a gnarly zip up hoody, a cool fluite, an inca vs conquistador handmade chess set, 2 panama hats (which interesting enough were never made in panama, always in Ecuador), one for you dad, some jewelry for mum, a gnarly woven backpack, and a sweet duffle to hold it all! I probably forgot some stuff but everything I got was top quality. We shopped a few hours there working down prices and walking around Plaza de los Ponchos. You can check out Otavalo on the web, they have been famous for hundreds of years and have been recognized as an economical and cutural asset to Ecuador since the 50s. It was exactly the Ecuador I was looking forward to see. Everywhere you look there ar little indiginous men and women in the traditional clothing. They have such a strong heritage (Otavaleno and Quicha) that the men who sport tradtitinal long pony tails are the only group not forced to cut their hair in the military. They women all wear strings of gold beads that differ depending on their status in the comunity along with 30s style hats and traditional clothes. Here a link to Wiki for Otavalo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otavalo . I hope you all enjoy the pictures and I miss you all hapy super bowl! If you click on the image you can see it in full size in all its glory.

So everything is going great here I am settling into my classes fine though now that I'm doing my service at Special Olympics my schedule is totally full and I don't have time for much between classes, service, and HW. But its all good. This weekend we went to Mindo which was amazing! We were hiking for 5hours in the middle of the cloud forest which is not much different from what you would think a rain forest looks like, its just in the middle of a mountain range. We were without a guide which made it so much cooler but we really had no idea if we were going the right way, but we eventually made it and the waterfalls we were looking for were amazing. The hike was pretty difficult because it was steep and full of mud and only about 1 foot wide so we all walked single file. After we came out of the forest there was a little BBQ and i bought a plate of chicken and potatoes (meal sized) for only $1. So good. The hostel we stayed in was $5 a night though because of the view area and ambiance it would have cost $100 in the US. A really good trip in general and I'm getting impatient for the next. Hope all is well at home! Ill put up the pictures when I can

Settling in...

So it has been about a week and a half since I arrived and everything is going very well, all my classes seem fine though it is a little more difficult to learn in another language. Ill get it eventually. So far I have only been traveling to and from school, besides some trips to different parts of Quito, but this weekend a group of us are going to Mindo which is just north west of Quito. The city here is on a random plateau int he middle of the country so once you you go five mins outside of Quito it is all mountains and vallies. One of the more shocking things is that it does not affect the bus drivers at all, imagine mass drivers x10! They pass on both sides around curved bridges, going 50 miles an hour going down a wicked steep incline. For some reason I feel safe on the bus too. Im still getting used to traveling around the city becuase there is no maps for public transportation, let a lone a sign at each stop telling you where you are; hence a failed trip to Old Town to see the colonial architechture. I have made it out to La Mariscal a few time which has also been deemed affecionatly "Gringolandia." I have come to accept my gringo-ness and the Ecuadorians do not use it as a negitive term, I know refer to other Americans as gringos. Though I never feel unsafe I can tell people veiw me as different becuase noone wants to sit with us on the bus and they are always looking at us. Ill try to add some pictures, there is a lot of graffiti here becuase of the upcoming election in March so I look forward to seeing how that plays out. I saw one tag that translated said "Jesus was born in Palistine" So that shows how Ecuador isnt a world away.

Ecuador So Far

So it has only been a few days in Ecuador but I love it here. When I first landed I was unsure if there was going to be a family waiting for me to pick me up becuase of some email confusions. I was prepared for thr worst, but I was very happily wrong. My host brother Omar was waiting for me a long with 100 other families waiting for their students. It was late so I was quickly introduced to my host parents Luis and Elvalicia and my host sister Maria Jose who became engagged that night, so I will be attending a wedding here in Ecuador. I have started to get the lay of the land around my house and had my orrientation at La Universidad de San Fransico de Quito USFQ yesterday. The campus is stright out of a movie and is called the Laguna Beach of Ecuador because it is the first private liberal arts school in the county. For only $5000 american per semester you can go to the most beautiful school there is. There are fountains, marble floors statues of philosophers and scientists, ponds, lawns, a Japanese style dojo and much much more. To take a bus one way anywhere is only 25 cents, our ride to school is about a half hour. thats less than a penny a mile! I havent taken maky pictures yet but I will post them when I do! Adios!