I woke up early and when I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, I heard one of the guys throwing up. It’s kind of miserable; last week everyone was getting sick, especially the kids in the other program who went to Riobamba. The bird watching was a little awkward because it was just me, two guides, a GAIAS girl who always said “qué lindo!!!” and the head professor of my program and her husband. The walk wasn’t too bad, but I did discover within the first five minutes that I don’t have the patience to be a bird-watcher. Luckily our guide was super good and he has a telescope that he could set up in five seconds flat so that the bird appeared to be five feet away instead of fifty yards. He also could make some pretty legit bird noises. I got to see some birds with pretty colors and all, but the best thing was that our guide found a nest with two baby birds in it, close enough to touch, easily. I have a picture, but it’s blurry. Oh well. That was definitely the best part. I also talked a little bit with professor Verónica, which was a little awkward because the other kids always talk about her but I don’t have any classes with her so I don’t really know what she’s like. She asked about my major and since she’s in the Spanish department she does senior theses only by invitation, and she invited me. That felt pretty cool to have a connection and all, but I’m also a little scared because even AM said that she’s really intense. I also don’t want to think about a senior thesis yet. Well, maybe only a little. We made it back in time for breakfast (pancakes and weird syrup, granola, fruit, and the coffee that they make there which was divine :) I changed into my bathing suit, brought all of my stuff down, and we got our boots on again to go on a five-hour hike. No joke. It was so gorgeous. First we walked through some fields and saw a bunch of cows, then we trekked through the woods for a long time. It was pretty intense; there were lots of rocks, roots, mud, stumps, cliffs, and the like. Most of it was uphill. Part of the trail was this old Inca trail, and apparently a lot of them died on it because it was just that hard. Granted, they’d be traveling for days with wares and babies, but still. Our group got separated easily but I was almost always in the middle. I was super glad I was wearing a tank top and that I had brought water. We finally made it to the turn-around point at the river. They had said we could swim there, but I was a little disappointed because it was really only a stream, kind of like French Creek but cleaner. We ate our tuna sandwiches and some of us stripped down to our bathing suits and rubber boots and waded upstream. So awesome. It was cool to walk through the river and all, but I’m talking about the waterfall. It was like something out of a movie or a Disneyworld ride; it was that perfect. Truthfully, it was a little scary, too. The water was really loud and really deep at parts, but with some help we clambered up on the rock underneath the waterfall. Some of the kids have waterproof cameras, and therefore pictures. I stayed there for a while because it was just that cool. Getting down was a little scary, too; luckily I didn’t have any knee problems with the water, which was freezing, by the way. We trekked back to the other group and dried off the best we could and went back, which I had been dreading. I didn’t have too many problems getting there, but it was mostly uphill; my knee hurt worse on downhills. It was okay; the group got separated really quickly and I was in the middle with Alana and Milan, which was fun because none of us were in a hurry to get back to Quito. I love Z and the USFQ and all, but Quito’s kind of gross, kind of polluted. I understood why we had started early because it was HOT, I soaked my bandana in every stream we passed and it felt fantastic. It was really tiring and we got really thirsty, but we made it back in time for lunch (salad, rice, beef, brown lemonade, potato soup). The rest of the kids settled their accounts with the bar and I paid $10 for a pound of coffee they make for Dad; I was really excited about that. We went back way too fast; I could have stayed there for a while. It began to rain, hard, as we left, and I felt really bad for the bus drivers. On the bus I tried to do work… Z had dinner waiting for me at home although she was still out at some sort of castle for Enrique’s birthday. I was starving; she had some sort of coup and chicken pasta. I hunkered down to my composition, feeling like a true college student, and I finished it by 11:30ish. It was about how indigenous people in Ecuador have adapted textiles over the years in order to survive.
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