Chillin’ in the Andes

We have now left the glorious heat of Guayaquil for the cool air of the Andes. We spent most of Saturday traveling. We flew to Quito, and then drove to Otavalo, which is about 2 hours north.

It was a tiring day, party because we got up at 5:30 to catch our flight. When we were gathering on our bus in Quito a girl from our group had her backpack stolen. It contained everything valuable she had. It was a rough day for her.

The drive through the mountains up to Otavalo was beautiful. There is a lot of grass and lovely mountains. Guayaquil is more tropical and up here is more mountainous and cool. In fact, it’s a little cold here for my taste. I hardly packed for cool weather, but the elevation is about 9500 feet here, so it’s chilly. I also got a cold, so now I really wish it was warm. It’d better be nice when I get home!

When we got to Otavalo Saturday we were in a hurry to hit the markets. It was so cool! There were hundreds of vendors with all kinds of pretty things. It was stressful cause we only had 3 hours of shopping and I wanted to get the best bargains. I ended up buying a few cool things, and overall thought it was a great experience. I wish I had a whole suitcase to dedicate to bringing stuff home, but I do not. I’d also like more money:)

Bargaining was kinda fun, but also rather annoying. Everything you wanted to buy you had to argue for. Good thing that’s my specialty! Haha, not really, but I worked at it.

After dinner Saturday we came back to our new lodging. This place is adorable! There are little cabins with about 4 apartments in each. The whole place is overlooking a lake and mountains. The rooms are not heated (the water barely is), there are honey bees swarming by our window, there’s no internet (except in the main office/lounge), and we have to share beds, but it’s still really cute!

Yesterday we mostly just relaxed.

Today we were busy touring homes with the Benson institute, touring a volcanic lake, and traveling back to Quito. We have horrible internet, so I'm not going to write the details now. I'm ready for consistent/fast connection already! Seriously, there are currently about 15 nursing students crowding the lobby trying to connect to the internet. It's lame.

Have a wonderful week ya'll!