My Apolgies

I got way behind on my blogging and for that I apologize, but I have done a bunch of back blogging to catch y’all up on my adventures.  In my defense I have been very busy, I have also been very lazy, and we have been travelling on the weekends, and I forgot the password to my blog and then our internet got shut off, but I’m back now!

Colombia

Last weekend we had our first 3 day weekend and we took advantage of it by making a trip to Colombia. 

We left Friday morning and took a 5 hour bus ride to Tulcan, and crossed the border into Colombia and stayed the day in the boarder town of Ipiales.  We shopped around in the town, ate some delicious Colombian food, had one beer and were warned frantically by our server to walk home as fast and as soon as possible because we were very easy targets to be robbed at night. 

On Saturday morning we were up early and took a bus to Pasto, in Pasto we went to visit the biggest lake in Colombia.  We took a little boat ride to an island on the lake and it was just beautiful.  We wandered around some more on Saturday night and were up early on Sunday to take 2 buses and 4 taxis over 8 hours home to Quito.

All in all is was a successful first foray out of Ecuador.  We were careful to travel only during the day because there is still some risk associated with travelling in Colombia.  Also apparently the border towns are the most dangerous and we spent the weekend in the ‘kidnap capital of Colombia’.  Various taxi drivers, servers, hostel owners and websites presented us with varying levels of danger associated with being a foreign traveler in this area.  So we were very cognizant of our surroundings and nothing bad happened. (Sorry Mama! Aren’t you glad you didn’t know exactly where in Colombia I was until I had returned safely?)

I'm on a boat!

Creepy dressed up llamas

Day- to- day tidbits

There are school elections going on and each of the three twelfth grade classes is trying to be elected to run various unknown (at least to me) events and they are all given a lunch period/ afternoon to ‘campaign’.  And by ‘campaign’ I mean, blast regatone,  dj, hold dance and limbo contests, throw candy at screaming children , wave banners, paint faces, put colored hairspray into children’s hair, set off colored smoke bombs and wear costumes and or skimpy outfits.  Good times have been had by all.

We have now won trivia night at Finn Mccool’s for the last two weeks running which entitles us to $50 worth of beer!  It feels great to be a champion!

Jen and I switched Spanish schools and like the new school much better and because of this have upped our classes to two, two-hours classes per week, so hopefully this speeds up the language learning process that much more!

My students had to do news broadcast that included both international and school news and they were a huge success; some of the students brought in giant maps to do the weather with, others dressed up in blazers, some brought in fake cameras so a student watching could film them.  

My students also did presentations on the topic of their choice and this resulted in many incredibly detailed presentations on the band One Direction-ugh – never again.  This week my classes are presenting one the country of their choice and I have promised them bonus marks if they bring in food for the entire class and already I have eaten food from Argentina and America and I am hoping for much more!

The banners hung from the school for Lista Q

LIMBO!

Chaos post blue smoke bomb

The dj's

Musical chairs for slightly blue children

My students take on American food

Group presentations aka creepy shrine to One Direction

CAM IS COMING!

My brother Cameron is coming to visit at Christmas time and I could not be more overjoyed!!  Cam will be here from December 17th- January 4^th, I will be teaching for part of the time he is here so I will get the chance to show him around Quito, and on the time off we have at Christmas he will be able to travel around South America with my fellow teachers and I!  I have bribed my classes that if they are good I will bring my ‘Canadian brother’ into class and that they can do presentations/ performances for him so that should be a treat for all involved!

 

I'm hoping my students will attack Cam the same way that our summer camp kids did this  summer.

I just wanted to put this picture in because Cam looks so handsome!

Otavalo

The other weekend we travelled to Otavalo, it is a small town and it is most well known for its market, the indigenous people of Otavlo are the financially successful indigenous people in South America.  On Saturdays the town becomes transformed into a massive market with hundreds upon hundreds of stalls selling all varieties of beautifully handcrafted jewellery, clothes, art, etc at incredible prices.

This sweater was only $20!

Callum and Ynez enjoy a coconut.

I know already where I will be doing all of my Christmas shopping!

Canadian Thanksgiving

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving the other weekend and it was an incredible holiday spent in my new home.  Two of the other teachers Ynez and Kandice are American so we will be celebrating Thanksgiving round two in about a month, but Jen is Irish and Callum is Scottish so this was their first Thanksgiving!

We did the meal potluck style, we bought a cooked chicken, cooked a pork roast, cooked assorted vegetables, asparagus, enough mashed potatoes for a few days of left -overs, stuffing from scratch, various cheeses, a brownie, and (of course) wine.  All of the food turned out great and I was painfully full after the meal (which in my mind is a sign of a successful holiday) we had a bunch of laughs and of course I made everyone go around the table and say what they are thankful for.  It was a great day and I only felt a twinge of homesickness, but it was quelled through the marvels of technology as I was able to call my family at the lake in Canada on skype and chat with them, despite their being on the other side of the world.  I can’t wait for Thanksgiving round two!

Our snacks before the meal.

Callum cooks a brownie, Willie Wonka styles

You can't have Canadian Thanksgiving without singing the national anthem

Oh Canada

Cooking the stuffing

mmm mm doesn't that look appetizing

Our ‘Relaxing’ Weekend Away in Mindo:

This weekend we visited the town of Mindo, and not to sound like a broken record, it was AMAZING!  Mindo is a small, quiet, jungle town that is a two hour /$2.50 bus ride away.  We arrived in Mindo on Saturday morning checked into our lovely cabin-hostel in the jungle (that cost only $10 a night, hearty breakfast included) spent some relaxing time in the hammocks and then began our adventures!

Ynez and I went zip-lining and it was exhilarating, breathtaking and incredible!  The zip-line course is located right in the foot-hills of the jungle, the course is 13 lines, takes an hour to complete and costs only $15!  The zip-lines are super-high up across lush, tree-covered valleys and the views are just spectacular.  I did two of the zip-lines up-side down and one super-man styles.  We found out too late that you could bring your camera on the zip-lines, so we have no action shots, but we plan to go again-so next time we shall get some sweet snaps!

We went to a frog lagoon in the evening and went for a night walk to look at some really neat (really tiny) frogs, the tour is called a frog concert because you can hear so many frogs ribbitting.  We were in our cabin in bed under our mosquito nets reading National Geographics from the 1970’s by 10pm and were awoken only briefly twice during the night, first by the Spaniards staying on the floor below us playing guitar and second by the damned noisy rooster outside.

In the morning we went for a hike to a beautiful waterfall and I jumped off a 20 meter cliff! As Blair Hunter will attest to, I am not brave at all when it comes to cliff jumping, at the cabin it takes me 20 minutes to psych myself up to jump off the 4 meter cliff and I often chicken out entirely when it comes to the 9 meter cliff. But I did the 20 meter jump today after only one brief hesitation and it was hella scary, amazing but scary.

All in all another amazing weekend travelling in Ecuador (although it was probably pretty easy to tell this from my excessive use of exclamation points)!

Me in front of our cabin-hostel

View from our hostel

The ladies in our cabin

Ynez and I loving life after completing the zip-line course!

Some guy on one of the zip-lines we did.

Jen of the jungle

Ynez takes the plunge!

Ahhh!

Peaks and Valleys

By some unwritten rule the normal highs and lows of day -to -day life seem to be greatly amplified when travelling or living abroad and this last week was no exception. 

High:

Last weekend we went to Banos and it was beyond incredible; Banos is a small, touristy town that offers a plethora of adventure sports.  It was our first weekend out of Quito in the month or so that we have been in Ecuador and it was a breath of fresh air both literally and figuratively.  Banos is a 4 hour bus ride away and the bus costs only $3.50 each direction, and we were able to find lodging in a great hostel for only $6 a night.  So needless to say we plan to head back to Banos at least once a month.  On Saturday we spent the evening relaxing in the volcano-heated hot springs and then on Sunday morning we went white water rafting!!!  Despite the fact that a large portion of my life has been spent participating in water sports I have never been white water rafting.  The course that we were taken on was a level 4, we spent an hour and a half rafting, we were in 4 person boat and it was just my friends and I and the surrounding wild life was breathtaking!  It was too incredible for words, I loved every minute and I am DEFINILTELY hooked on white water rafting now.  Overall just a marvelous, fantastic weekend!

Low:

On Tuesday I got the gnarly case of the 24 hour stomach flu and barfed my guts out for 24 hours.  Needless to say it is never fun to be sick, but it makes you a very specific type of homesick to be sick away from home.  Luckily my mother not only taught me how to be a big brave dog but also how to combat most common illnesses and with my supplies of; pepto, Gatorade, lots of water, lots of sleep, bananas and a puke bucket I was feeling like a champ and back at school within one day!

High:

I went to my first football match (soccer in North America) this week and it was too much fun.  It was a league game and unfortunately our team lost but nonetheless there was excessive chanting and shouting of curse words, flaming newspaper torches, fireworks, banners, and general revelry.  It was a was a great was to $6.50 on a Wednesday night and I will certainly be attending more games in the future.

High/ Low:

I finally finished doing the placement testing of all of my students and was discouraged to see how wide the spread of speaking / English abilities are in most of my classes.  But in my classes that have been doing group projects students have been collaborating and cooperating to make it work. I had a group of four 9^th grade girls today who transformed a simple exercise where they had to present an English conversation into an elaborate production with carefully home-made props, dramatic characters and plot twist.  It was so great! 

Overall it was a good week and I remain very happy to be here! We are headed out of town again this weekend and I hope to have more fun stories to report!

Beautiful Banos

Babies playing in a tree in a park in Banos.

Jen, Ynez and Callum on the roof of our hostel.

Life is beautiful. (And so is Banos)

Guinea pig an Ecuadorian delicacy

So ready to do it.

"This is a British ship!" 

Given 'er

At the football match. What can I say? We have a good time.

Hooligans

The game behind massive flags brought and hung by fans.

Cheers!