A Review

OK, so it´s been a long time since I´ve written an entry about my adventures...but that´s because I´ve been out travelling and having fun!

Two weekends ago, I went to Salinas de Guaranda, which is a small little town at the foot of the Chimborazo volcano. I went with one of my Ecuabuddies and we met his friends there, who were awesome. They showed us around the mountains and we got to go on a long hike. There were caves, a beautiful waterfall, an owl in our path, and I even learned how to make a dandelion whistle. Once we got back to the town, we toured the chocolate and cheese factories - which Salinas is famous for - and sampled the local product. I met the peace corps vol there and she gave me some magazines in English, which was a nice taste of home. We were going to meet up at a festival the following weekend, but it was cancelled due to assasination threats on the leader of the parade.

Soooo, the Ambateñitas and I decided to head to Baños instead, which is just a 45-minute bus ride from Ambato. There I did a zipline over a river canyon and flew superman-style for about 400 yards. We also had a contest to see who could find the coolest thing for a dollar. JC and I won!! And we still haven´t been compensated...hey girls, you owe us some beers I think.

The other super exciting thing that I was lucky enough to watch here in Ambato was the US election coverage. One of our vols has super-cable, which includes CNN in English, so we all gathered at her house until 1a.m. watching the live results. It was a very different experience for me to watch the 08 presidential election, because 1) I was actually excited about the results, and 2) being outside of the country gave me a different perspective on the whole thing. How cool is it that we can change governments just like that. No fighting, no riots, no military coups...awesome! When the constitutional election was happening here, we were advised to not even go out in the city because there are so many protests and dangerous things happening in the streets. Luckily, everything turned out okay, but it remains to be seen what will happen with Correa´s politics in the future, and if he can live up to all his promises.

Those were the 3 main things of the past couple weeks, except for my amazing jungle trip, which I will write about in the next post....read on, friends!