Last Days in Quito

"The shortest poem in the world is you..." - my favorite graffiti in Quito I spent my last two days in Quito basically just wandering around the city and visiting placed that I wanted to see before I flew out Thursday night.  On Wednesday, I wandered around to find a post office where I could buy some Ecuadorian stamps for a friend from my hometown.  Unlike Lima, there are only a couple post offices in Quito and they have regular office hours so I never had time to get to one while I was working.  I managed to buy a couple different stamps then wandered around Quicentro Mall to try to find some wrapping paper for the little torito that I bought as a gift.  I was not able to find anything that would work until I ran into...

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Posted in: 2L,3L,Basilica Voto Nacional,Ecuador,English,J-Mad,Locro,Quito

Party in Peru

This past weekend, starting the day after I finished working at the NGO in Quito, I flew to Lima, Peru, to visit one of my friends from high school in Michigan who is in the middle of her two year service with the Peace Corps.  Although her site is a small town outside of Huaraz in Ancash, she was in Lima this weekend for medical checks so it worked out perfectly to visit.  Even though she had been to Lima previously, she had never before had time to get out and see much of the city (and it was my first time in Peru), so we had a very fun, action-packed weekend and saw nearly everything cool on this list from Time Magazine. Miraflores from the Highway Friday, August 23, 2013 This morning, I woke up super early to get to the...

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Posted in: 2L,Barranco,Ecuador,English,Inca,Indiana Jones,J-Mad,José Sabagol,La Lucha,Lima,MALI,Miraflores,MSU,Museum,Pachacamac,Pacific Ocean,Parque de Aguas,Peru,Ruins,Toro de Pucará

Cloud Forest and a Cascada: Mindo

On Saturday, August 17th, two volunteers and I woke up bright and early in the morning and met at the Ofelia bus stop to head over to Mindo, a 2.5 hour ride away.  Mindo sits at a much lower elevation than Quito, and as the bus drove towards the town, you could feel the temperature rising with the humidity.  The landscape also became thicker and greener with a change from the kind of dry vegetation that I am used to seeing in and around Quito. When we arrived in Mindo, it was cool to see that it was a place that was enjoyed equally by foreign tourists as native Ecuadorians with their families.  Since one of the travel companions had to work on her thesis on Sunday, we just had the one day on Saturday to stay in Mindo.  We...

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Posted in: 2L,Cloud Forest,Ecuador,English,J-Mad,Mindo,Tarabita,Waterfall

Cotopaxi through the Clouds

Today was the Ecuadorian Independence Day (August 10th).  Instead of staying in Quito to do something, fourteen of us from work hired a driver and a van to take us to the Cotopaxi National Park for the day.  We left around 8:30am and arrived a few hours later. The park sits at an elevation even higher than Quito so you could feel the air becoming thinner as we drove through the park to go to the parquedero to start the trek.  It is amazing too to see the geographical changes in the landscape in Ecuador.  Quito is dry and dusty but outside the city is lush and green, especially as you drive to lower elevations.  Quito is also nestled between mountain ranges in the Sierra, but the Cotopaxi National Park was completely...

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Posted in: 2L,Cotopaxi,Ecuador,English,J-Mad,Mountains,Volcano

Waterfalls in Sangolqui and Loreto

This Saturday, four of us from the office went to a suburb of Quito about 45 minutes by bus, Sangolqui, to meet up with one of our other coworkers who lives with her boyfriend's family there.  We met up with the two of them as well as two of our other Ecuadorian friends, at a giant multi-colored statue of corn (chocro in Kichwa) at the center of the town.  From there, the eight of us hopped into a pick-up truck that took us up through hills and through the little pueblo of Loreto to the entrance closest to the largest waterfall.   Four of us rode in the cab of the truck, and four of us rode in the bed of the truck (I was in the cab).  The bed of the truck looked pretty bumpy.  At one point, the truck drove over a...

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Posted in: 2L,Ecuador,English,J-Mad,Loreto,Quito,Sangolqui,Waterfall