Trip to Banos

So this past weekend, I decided to take some time off from the job hunt. It has been kind of stressful, especially with my bank account running kind of low. But I needed a break so I decided to head to Banos with my friend Ruth, who had lived there for the past six months and knew all of the cool places to go. We left Friday afternoon and after a bus ride the took almost 4 hours I was exhausted, but like I said Ruth knew all the best places to go. So after a good meal and a huge mocha shake at a small cafe, I was recharged. That recharge was very much needed, because Banos has a ton of awesome bars with endless cheap beers. Bar hoping lasted late into the night with dance clubs, dive bars and meeting several other travelers Good thing Ruth's former bosses, a Canadian guy and Ecuadorian girl who are married and own the main English school in Banos, let us crash at their place.
The next morning while battling a pretty harsh hangover another friend of Ruth's, John, offered to be our tour guide for the day. First off we started at La Casa del Arbol, a tree house built high up in the hills as a Volcano look out. This place is also known as the Swing at the end of the world, because it has a swing off of one of the branches that swings way out over the hillside with an awesome view. I guess the whole place was recently rebuilt to be much safer, as well as adding another swing to deal with the crowds. Apparently we picked a perfect day to go up there, because the weather was perfect and clear so we could see the volcano, which is active and spit out some smoke a couple of times. We also got there before the daily crowds so we didn't have to wait long to try out the swings, but as we were leaving trucks and buses full of people were on their way up.
Our next stop on our informal tour of the Banos area was lunch in Rio Verde, a smaller village a little ways outside of Banos on the way towards the rain forest. My stomach was still fighting me from the night before, so I didn't eat much. After lunch we went for a hike down the Rio Verde to the waterfall Pailon Del Diablo. I may have heard something about it being one of the biggest waterfalls in Ecuador, but I haven't looked that up yet. It was really awesome. You can actually hike down one side or the other, and can pretty much go right underneath it, but both trails aren't connected in the middle because of some ownership disputes. It was very beautiful though. The trail we took even had a sketchy suspension bridge, but it was a nice little walk down. Wears you out on the way up though, especially if you get wet going under the falls.
By this time, we were all extremely exhausted and called it a day, because Ruth and I had to catch another 4 hour bus back to Quito so we wouldn't get back to town to late at night. We couldn't leave without one more of those gigantic mocha shakes though. Probably the only reason I made it back to Quito without completely passing out. Exhausting couple of days, but amazing trip.

La Casa Del Arbol in front of the Tungurahua volcano, a view you don't always get.

La Casa Del Arbol also known as the Tree house

I had to try out one of the swings. Not as scary as it looks.

Ruth trying out the swing

Banos from a view point high up in the mountains.

Pailon Del Diablo

The path down from the other side of Pailon Del Diablo

In front of Pailon Del Diablo after getting drench going under it.

Catching up on Updates

I know I haven't posted anything in quite awhile, so I have a lot of stuff to catch up on. First of all, I have finished my TESOL training. Turns out when they call something a 4 week intensive course, they mean 4 weeks without sleeping much. Since the course consisted of not just your regular course work you get in any class (readings, essays etc..), but planning lessons, teaching classes and reflecting on not only my own lessons but on my classmates lessons as well. All in all after 4 weeks of very little sleep and tons of work, I am done and am a certified English teacher.

Now for the next step in the process, finding a job. This isn't just a typical job hunt like most of us have gone through in the states. It has been hard, especially with my bellow average Spanish skills. For one I decided to stick around Quito. I decided to do that at the advice of one of my trainers. Since my main interest is in creative writing, she told me that Quito has a budding creative writing community, that I can bring my knowledge and skills to possibly help expand. This really excited me, not only to help other people with their writing, but to have a completely new look at my own. I have dropped off my resume at several of the more well known and respected language institutes around Quito, and now its time to play the waiting game. Hopefully it's not to long of a wait, but it probably will be. Ecuadorian culture is very slow and laid back and everything pretty much moves at its own pace. If you ever spend any time down here, get used to waiting. If you make plans with someone, be prepared to wait a half an hour to an hour, that's just how things work. And since its Carnival this weekend till Tuesday, I'm not expecting to hear back from anyone till after that.

Something else I have been working on has been searching for a place to live. My home stay with the Ecuadorian family I have been staying with ends the on the 21st, and I can't afford to stay here much longer. They have been great to me, having 3 huge meals a day and a comfortable bed to sleep in is great while I get used to the culture down here. Plus it has helped my Spanish a lot, even though I still can't have a full conversation about anything, I can order food, get around town in taxis and ask for directions (even though that isn't a very good idea, Ecuadorians are very vague in there directions, and even if they don't know where a place is they will try and give you directions anyway, possibly sending you in completely the wrong direction). I do have an appointment set up to check out a room next week after Carnival ends. It's in a five bedroom house shared with what sounds like a bunch of Europeans that are my age. Hopefully it works out because it's the right price and the right area of town.

As for some of the places I've been around Ecuador, It's been kind of limited so far due to the heavy work load of the course, followed by job and apartment hunting. But a couple weeks ago, I got to go to Otavalo, a smaller town a 3 hour bus ride North of Quito, where they hold this huge outdoor market every weekend. So far it has been one of the coolest places I've been, insanely bright colors everywhere, small and large trinkets of every possible kind, paintings, hand woven crafts and all kinds of jewelry. Ever turn you take is something new to see, with vendors trying to get you attention and little kids wondering around trying to sell you toilet paper or candy made from coca plants (better energy boost than any coffee or any drink you will ever find). The problem was that I forgot to find an ATM before leaving Quito, and by the time I found one, it was almost closing time so I couldn't buy much, but I did purchase a beautifully hand woven hammock, that's bright green strips and big enough for two people for just a few dollars. Looking forward to finding a place to hang it up and try it out. I wish I could post some pictures, but the market is not the kind of place you let it be known that you have a $1000 dollar camera set up in your bag or a $300 dollar phone in your pocket. Not if you want to keep them.

The night life around here has been pretty awesome so far. There is really only one main place to go for night life here in Quito, an area of town called La Mariscal otherwise know as Gringolandia to the locals but that is where all the good bars I have found so far are. The only problem I have come across is finding a decent beer that doesn't cost a fortune. Beer itself isn't hard to find, good beer on the other hand is. Pretty much anywhere you go you can find the same two beers, a brand just called Pilsner, which is very cheap, but just tastes like watered down Corona, and another called Club which costs a little more and tastes just like Corona. I did visit an Irish bar the other night, where you could get Guinness (in a can) for $14 which blew my mind, but I have also found two German bars that both have good beer selections for really cheap. I'm talking a huge mug of beer for $5.

My trips out have been pretty fun. I went with a couple other people that are staying at the same house I am to a sports bar for the super bowl. That was really interesting to watch the super bowl in Spanish, although it was on one of the ESPN translation channels so no good commercials. There were a ton of Ecuadorians cheering for the Seahawks which was pretty awesome to watch. The other funny thing about that night was that I was one of two Americans in our group, there were three German girls, an Italian girl and three guys from Finland, all of which hardly knew anything about Football, but they were all more into the game than I was. Another trip out was with my classmates from the TESOL course, the night we finished, that is how I found the German bars. Drinking started around 1 in the afternoon and wrapped up around 3 in the morning so the details are a little fuzzy. I also went with my classmates to an Irish bar in the Mariscal called Finn McCools, where we happened to win Trivia night, which first prize was a pitcher of beer (Pilsner) and a $40 dollar bar tab, which is where details start to get fuzzy again. But we did end up at a dance club on the Plaza Foch (the center of The Mariscal) at 2ish in the morning, which was more fun than I thought it would be. I have been out a few more times with people from my house, drinking with all different kinds of European people which is really interesting. Tons of new people to meet.

Well I think that pretty much brings us up to date on the adventures so far. Now that I have a little more free time I will try and keep this up to date a little more. I'll try and have more pictures next time.