My first volcanos

Well, this weekend was definately an interesting one. It started out on Friday where I somehow ended up at my very first Ecuadorian house party. It was actually the birthday celebration of my host mother's cousin, who is only 25, and I'm still not sure what that makes him to me. *shrug* It was fun, but lasted past 3am. I also learned through a little bit of hands on experience that what we have been told about the stereotype that American women are "easy" is very true. I had no less than two guys giving it there best shot at becoming my Ecuadorian novio (boyfriend). Apparently there are a lot of people here who seem to think that the study abroad experience just isn't complete until you've dated an Ecua. We'll see about that one.

Okay, day 2: Saturday. The day was rather uneventful but the evening involved a very fun pizza party at one of my friend's house. He lives right next to the Quito airport (which by the way is in the center of the city). The entertainment of the night involved watching planes land and take off from his roof and trying to guess which ones will be loud enough to make the walls of the house shake. Some of those little planes surprise you. After the party some of us went to another of my friend's house to stay up all night in preparation for the following day's volcanology field trip. Basically that means we played lots of cards, watched a movie, and drank lots and lots of pepsi. (yes, I succeeded and did not sleep at all that night.)

On to Sunday. It begins at 3:30am when we met the rest of our class in Quito in order to climb into several 4 x 4 vehicles and begin the 1hour plus drive up to the peak of the volcano Guagua Pichincha which just borders the city of Quito. When we got up there it was very cold (I'm talking ice and a killer windchill) and very cloudy. In fact it was so cloudy that we could not see any of the promised sweet volcanic crater and very little of the sunrise that got us up so early. What we did get was very little oxygen and some eery views of jagged pointed rocks coming out of the fog that would make any horror movie's day.

Trip 2: still Sunday and only an hour after driving back down the first volcano. We next piled into two charter buses and continued to drive for more than 2 hours to volcano number two: Papallaka (spelling not sure on that one). This one is more in the jungle and was supposed to be nice and sunny and hot. It was: rainy and cold. However, after breaking open several volcanic rocks with hammers to satisfy our crazy professor, we went to this other location, I think on the side of the volcano somewhere. Next we proceeded to, for lack of a better word, bushwhack through, in, up and down this jungle river gorge. It was one of the most fun things I have done so far in this country as I got to climb through pristine bamboo forest where there existed no previous trail. The amount of mud that was stuck to my clothes could be measured in pounds. Well, maybe not quite, but we were really really dirty. It was great. Would have been a lot better with fewer people, but I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that more of our biology field trips will involve such activities. :)

Needless to say, by the time I got back on Sunday night I had little engery left for anything but taking a nice long hot shower and falling into bed. I love not having class on Mondays...