estoy en ecuador!: como te llamas, llama?

So, this weekend I went to Riobamba, a city in the highlands of Ecuador! We left Friday morning at 9, and I almost thought that I wasn’t going to make it because my host dad had disappeared and he was supposed to take me to the bus terminal. But all was well and I made it in time. We took the bus to Guayaquil- about 4 hours- and then ate lunch (at McDonalds!) and took another bus to Riobamba- about 5 hours. We FINALLY got to Riobamba at around 9 at night- 12 hours of traveling! It’s interesting, because we didn’t travel that far, it just took us forever because the roads are quite terrible in some places. The buses are strange- they stop every once in a while to let people on the bus who sell drinks, snacks, and candy. They just walk the aisles and try to sell you things and then get off a few minutes later. I also learned that whoever chooses the movies to watch on buses has terrible taste.

Once we got to the hotel in Riobamba, everyone decided to go to the discoteca! Which was fun, except we stayed up really late and I like sleeping.

The conference didn’t actually start until Saturday morning. And, the conference part was boring. BUT, after we ate lunch, all of the foreigners took off and went to a market. Since I knew we were going to Chimborazo the next day, and since I didn’t bring anything for the cold weather (I am in ECUADOR, after all), I bought gloves, a scarf, a hat, and a sweater thing for the next day. It was a good thing that I did. Later that day, we went on a tour of Riobamba in an open air bus, which is always fun. That night we went to the discoteca AGAIN.

The next morning, we were supposed to leave by 8 a.m. to go to Chimborazo (a volcano that is about an hour away from Riobamba). Since everyone had gone to the discoteca the night before, and it’s Ecuador so nothing is ever on time, we didn’t end up leaving until at least 9:30. We ended up hiking up past 5000 meters, which was quite cool. Except for when we went back down I was cold and had a headache. It was definitely a good thing that I had bought some things for the cold though- without those I would have frozen solid.

We also saw wild llamas! Which is not something I had ever seen before.

We ended up not heading home until 6 yesterday evening, which means that we didn’t get to Portoviejo until 3:30 this morning!

LOVE, Kirsty