Some things

So, a few things have happened in the past few days. The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that I was mugged on Friday afternoon walking through Old Town Quito. I only had $20 on me, but I also had the camera, and he took that. Prick. I am okay though, and that is the most important part. It sucks also because I took some bad ass pictures, namely from the hair raising tower of the Basilica del Voto Nacional. What a cool building that is, it´s fairly new as well. Climbing the tower though....WHOA. SCARY, but the view was SO worth it. Unfortunately, no pictures to prove it.

On Saturday morning, I woke up really early to take a bus to meet up with Michelle and Dan...they had traveled to the Quiloto loop, and I stayed behind so none of us get sick of each other. Anyway, that ride was awesome, and I met up with them at Lago de Quilotoa. 3850 meters above sea level...it was cold but the setting was amazing!!! We were in the Andes, in the truest sense of the phrase, surrounded by the mountains, Quichoa speaking indigenous people, Alpacas, sheep and Llamas. AMAZING.

Now I would like to talk about the lake. We walked down into the crater and it took about half an hour. The lake is a shiny green body of caustic (Dan checked) water that neither comes nor goes. It was a VERY long hike up, especially when you take into effect the elevation and the temperature. I picked up a few woollen things to keep warm up there.

When we got back, we struck off for Santo Domingo and Bua because we wanted to say a final goodbye and so Dan could see what we did. We arrived little before 8pm, had some dinner, and woke up early the next morning. We went to the school, and, during a meeting with the teachers, I was presented with a tsa´chila kilt as a token of appreciation for the work we did. I also helped a group of engineers move rocks. That was fun, though my arms hurt like hell afterwards.

After a quick lunch of fruit salad and a bolon de queso, we struck off for Quito...and were held up for almost an hour due to a really bad car accident. We also watched two of the worst movies I´ve ever seen...

We are currently back in Quito, anticipating our next move. The next big update will come after we know said next step. Stay tuned!!!!