Getting My Tourist On

I'm happy to report that this weekend I can say that I lived life to the fullest and I am exhausted and sunburned to prove it! Since I more or less jumped right into work when I arrived I haven't had time to take in many of the tourist sites, but this weekend with the help of some natives I explored Quito and the surrounding areas.

On Saturday my friend Christian took me to the TeleferiQo. The TeleferiQo is a terrifying little car which runs on a cable up the Pichincha mountain to the West of Quito. It looks kind of like a ski lift, but it's a closed rather than open. It starts at around 9,000 feet and drops you off at about 13,000. As I rode the tiny death trap up to the top (with camera-toting Asian tourist I might add), I was able to pause the video in my head of what would happen if the car fell off the cable long enough to enjoy the spectacular view. Once on top of Pichincha there are a few short trails which we braved, of course taking many breaks since there is no oxygen that I could find to breathe up there. All in all, spectacular. And I managed to catch at least 50% of what Christian said during the day, which is an accomplishment because he talks faster than about anyone I know. And I learned a new word: chévere. It means cool, or so I've been told. You can see the pictures from this adventure here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004929&l=69d71&id=74100090

Today I ventured to Mitad del Mundo, the middle of the world which is actually located a little ways away from the actual equator. Shoddy conquering and colonizing if I've ever seen it. Solano and Nancy invited me to visit Mitad del Mundo and a few other places around it. Solano is the director at Hazel McCallion where I teach English and Nancy is his wife and also a teacher at the school. We started out the day at El Pucara de Rumicucho, which is an Incan ruin. As I mentioned in one of my other posts, Ecuador doesn't have the huge ruins that you can find in other Latin American countries because it is already so close to the sun that peoples who worshipped the sun knew they didn't have to build as high to get the same effect. Although the ruins weren't spectacular in and of themselves, the view was again fantastic and we had a great guide who was able to tell us all kinds of details about the ruins, which I promptly forgot. And there was a crazy silver spider. I mean, it was crazy. Check out the pics.

Next we went to an enormous volcanic crater with (you guessed it) an amazing view. Really spectacular people. And we finished it off at Mitad del Mundo where I had a very traditional lunch of a cheeseburger and Diet Coke. You can take the girl out of America... Anyway, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I would like to say that Solano and Nancy brought the yellow hat for me because of the sun, I may not have great fashion sense but that particular mistake wasn't mine. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004932&l=0aa5f&id=74100090

As I've experienced the hospitality of the Ecuadorians (and Colombians) here, it makes me think of the contrast in what I experience here as an American and what a Latin American immigrant experiences in the US. Here people continuously show me hospitality and kindness, while in the US Latin American immigrants face discrimination and hate. This is a happy post, so I won't get too into that but I have just been very aware lately of my American privilege. But go look at pictures and either be jealous that you're not here or excited for when you get to come visit me!