alive and sorta well

¡Hola!

It´s been an interesting week.

Last weekend Melina, another volunteer, and I took the bus to Mindo. Mindo is small town (and that´s being generous) in the Andes about two hours Northwest of Quito. The area resembled Costa Rica, only with more dramatic mountains. We think it is a rainforest. It rained half the time, and it was a forest. Hey, what do I know. I´m from Detroit.

The scenery on the drive to Mindo was stunning: plenty of lush green cloud-covered mountains and valleys. We drove through some of the clouds along the way. The Andes are so cool.

The first day we went tubing down a rather rapid river. It was just Melina and I on the tube raft. We had a private tubing raft guide. His mission was to keep us from crashing into the rocks and dying. Boy did he earn his money! This was my first time tubing, and I had a ball. The water was a little cold, but the fear of crashing into rocks kept my mind off the cold.

We also visited a butterfly garden. Butterfly gardens are so delightful! So tranquil. Butterflies of blue, yellow, red and black frolicking in the air! I unsuccessfully tried to coerce a couple of the butterflies to eat melon off my hand. They must get tired of tourists forcing them to eat melon off their fingers.

Later that afternoon Melina and decided to explore the ¨town¨ -- all four blocks of it. That took all of 10 minutes. After dinner we had drinks at a cool little bar on the edge of town. This was THE (only) place to be. Their margaritas were excellent!

The next morning we visited the waterfalls park. We took an open cable car across the valley to get to the starting point of the trail. Again, we had a private tour guide, a cute young guy named Michael Angel. He guided us up and down the mountain to see two of the four waterfalls. We didn´t have enough time see all four, which was fine with me because visiting two falls was challenging enough for me. All my energy was focused on not sliding off the mountain. It had rained the night before, and the trail was muddy. And I was wearing rubber Croc sandals, which tend to slide in the mud. But then again, I think I would have had the same challenge had I been wearing hiking boots. Atleast it was easy to wash the mud from the Crocs. This little adventure took about 2.5 hours in total.

Touring in Ecuador is so inexpensive. The round trip bus fare to Mindo was $5. The double occupancy room with a private bath and breakfast was $10 per person. Dinner was $5. The excursions totaled $25 per person. Margaritas were pricey at $3 a piece!


On Tuesday I awoke feeling achey all over. At first I thought I might have malaria, because the symptoms of the flu and malaria are similar. But since I didn´t have a fever or chills, I figured that it wasn´t the flu. But to be on the safe side, I consulted with a doctor. He agreed that it was the only the flu. But he also told me that I was suffering from hypertension! I don´t have hypertension in the US, so imagine my shock when he told me that I have it here. Apparently it is not uncommon for people to develop temporary hypertension at high altitudes. So I´m taking high blood pressure medicine for a few days. This sucks.

I slept for two days, and am now feeling much better. I missed two days of work (oh darn).

Teaching the lovely children is getting better. I take each day and each class as they come. Today was a better day. We´ll see what joy tomorrow brings.

Today my host mother decided to make me a traditional Ecuadorial dish for lunch. It was tripe in a peanut butter cream sauce, with rice. It´s called librillo. It tastes as good as it sounds. But I ate it all, and I didn´t grimace once. I decided to eat dinner out tonight. I had indian food. GOOD indian food.

Well, I need to get some sleep.

Cheers,
Stacey