Busy Weekends

Kelsey and I decided we wanted to be more proactive about what we were doing here Ecuador, and proactive we were this weekend. It started on Wednesday evening when we went out for beers after work at the La Compania Cerveceria, the only microbrewery in Cuenca. As Oregon girls, Kels and I were both craving a real, good beer, and luckily the Cerveceria delivered. Friday was a national holiday, meaning we had the day off and a little extra time to play and explore. We started the morning with a trip to Cajas, a national park about 30 minutes from Cuenca. Although the weather was kind of gray, it was beautiful nonetheless, and nice to get out in nature again. We went with our friends Oliver and Sarah, Oliver being another CEDEI teacher and Sarah his Ecuadorian girlfriend. The elevation at Cajas is about 9000 feet, around 1000 feet higher than Cuenca, which we could definitely feel at different points. We went on one of the smaller “hikes” (walks) around two of the lakes, and spent a lot of time stopping, taking pictures. We even spotted a llama within our first 30 minutes, which was on Kelsey’s Cajas bucket list. She was pretty excited. After our hike we went into the lodge and had a canelazo drink, a warm alcoholic beverage made with herbs, cinnamon, and the local Ecuadorian liquor, Zhumir. The idea behind the drink (a shot essentially) is to warm you up with the alcohol, and to help you adjust to the elevation with the herbs. Kels and I weren’t super enamored with the drink, but it was worth trying once. We had taken a taxi to Cajas after showing up at the bus station to find out no tickets remained for the buses to Cajas. So after spending $15 on a taxi there, we planned to take the bus back into Cuenca. We were waiting in the bus stop beside Cajas, when I remembered many people had told me that a successful way to get back from Cajas to Cuenca was hitchhiking. So I decided to try it… I was a goofy gringa, smiling and passing cars with my thumb stuck in the air. After about 10 minutes and a lot of cars passing me, I thought maybe I was just too weird looking and wouldn’t get anyone to stop when… I couple pulling out of the Cajas parking lot stopped for us! Unknown bucket list item accomplished: successfully hitchhike in Latin American. The man was from Colombia and his girlfriend was an Ecuadorian, and they were on vacation from Guayaquil, heading to Cuenca for the first time. Although I was excited about successfully hitchhiking, and it was a really pleasant ride, I was pretty excited when we piled out of the car near Parque San Sebastián, where we had been four in the backseat. Returning home from Cajas was great too, because it was the first time I had left Cuenca and had that returning home feeling for coming back to Cuenca. After our hike it was nap time, shower time, and off to our next event. We ended up going to a friend’s house that afternoon to watch the Ecuador versus Chile fútbol match, one of many World Cup qualification games. It was definitely more exciting watching the game with a group of Ecuadorians than it would have been had I watched the game by myself; but, I still must say, soccer isn’t my sport. After the game we devoured some pizza, and hung around for karaoke/dancing time. It was unlike any get together I had been to before, and something must be said for how well Ecuadorians move, and how much they like to move, that they end a fútbol get together with living room salsa/meringue dancing, a few trying desperately to teach the gringas how to move their hips. Hilarious.

Saturday morning I had class for four hours yet again, although the four hours goes by surprisingly fast; I only managed to get through three-fourths of the material I had planning for the day, which I count as a win, because I would rather be over-prepared than under-prepared. After class, Kelsey and I were in a productive mood again, going grocery shopping at both the mercado and Supermaxi. Post shopping it was naptime, and a quick dinner before attending the Saturday night church service at Verbo. I went again with my friend Isabel, and we were blessed to sit by a 50-something-year-old woman named Dora. In the greeting “God be with you” part of the service, she gave us a big, warm, motherly hug. And then when it was time to break off into smaller groups for the sermons, we just asked her, “Where are you going?”, and she took us under her wing to her sermon of choice. It ended up being a great selection, the sermon being given on the different steps of prayer (ask, look, call), and by the son of an American missionary with impeccable Spanish. Although his Spanish was flawless, I think his being a second language learner (and the fact that he was super animated) helped me to understand the whole sermon, something I can’t always boast. After chatting with Dora at coffee hour after church (and exchanging numbers), Isabel and I took a taxi back to the city center, and I was off to my next event. We had planned our housewarming party for this weekend, inviting all the teachers at CEDEI and any Ecuadorian friends/boyfriends/friend-boyfriends, knowing fully well that things might get a little crazy. And crazy they were; we probably had close to 50 people in our house, with different bubbles of conversation, guitar sing-along, and dancing. Also, it was a dip party, and oh my the dips that people brought; they were delicious. Although the party was really fun, cleaning up the next day makes me want to never have a party again. We spent hours cleaning up the kitchen and mopping, with the water turning black every few strokes. Needless to say, Sunday was spent cleaning and recuperating, with a little bit of lesson planning and grading in the evening. All in all, a successful weekend in Ecuador, and hopefully only a first of many adventure-filled weekends.