Cocinando

Well I finally stayed in Guayaquil for an entire weekend and didnt go to the beach once. I did lay out by the pool today though... gotta make sure I keep my vitamin D levels up ;)
Been sick off and on all week. I guess being in a foreign country with all sorts of new germs, parisites, and food chemicals finally caught up with me. Ive been teetering in between a stomach bug and gripe (which is pretty much the equivalent of a cold here) since last Saturday. I think Im finally going to have to break down and do the thing I hate and go to the doctors tomorrow at school... I have to make sure Im ready to go for Friday when my Spring break adventure begins!!!

But sick or not, I dont sit at home quietly very well so I still went out and did some cool stuff this weekend. Thursday we had a cooking class at school. It was run by the gastronomía department on campus, so we got to cook with the chefs at UEES. We made some of the more traditional Ecuadorian dishes, such as ceviche and patacones which I keep talking about as well as Maduro and seco de pollo, which is a really famous chicken, tomato, and rice dish in Ecuador. The class was cool but it took forever. We started at 1230 and didnt actually get to eat until 4. Which none of us were pleased about.

But on the plus side I learned how to properly peel verde platains (which is actually quite a pain in the rear end) and I got to show off my superb chopping skills when it comes to green peppers and onions. If only I had been wearing my old Ruby Tuesday salad bar hat instead of a hair net... then I could have really had it going. I think I broke the poor chefs heart though when he tried to feed me seco de pollo and I had to explain to him that I dont eat meat (which he responded with... but you eat chicken right?) He then looked at me as if I was from Jupiter, shook his head, and gave me yet another massive spoon full of rice instead. But I dont think my vegetarianism was nearly as much of a shock as when my friend Eryka started singing and dancing while she stir fried the onions and peppers. The picture above was taken just before her concert started. I think it was the first time the poor chef had ever seen his spatulas used as a microphone... I guess thats what happens when you let gringas in the kitchen.

Thursday night was pretty quiet. I took some cold medicine when I got home and ended up passing out before I even made it out to do anything fun. We had an extra cultural class on Friday morning since we didnt get to have our regular seminar due to the cooking class. It sucked that it was at 930 on a Friday, but it actually turned out to be pretty interesting regardless. We talked about emigration and immigration from the United States to Ecuador and vice versa and the complex and corrupt system of coyotes that hustle them all across borders for money. We actually had a guy come in and talk to us that had lived in the US illegally for eight years as a manager at Whole Foods before getting caught and coming back to Ecuador in 2008. And then we had a second person lecture on the oil companies polluting the rain forest and we watched a documentary called "Trinkets and Beads" that was filmed in Ecuador a few years back. There is an ecological reserve in Ecuador called Yasuni National Park that is believed to be one of the few places on the planet that was not effected by the last Ice Age. All the species of plants have not been thoroughly explored yet but many people are holding out hope that there may be some form of a plant that could hold the cure for some medical diseases. However, they have also found several hundreds of billions of dollars of oil beneath the ground in the reserve. According to the Ecuador constitution the reserve owns the rights to everything above the surface of the Earth while the Ecuadorian government owns the right to any goods found below the surfacee. Which means that the Ecuadorian goverment, as a poor and developing country, is faced with the choice between exploiting the land and ruining the naturaleza above the surface to increase the countrys wealth... or continuing to fight off the oil companies and not take advantage of the wealth opportunity. They have proposed an innovative new political idea to try and solve the problem. The Ecuadorian politicians have drafted a document promising not to exploit the oil for the next thirty years, therefore saving the plants and reserve for the better good of the globe, if countries around the world come together and pay Ecuador a compensation fund. A few countries such as Germany agreed to do so, but then problems arose as to how the money would be administered and how the whole thing would be monitored to make sure that Ecuador doesnt just take the money and go back on its promise. So the debate still sits. Here is a link with more about the issue:

http://www.wri.org/stories/2009/01/ecuador-proposes-leaving-oil-untapped-protect-forests-and-people

Anyway, on to a different subject. It was Sangwoo´s birthday. Sangwoo is my friend from Korea that speaks no english or spanish and walks around in a continual haze of confusion. We bought him his first ever birthday cake and he told us this was the first time he has every had a real birthday. This was then followed by a very long discussion trying to figure out if he was really 26 or 27 since in Korea they apparently count the 9 months in the mothers stomach as 1 year. So as far as hes concerned he was born when he was 1 year old.

 We were given the rest of the afternoon free for once so me and two international girls and one of my Ecuadorian friends took off to explore downtown. We went back down to our favorite spot, the boardwalk on the river called the Malecón. We found a really cool contemporary art museum that’s free to the public so we walked around there for a few hours. It turned out pretty neat because one of the artists had done a lot of work with painting the coyotes that exploit the immigrants that we had just attended the talk about that morning.

After that we didn’t know what else to do so we went to Mall del Sol, which is the second biggest mall in all of South America, second only to a mall in Brazil. We only saw a few parts of it but it was pretty incredible. I was proud of myself for managing to escape with only buying a cup of coffee.

We then went to Tony Romas because it was happy hour and they had two for one drinks. So we sat around and each had a mango piña swirl or a strawberry piña swirl (pictured) which was delicious and came with lots of fresh fruit and free chips!   

Saturday we helped out at an orphanage for abused or neglected boys and then I helped throw a cookout for all the internationals and our Ecuadorian friends that night. But I will have to write more about that later because my lovely host sister is standing over me waiting to go to the mall.

Fun Fact of the day #1: The president of my University is an ex-president of Ecuador.

Fun Fact of the day #2: USC is the #1 International Business program in the US this year as well, as well as #2 in the entire world! Go Cocks!

"Captain Ahab took his crew... his harpoon and set sail... and he called out to ships have you seen a white whale?" "No-whale, No-whale..."

Before I start this I just want to make sure its noted that Gilberto the Gecco is extremely chatty tonight... and he is becoming less shy... I have seen him scamper up and down my wall twice tonight... come to think of it maybe thats why that wall is painted green... maybe they think I wont notice the geccos... And while mentioning animals I would also like to say that I went to sleep last night with a mosquito bite free face and woke up with a forehead resembling pepperoni pizza and a spattering of other dots all on my neck.. I wish mosquitos would at least be polite enough to only bite below the neck. Anyway, its been a long few days. I always thought how nice it would be to have three day weekends… it never once crossed my mind that it would be so exhausting (I know everyone feels terrible for me right). Anyway, this weekend I went for a lovely boat ride on a reconstructed version of Captain Morgans pirate ship. I posted that I was sailing with Captain Morgan on my Facebook and then immediately realized that everyone probably interpreted that as I was just guzzling large quantities of Captain Morgan rum, which was not the case. The pirate ship did have an open bar but I assure you the rum was far below the quality of Captain Morgan. But anyway it was my friend Karlas 21st birthday. She is from Canada so turning 21 doesnt really mean much there... but it was still a lot of fun.  She is the one in the picture beside me. 

But the boat ride was gorgeous, it took us up and down the two mile or so stretch that makes up the boardwalk along the river of down town Guayaquil. The ride lasted about two hours but it was very nice to see all the lights of the city and relax outside when the weather is a little cooler. But I think everyone had a good time, which I was glad since I kind of instigated the whole thing. The best part about it was that the boat was pretty empty which meant we virtually had a private party aboard the ship with just our friends. There were a few other girls there that were on vacation from Chile, but we quickly adopted them in to our group and they actually ended up hanging out with us at the beach for the rest of the weekend.  

I also allowed my newly adopted host sister to come along with us on the boat ride. She is from a very small beach town in Ecuador and besides a few visits to Canada to visit Aunts and Uncles  I think these are some of the first international people she has ever met. Not to mention that from what I gather her mother is a very strict evangelical and therefore she has never really been allowed to go out with friends… so moving to Guayaquil has been quite the adjustment… but she seems to be enjoying herself... even if you cant tell by the strange face she is making in the picture. The other guy in the picture is Alfredo (a very common name here in Ecuador... dont ask me why they are naming their boys after an Italian cream sauce...). He is one of the host brothers of another girl here, although I think his family just hosts international students so that he can attempt to find an international girlfriend. Sadly I dont think its helping at all...

Or at least she was enjoying herself until she realized that traveling to the beach with internationals means that not only are you expected to walk to the city bus stop (and leave your house on time)but then do the unthinkable and pay 25 cents to take a city bus to the terminal to catch a 3 hour ride on a bus without air conditioning… I think she asked me about 10 times why we couldn’t take a private taxi. I promise I tried to be patient the first three times and answer her politely that buses are cheap and they work just fine… thankfully I don’t think the sarcasm was translated accurately in to Spanish the last 7 times I answered her. In the picture is my Columbian DJ friend making fun of my host sisters face when she was so unhappy on the bus.

 
 But we all made it alive, even if I got stuck sitting next to the Australian that smells bad for a lot of the way.... And the beach was beautiful! We stayed in a gorgeous house where one of my friends knew the owner. Its three stories and we got full access to the kitchen, there were a bunch of hammocks on the porches where you could lay and still see the ocean, and clean bathrooms!! All for ten dollars a night! We got some great cheap sea food and I got the biggest fruit salad ever for breakfast (not to mention a huge portion of patacones). We spent a lot of time at the beach on Saturday and I managed to escape tanner but not burned.
 This is Jonathan (the DJ) sitting on the porch. He was angry that we didnt have any speakers to play music so he took it upon himself to play drumbs on a plastic chair. If you look in the background you can see the Australian that joined in beatboxing  which then followed by another boy singing until we had a pretty genuine impromptu concert going on.

This was my favorite spot of the weekend (as well as my bed).

 This is one of my favorite pictures from the beach. If you start from the left you have someone from Mexico then beside that an Australian, two Ecuadorians, a Korean, and then me. I was actually the only American in our group this weekend. We finally made it back to Guayaquil on Sunday night. My host sister finally broke down and took a taxi from the bus terminal back to our neighborhood even though I stubbornly refused to go with her because I think its a waste of money (even if it is only 2 dollars). Monday was a rough awakening. I didnt get any homework done this weekend and ended up having to wake up at 530 on Monday to finish up a paper before my morning class because I fell asleep face first in my computer the night before trying to write it! But I finished it and it was turned in on time... and I even succeeded in printing it out without any help! I have half of my spanish mid term tomorrow and the other half on Thursday and then my marketing mid term on Monday and Im done with my first bimester and officially on Spring Break! I also asked the housekeeper today to write down some recipes for me before I go home :) and I have an Ecuadorian cooking class on Thursday!

I think thats about all the excitement in Ecuador for now... besides the fact that these people are still driving crazy here.. someone just went blazing over a speed bump and straight in to a black trash can... while driving right beside a sign that tells them to not speed because children are running... these people are loco..

Oh right... thats what you mean by the rainy season.

 So Ive been caught in a few rain storms since getting here but nothing that compares to the torrential downpour that threatened to drown me last night... It started raining while I was in class but it didnt look too bad so I went to the mall with a few girl friends... well we came out of a store to see this in front of comisariato (which is like Wal Mart) The store was roped off because the water was standing up to 4 inches. I was about ready to tell my friends that we should probably get started building an ark and gathering the iguanas and guinea pigs two by two (but leave behind the giantly mutated cockroaches) when we realized it was still happy hour at Chiles, which means 2 for 1 drinks and free chips and salsa. 

So we took refuge in Chilis and waited with false hopes that the rain would stop.  Anyway we got some Margaritas and some free chips and salsa and got laughed at by the Ecuadorian waitress due to our lack of spanish skills. When we left the restaurant the rain situation was just as bad except a rancid smell of standing water was added to the mix. We finally decided we had no choice but to leave, so I rolled up the legs of my pants and mentally prepared myself for the possibility of having to swim home.

Anyway... I ended up soaked up to my knees and slightly irritated when I got home.

Lesson of the week:  Guayaquil actually sits below sea level in some parts... when the city has a rainstorm expect it to appear as though it was just hit by a minor tsunami.

So unfortunately I didnt get to go on the boat ride on the Malecón this weekend... but were going on Thursday so I guess I can wait. We walked past it and checked it out but didnt have time to actually sail. Its modeled after Captain Morgans pirate ship since he is one of the famous English pirates who used to plunder the port of Guayaquil back in the old days. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the ship opens up as a beer and discotech as it sails around. They even have a special today for Valentines day where they serve a romantic dinner as you sail!! We spent Friday afternoon walking around downtown Guayaquil completely discombobulated and lost. We were hoping to go to the artisan market but never quite found our way there... Its very confusing to get around a city where the buses never stop in the same place...

 Needless to say we attracted a lot of attention and probably looked like fools. One the plus side we did manage to find our way down to the Malecón so we walked around there for a while and then went over to an area called Las Peñas and had a great dinner. We climbed on top of a huge look out tower and took pictures of the Board Walk. There was a ten year old up there who was amazed by my friend Megan, who is extremely pale and thin with short cut brown hair... He ran up to her and just stared at her for about five minutes without saying anything and then ran off to get his Moms cameras and take pictures of her. It was all quite funny. Below is another view of the Malecón looking in the other direction from the look out tower.

This is Josh and I standing on top of our tower The picture in front of the statue is Megan and I.The statue is ofcourse of Simon Bolivar... just like half the statues in Ecuador. But its a pretty cool little monument in the middle of the boardwalk.

The next morning we headed back to the city bus again to catch a ride to the Terminal for an exciting beach adventure. True to form, I was squashed in between a large crowd of sweaty people, elbowed continuously, serenaded by someone playing instruments for money that cant even sing , and almost ran over by the crazy honking taxi drivers that are constantly circling the bust station. The line to buy bus tickets to Salinas was really long so we spent an extra dollar each and bought tickets through another company. Its crazy in South America you can even buy time with money. We were lucky enough to have an Ecuadorian DJ friend with us that we met a few weeks back. He speaks absolutely no English but thinks were entertaining because were foreign and I think he likes that the international kids are always up to some kind of adventure. He has taken us under his wing as our tour guide and spent the whole morning herding us around like a mother hen. We were quite the sight... we had an Ecuadorian DJ skipping, dancing, and singing in Spanish being followed by a spattering of Australians attempting to speak Spanish, a few Americans, and a South Korean that walks around like he just got pinched all the time. But eventually we made it to the beach... 

 On the right is Eryka who refused to take that hat off all day... and then I bought a whole coconut for a dollar from one of the stands on the beach and had them chop it open with a machete right in front of me. I was in heaven. I really did feel like a little beach Princesita right about then. The beach we went to was called Salinas, its a much more industrialized beach than any of the other ones that I went to. In some parts it looks just like any other beach in Myrtle Beach or somewhere with tons of high rises and restaurants. It was a nice change but I much prefer the little local Ecuadorian beaches that dont have any buildings higher than a few floors and all the food is home made and unique. The seafood at Salinas was still very good though.

These glasses were passed around during the entire trip... Im not even really sure where they came from. I think maybe from Jonathan, our "tour guide."As if we already didnt stick out enough... they ran around putting the sun glasses on all the mannequins we passed in stores. haha. The guy on the right is my friend Sangwoo, our Korean friend. He was the highlight of the weekend. His English is getting slightly better but the poor kid still has no idea what is going on most of the time. We were all sitting in the hostel waiting to go out for dinner and he was sitting on the bunk bed above me... I asked him a question and he swung down just like this and all I could think of was the scene from 16 Candles with Long Duk Dong... "Whats happenin hot stuff?" I laughed so hard I almost started crying. Sang Woo later graced us with a passionate full on martial arts dance impression in the middle of the discoteca. He has become fast friends with one of the Australians who has fondly nicknamed him "Sanga" (Ive found that the Australians insist upon shortening EVERYTHING). He had to leave at 430 in the morning from Salinas to get back to Guayaquil in time for church... We walked him to the bus station and tried to make sure he knew how to get home... He cant even call a taxi on his own because no one understands him. We were terrified he wouldnt make it home and we would never see him again... but somehow he made it.

To the left is my friend Josh and I at dinner. And to the right are the girls, me, and our DJ friend- tour guide sitting up by the beach. I wish I could explain how much of a character he was. His pants were so tight that they ripped when he bent down to tie his shoe... and he still walked around with them all night.

This is the nicest bus I have been on in Ecuador to date so I had to take a picture of it. It was 3.30 for a ticket back to Guayaquil but it was air conditioned and played a movie! It was heaven!!

And this is a picture of the little neighborhood or ciudadela where I live. I will take more pictures of the outside of my particular villa later this week. Things are pretty good around the house. We just had a new girl move in last night. I havent had a whole lot of time to talk to her because I  had a big paper to write but she seems nice enough. She is blond too! She speaks fluent Spanish and goes to the same University as me. My host Mom is planning on taking some trips sometime soon so she said she will probably be gone a lot but she has hired some lady to keep track of everything while she is gone... on top of the maid... Im not sure exactly when shes leaving yet but I guess I will find out eventually! My little brat of a friend Rafaela left for Brazil this morning for the next few weeks. The house is already strangely quiet. Her mom is hoping that while they are in Brazil she will be able to convince her own mother, the grand mother, to move back to Ecuador to help her to look after Rafaela since she is a little wild and wont eat anything... Rafaela was in my room yesterday and was going through my stuff and found my electric tooth brush... I have never seen someone so mesmerized before. It took a long time to explain to her why the toothbrush was so heavy and why it made noise. She then took it and insisted on showing it to everyone in the house. Then she came back again and asked me some more questions about it. She has decided that for her next birthday she wants her own... but she wants a smaller one so it can be little like her. But I suppose that is about it for now! Happy Valentine day to all!!

Weekend Plans

This week has been as normal as is possible when living in Ecuador. I would like to say though that I counted the mosquito bites just on my left foot the other day... The results: 31!!!!! And I am also peeling like a snake from my last sun burn... but besides that all is well.
 I did almost get hit by a car the other night!!! Well actually I sort of did get hit by a car... just not very hard. I was walking in a cross walk at a red light and this guy came zooming up and hit me in the hip! I was extremely irritated. So then he pulls over and he starts asking me if Im okay (and for some reason  I became even more infuriated that he spoke fluent English). I told him I was fine... I think he was genuinely concerned because he continued to drive behind me and ask me if I was okay... which only aggrevated me more because I was less than pleased with him since he just hit me with his car and I really wasnt in the mood for small talk.  But the neighborhood where I live is so small that within two seconds one of the ladys that works in the office pulled up beside me to make sure I was okay and that the guy wasnt being mean to me. Anyway, to make a long story short, I am perfectly fine but I can officially say that I have now been hit by a car. Unfortunately it was in a country where it really doesnt matter because they do nothing about such things.. but it was still a little exciting. All I could think about the whole time was the Dane Cook joke "sometimes when you get hit by a car your shoes fly off"
This week I have been to two Ecuadorian birthday parties... come to think of it I have no idea whose birthday it was at either of them... Last night Eryka and I went grocery shopping (which I have been dieing to do here because they have some weird cool stuff) and then cooked dinner for us and the family of our KEI coordinator. We made huuuuuge salads with fresh tilapia and grilled garlic bread. We have now been instructed to come back every tuesday and thursday to cook dinner, since those are the days that the maid doesnt come.
After dinner we went out to a club where the birthday party was being held. I felt like VIP because my friend Miguel had gotten our names on the guest list so we got to skip everyone in line and hang out in the cool room... and we got wrist bands. I also saw a lot of people from class which was sort of cool to actually recognize people. At the other birthday party I went to this week virtually no one spoke English... I think a few of the people there didnt catch on to the fact that I could speak Spanish.. because one of them kept coming up to me and asking me "You know Michael Jordan?" which I gather was the only thing he knew how to say in English. I told him yes and that Michael Jordan was my father... I dont think he noticed the difference in skin tone.
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But anyway it is Friday morning which means no class. I am still laying in bed resting since we didnt get in until late last night... I did manage to get up by ten and eat some breakfast. Today I am going with a few friends to explore a little bit more of the city. We spend so much time taking trips that I still dont feel like Ive seen much of Guayaquil. We are going to an artisan market and then hopefully a few museums then Im hoping to grab some dinner or a snack at one of the little restauraunts on the river and then go on this boat ride up the Malecón. The boat ride is ten dollars I think but it includes refreshments. It lasts an hour or two and sails up the renovated board walk along the river. And then tomorrow I am headed to the beach to spend Saturday and Sunday!! Will update with more pictures once I get them.

New life plan...

So I just got back from going for a run around my neighborhood. You know youre in Ecuador when the scenery for a morning run consists of Iguanas in the middle of the road and men chopping down trees with machetes in the park. But anyway, the Cuenca adventure this weekend was amazing! We left Guayaquil early Friday morning... most of the group was struggling a little since we had a big  birthday bash for our German friend the night before. Leonor made me a bolón to go since I didnt quite make it up and functioning in time for breakfast... One of the guys from Mexico didnt make it up at all... he remained in bed "chuchaki" which is hungover.. and ended up having to meet us the next day. Anyway, we started out the weekend by going to Cajas National Park. It was nice to get back to the mountains again, which are not only beautiful but also arent quite as infested with mosquitos and is a little bit of a break from all the hot weather... The picture above was taken while we were on a hike through the park. The park is a combination of camp grounds, hiking paths, waterfalls, lakes, and nature reserves. The hiking path that we were on is actually part of the old Inca trail that runs all the way up from Cuzco! The story goes that the first car ever owned in Cuenca had to be carried there from Guayaquil on the shoulders of 8 men. It supposively took them about a month on the Inca trail to carry it all the way there since there wasnt enough infrastructure to drive it between cities at the time.
 This enchanted forest was by far my favorite park of the hike. Its hard to capture in pictures but the trees look like something straight out of a movie... I think if you sprinkled in some mystical animals and topped it off with a layer of snow it would have looked just like The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe... The trees are all extremely old and the guide followed us around and kept telling us to be nice to them and if we tripped to not grab branches or we would hurt his poor trees... I thought this was a little rediculous given that we were walking in these huge rubber boots on extremely uneven ground, it was impossible not to trip every two seconds. But the boots were nice since we were also walking through streams and small waterfalls... and the ground there in a lot of places is covered in something kind of like moss... so it stays wet at all times.

 After going on the hike we headed over to Cuenca. Turns out the city of Cuenca was named the best place in the world to retire last year... and now I can see why. It is the third largest city in Ecuador after Guayaquil and Quito, with about 400,000 people. Close to 1000 of those are foreign, most of which are of the retirement age. The weather stays moderate all year, the mountains are breathtaking, and everything is cheap! It is also one of the cleanest and safest cities in all of Ecuador!.

Ecuador is also famous for its flower production. In the Sierra (the mountains of Ecuador) most of the crops that are grown are produced for consumption, rather than exporting. However flowers are the big exception. This is just one little stand of what is a huge flower market in Cuenca. There is a similar one in Guayaquil as well. It was right beside a big church so a lot of people come to buy flowers as offerings before they go inside to pray.

Those three blue domes make up part of one of the 17 churches that are in downtown Cuenca. The blue color is supposed to reflect the sky and symbolize closeness with God.

  After walking around on the tour downtown we went over to the main market in the city. There were all sorts of artisan craft stands outside. Cuenca is actually home to the Panama hats, which ironically are not made in p}Panama.  The inside is a huge food market. The meat section was... well it was pretty naueseating... but very interesting. There were cow carcasses lining the aisles and flies everywhere... Upstairs they have what is more or less a food court. Cuenca and the Sierra region as a whole is also famous for Chancho, which is the roast pig that you see in the picture below. Its pretty common to see them selling it on the side of the street like this at lunch time. The ladies that sell it literally just dig in to the pig with their bare hands and slap it on a plate for you with some rice and maybe a few vegatables. Its also really common for them to seel guinea pigs the same way... its between 8 and 15 dollars for a full roasted guinea pig, head and all, depending on the size.

                                                                                  

 I chose not to go the market for lunch and to go to a little restaurant instead thinking I could get some good normal food... The meal started off okay with spinach soup (with popcorn to top it off ofcourse) but then it was followed by this little guy which pretty much grossed me out beyond belief. Since I only started eating fish a few weeks ago lets just say I was less than prepared to transition in to consuming a fish that was still staring at me. But in all the lunch cost $1.30 so I guess I cant expect too much..

We had the rest of the afternoon free to do whatever we wanted. Most people went shopping but I talked a few other people from the group in to going on this zip lining canopy tour with me. The more people we got to go the cheaper it was, so you better believe I was using my persuasive bullying skills. It ended up being a lot of fun though! The zip line course consisted of 7 different lines and lasted about two hours...

The lines zig zagged in between different  mountains and across some little valleys. Each zip line that we went on got progressively longer and faster. They

  also had a tendency to be very bouncey... a few of the guides decided I wasnt nervous enough and started to take it upon themselves to shake the lines up and down as I was going across to make me go faster. haha. Even our program director ended up doing the zip line by the end of the day. She orgininally came just to take pictures because shes terrified of heights... but ended up screaming her lungs out across the valley.

 We spent the rest of that night in Cuenca. I had another little "oh right Im still in a foreign country" moment while we were walking to diner when I got nailed with a water balloon. I was less than pleased. It is tradition to throw water balloons and flour and other objects at people on the streets during the week of Carnaval... but that is not until March... so Im not sure why this weekend it was a popular activity in Cuenca... After getting hit the first time I walked another few blocks down the road and had another one thrown at my feet... quite rude.
Anyway, the next morning we got up and headed over to another little town and toured their market. They had all sorts of crazy fruits and vegatables along with a bunch of live animals for sale... There was everything from dog to guinea pig to cow to chicken to llama... It was kind of weird to watch ladies walk around with Santa Claus style sacks that were actually full of guinea pigs. It also smelled terrible... But after that we went to the Inca ruins called Ingapirca. It was the second most important city in the Inca empire after Cuzco.

What you see in this picture is the outline of partl of the town as well as the temple of the Sun. They used the angles of the sun to tell time. Where the sun illuminated the building changed at different times of the year so that the town people were able to record the equinox and solstice... which allowed them to develop an agricultural calendar. We also saw some cemetaries and

remains and reconstructions of old houses. To make a long story short... this is where you will find me living in 30 years... so everyone is welcome to come visit :) Just kidding! Or at least halfway... Here are a few more pictures...

This is the traditional clothes worn by people in Cuenca. The flowers in their hair are supposed to represent if they are single or not.

This was an action shot of my reaction to my fish with the head still on at lunch... To make things even better I was served another one for lunch the next day, but the second tim I at least got ice cream cake for dessert.

This is one of my favorite buildings in Cuenca. It sits right on the river. It was originally a house but now is part of the University.