Ecuador!!!!

Sean has been trying to get back to Ecuador ever since he served his mission there about 10 years ago. He came in contact with a prosthetist who has set up a clinic with a local rotary club and was setting up a 10 week course that physical therapist students could take to gain another skill and try to make the country a little more self sufficient in the prosthetic field. He asked Sean to teach a week of the course and Sean was thrilled. He wanted me to go, but I was hesitant because of the kids...I think Sean would have purchased my ticket even if I had said no. He was so excited. So we bought plane tickets and decided to go on our first KID FREE VACATION!!!!!!! Now I haven't really slept in 5 years so the prospect of sleeping all night for a week really sounded great to me.

We arrived in Quito and stayed at this cute hotel. Here is the courtyard.

And here is our room

We woke up early and hopped in this awesome taxi to the bus station and went to Otavalo for the day. The taxi's here have taken out all the seat belts in the back seats - so it's not even an option if you'd like to wear one. Another scary form of travel here is motercycle. I saw a family of 4 fit on a motorcycle. 4 year old child in the front, dad driving, next comes the 8 month old baby, followed by mom....so scary.

Sean served in Otavalo for 11 months of his mission. On Saturdays all the people from the local villages that specialize in different artesan work come and set up an ENORMOUS market that goes on for blocks and blocks. We walked around the market and ran into where Sean lived as a missionary. He couldn't remember if he was on the second or third floor of that building behind him.

A woman with her spread of beans and corn

Pork anyone?

Nothing quite like fresh coconut milk after a guy cut an opening in it with a huge machete

After a couple hours at the market we hiked to a beautiful waterfall. It's called Peguche. Along the way we net a couple of young cows grazing on the trail

We got to one of the look out points and then went down to the bottom of the falls and hiked up the other side to the top. It was pretty pathetic listening to us pant as we hiked up the million steps. It's over 10,000 feet and the air was thin. Both of us were nausiated and had headaches and couldn't breathe because of the altitude. We live at about 200 feet and have for the last several years. Not to mention we haven't exactly kept up on our exercise.

After hiking we went on the bus around a little village and got a good view of this.
Can you spot the heart on this mountain? (hint: it's on the right side)

We were also able to go to church in Otavalo on Sunday and Sean saw some of the families he worked with while there.

If you notice the fence around the church. Every place in Ecuador has bars on windows and fences or walls around buildings. If you can't afford these beautiful spikes the church can afford you can put barbed wire up. If you can't afford barbed wire (which is usually the case) what you do is break a whole bunch of glass and cement it to the top of your wall. That is the most common defence - broken shards of glass on top of a wall surrounding the houses.

We also went to this very fancy restaurant where we paid an unheard of $11/plate for cuy (lunch is usually about $1.50). This restaurant had a playground in the front for kids and an in door pool where you could go swimming while you waited for your food if you'd like. What is cuy you ask?

guinea pig - that's right, flattened, fried guinea pig. Most the meat surprisingly is in the legs and spine, there is hardly anything in the chest. It actually tasted pretty good - kind of like really good chicken. I told Sean that I felt like at any moment I could be grossed out and wouldn't be able to eat any more (which in Ecuador is a big no no - EVERYONE finishes ALL their food). He said it'd be ok since we were at a restaurant and not somebody's house. Yummm!!!! don't you want to take a big bite out of that rodent that's about to eat the tomato?