My Homestay

Justin long ago posted about his room and part of the house. I decided it was high time to show you my room and part of the house.
While the room is a bit on the small side, it has everything I need. And once I got used to the dogs barking and the roosters crowing, I even started sleeping really well :)
Here's the driveway.
And the garden! I love the garden. Yes, it's small, but its filled with herbs that Vane and Luis use every day. I'm not sure what all of them are in English, but some (I think) are rosemary, sage, cilantro, basil, thyme. Pretty much really cool.
And as Justin has mentioned before, we are quite close to the airport. Here's a pic Justin took of a plane flying in proximity to our garage door.

Home sweet home!

Flora and Fauna part 2

Just wanted to post some more pictures of the flowers we've seen. These are from Mindo and Peguche (around the cool lake with the islands outside of Otovallo), and even from our own front yard.

Our Emergency Meeting

Today in Pifo we were supposed to go out into the community to visit houses and take care of children. But to our surprise, Dra. Ortiz said that our home visits were canceled because she had been called to an emergency meeting of health professionals in the nearby town of Yaruqui concerning the recent outbreak of Swine Flu. I know in the United States this probably isn't as new of news as it is to Jennifer and me here in Ecuador because we are half living under a rock as far as US/world news is concerned. So having this meeting pop up was a little concerning! But, being the eager students we are, we decided to tag along and see what they had to say.
We were treated to a powerpoint presentation on the current news, along with a lot of recommendations for preparedness in the communities of Ecuador. Things got a little heated when one of the doctors in the room pressed the presenter with why he thinks every child in Ecuador needs to have information cards on how to prevent the flu, and the presenter kept insisting that her job was only to inform. But regardless, news of this awful disease sure is hitting home here, even when there are no cases (thankfully) in Ecuador. Our preceptor, Dr. Espinel, was on national TV this morning as well (he's famous!) explaining the virus and its symptoms/transmission.
Jennifer and I sure are keeping our fingers crossed that this thing blows over quickly and with as little impact as possible! And, hopefully any travel restrictions that are in place won't prevent us from returning back to the United States on May 14th... already a student that came from Holland just yesterday had some delays with air transportation due to issues stemming from concern over Swine Flu. But in any case, here's hoping that everyone at home stays Swine Flu-free!

More Random Pictures!

This is a gas station that lies somewhere between Quito and Pifo. This is by far the most prominent display of Ghostbusters logos I have seen here, but it certainly isn't the only one! They're featured almost as frequently on buses as the "Calvin peeing" thing that is on a lot of cars in the US. Once I saw a school bus where the O in "Escolar" was a Ghostbusters logo.

This bumper sticker we found on the inside of a bus. Translated it says roughly, "Quito isn't a thing for BABIES." As long as Quito isn't a thing for freakin' scary babies like the one pictured... I'm OK with that.

He lives! In case you were wondering, Elvis went to Ecuador. He's hanging out with us.

Meet my parasites

This little guy's name is Giardia....and I'm pretty sure he and about a million of his little buddies are having parasitic Olympics in my intestines as we speak. "It's Giardia 679 ahead by a flagella! Oh wait! Here comes Giardia 888, he may just pull off a win!"

Why, you ask, do I have parasites? Remember my fun story about swimming in the river on day two of our Mindo trip? Yeah, well, I unfortunately ingested a bit of river water during an attempt at swimming (see me and Ben below).
On Monday morning I awoke after a restless night reminiscent of my bout with food poisoning (but thankfully without the vomiting). I still went to the gym with Justin, but my efforts weren't up to par. After putting on my makeup while sitting on the toilet (and still somehow managing to deny that I was sick), we headed off on our 30 minute hike up the hill to get to the bus that would take us 50 minutes out to Pifo (see Justin's post). By the time we arrived I was chilled to the bone (yet somehow managed to miss the fact that Justin was sweating under the glaring equatorial sun). Justin suggested I return home, but I brushed him off saying that we only had four days left in the hospital, and I really hated laying in bed sick all day. Two minute later I was sitting on a stool with my head between my legs trying not to pass out. When Justin handed me some money to take a taxi home, I didn't resist.
Another day of fevers, orthostatic hypotension, and diarrhea followed. After ten hours of sleep last night, I was reasonably better today, but something is definitely still going on down south. If you've ever heard the word borborygmi, this is an accurate discription of the noises emanating from my abdomen. I think all of my giardia are competing at the same time. I am definitely riding the D train, but without fever or hypotension, it's reasonably tolerable. At some point I'm going to go grab some Flagyl, but for now, at least the parasites are having fun :)

Mindo Lindo Day 2

On Day 2 in Mindo, all seven of us met up at 7:30 and headed off on the beautiful 30 minute walk to the Mariposario, where, so we'd been told, they served American-style pancakes for breakfast. As none of us had eaten said pancakes in months, we were all eager for such a delightful breakfast. To our delight they served both pancakes and french toast. And they were good, very good. Looking around the Mariposario wasn't too traumatizing either:After our delightul breakfast, we headed into the Mariposario where a very nice Equatoriano guy told us a little about the development of various butterflies. We then actually got to see some emerge from their cocoons. There's on in the 2 o'clock position in the process of emerging.
And here's one newly hatched (is that the right word?)
Here's a coccon up close. Pretty cool handiwork, huh.
After that, we entered the sanctuary of the butterflies and spent a good two hours or so watching them fly about. They were beautiful, and if you were patient (and used a bit of rotten banana juice), you could get them to land on you... or your camera
There was a pretty cool chart that helped us identify the different species:
This, for example, is Heliconius sara:
And this is Heliconius erato: (Just in case you were wanting to know...)
We were actually joined in our walk to the Mariposario by some incredibly cute dogs. Meet Pancakes and Buddy. They were actually prominent figures on our trip. We'd met Buddy the day before, and he showed up pretty much anytime we went anywhere. They walked with us the entire way out to the Mariposario, and didn't quite understand why they weren't allowed to join us for breakfast.
When we got back to town for lunch, Buddy found us again and laid at my feet under the table until we were done. Because Sunday was election day in Ecuador, there weren't as many buses running, so we decided to go buy tickets while we were in town. To our dismay, we found out that all the buses were full except for the last one at 5 pm, and it only had five spots available. As all of us had to get back the next day (the college kids had class and Justin and I were working in the hospital - see his post), we were a little distressed. The guys, being incredibly chivalrous, gave us the tickets and said that they could stand.
That settled we hiked for about an hour out to a part of the river where we could swim. It was yet again a beautiful hike, and, of course, Buddy joined us. By this point pretty much every girl there wanted to take him home. As I had named him, I felt that gave me dibs, but I wasn't quite sure how to hide a 70 pound hyperactive dog in my room for the next two weeks, and Justin didn't seem to think that customs would like finding a dog in my suitcase. Sigh. After a dip in a very cold river (Ben and I were really the only ones who tried to swim), we hitched a ride back in the bed of some nice guy's truck (I love the fact that this is perfectly legal - its so much fun to ride standing up and feeling the breeze) to check out of our hostel and arrive early enough to ensure the guys actually got on the bus.
The bus ride back was a bit miserable. Justin got the misfortune of sitting on the edge of a cushion next to a lady with a vomiting 7 yr old, Matt got to stand basically the whole time, and bus rides in Ecuador in general are somewhat nausea inducing. We finally got back well after dark, and with a bit of sadness bade our Mindo friends farewell.
overal though, Mindo day 2: Success!!

Mindo Lindo Day 1

Bright and early Saturday morning, Justin and I headed off to the town of Mindo, which is about 2 1/2 hrs outside Quito by bus. Of course, getting there is never as easy at it would seem. First, you have to figure out where to catch the bus. Our guide book lied to us, yet again. Bad guide book. Very bad guide book! :( But eventually, with the help of many really nice people we managed to find the right place to catch the bus. One lady actually went so far as to come up to us in the bus station and say that she'd overheard we were trying to get to Mindo, that she was taking a taxi that was going right by the place we needed to be to catch the bus, and that she would take us and drop us off there - and we didn't need to pay for anything. I have to admit that after a trying morning, this completely uplifted my spirits. It's nice when one person manages to brighten your day :)
Off we went, and Mindo truly was as lindo (pretty) as we'd been told: I don't know if you can enlarge these photos, but the size just doesn't do them justice. There were so many beautiful, quaint little buildings. The landscape reminded me in a way of my old home in northeast Alabama. Sometimes it even smelled the same. We spent over an hour walking around outside of Mindo in search of a restaurant (we were given wrong directions, shocker, but I didn't mind so much as every step involved breath-taking scenery).Streams ran all through Mindo and the surrounding countryside. It was amazingly beautiful, and I only wish I could post all of the photos that we took. I loved this covered bridge:Anyways, after we finally found a restaurant to eat lunch, Justin agreed to go Canyon Zip Lining. As this involves a harness and heights, I was pretty impressed that he was completely nonchalant about going. See picture below:

We harnessed up:
And away we went:)

After zip lining we tried to visit the Mariposario (butterfly farm), but since it was raining they recommended we return the following day when it was sunny and the butterflies would be more likely to be out. Exhausted after a long day of walking and zip lining, we collapsed on a bench just outside the Mariposario and enjoyed watching a gazillion hummingbirds flit about.Finally, we headed back into town to find a place to eat dinner. Randomly, we met up again with four girls who were staying in the room right next to us in our rather interesting hostel (complete with drunk Brits partying loudly until about 3 am, a Spanish dude with a mediocre voice serenading his American girlfriend on his guitar, and a Godzilla-rooster who decided that the morning had arrived around 4 am). With the help of Benadryl, I managed to sleep through a decent portion of this, but Justin and a couple of other girls weren't so lucky. We ended up eating dinner with them and another guy they knew, and basically hung out with them the rest of the trip. Though Justin and I always have fun on our weekend adventures, it was a blast to get to hang out with so many fun people. (From L to R: Trish, Amy, Lacy, Me, Ben, Kelsey, Justin)
Day one: Success :)

Our final workplace!

On Monday we started our final rotation here in Ecuador. Our mission: travel 50 minutes outside of Quito to a tiny little town called Pifo. Once there, we are to work in the Subcentro de Salud (Local Health Center) with a Family Medicine doctor, Dra. Margoth de Ortíz, one of the nicest ladies we've ever met. So being a community health center, we see all sorts of patients, from the old man with blood pressure problems to the young women with urinary tract infections to kids of all shapes and sizes. Actually most of the patients that come are kids, so it's great for us! And one of the most interesting parts of this rotation is that the doctor herself does not do hardly any physical exams, so what we see and report back to her is what determines the course of treatment! Kind of scary, but it's great practice for us in learning to trust ourselves with our physical exam findings. Plus, the doctor makes me (not Jennifer for some reason) write her prescriptions for her! Not so easy to do when they have to be in Spanish. All in all, it seems like it will be a very valuable experience for us! I think a part of both of us wishes that we could spend more time here, but we're going to try to make the most out of whatever time we have!

In honor of my mom Elba's birthday today!

This is a campaign sign that I found as we were driving back from the beach. Go Elba! Hopefully you won the mayorship of whatever town you were running for.

Elba González for Mayor! That's a face you can trust.

And not to leave the other parent out...

Martinizing Dry Cleaning - "Guaranteed to strip clean all those pesky hairs that cling to your garments!"

Friday Night Lights

On Friday night, Jennifer and I decided to head down to the Centro Historico. We'd seen it in the day, but we wanted to see it at night because we had been told that it's quite a sight with all the old buildings lit up. Plus Jennifer had a hankering for one of those awesome chocolate ice cream cones from the Fruteria Monserrate (and actually I did too). So we took the bus down to the Centro Historico, a 30-min. trip because we live in the north and the old town is in the south-central part. But as we neared the Centro Historico, we could tell that there was awesomeness to see, as we caught glimpses of illuminated old buildings and churches in between buildings. We disembarked at the Plaza Grande, and as we came on to the grand old place we instantly saw that it's even more spectacular at night! People of all types stroll relaxed amidst the palaces and cathedrals, lit up in awesome colors that gives each building a unique character. And all up the streets you can see glimpses of bell towers glowing orange, or stained glass windows shining their spectrums out onto the streets.

After rushing to get the coveted ice cream before the shop closed, we strolled ourselves back to the Plaza to sit on a bench and admire both the sights and the chocolate. We wandered around a bit trying to capture in photos what we were seeing, experimenting with camera settings, but finally we were able to get the pictures you see here, although they really can't do the buildings justice. But, to our delight, we found a few camera settings that we were able to have a little fun with: So, exhausting our fun with cameras, we wandered into the Palacio Arzobispal (Archbishop's Palace), which is now a bunch of cafes and shops. One of the main courtyards of the palace has, however, been turned into a performance stage. And we got to see some really cool dancing!

Having gotten our dose of culture for the night, we decided to head back out into the plaza to search for a horse-and-buggy to take us around the city (it's the safest way at night!) to see all the sights. Unfortunately, all we could find were buggies passing by loaded with customers. So we headed back home, away from Old Town and back into modern Quito, filled with the traffic and the graffiti that makes you remember you're in the 21st century.

Our Journey to a Museum of Precolombian Art

After another hard two and a half hours at the hospital today, Justin and I headed off to Mariscal Sucre to make a down payment on our Galapagos trip and purchase our plane tickets. Our travel agent is a really sweet lady who´s very patient with our struggles to obtain funds. The credit card company they work with charges ten percent for any charges, so it´s much cheaper to pay with cash. This presents a bit of a problem as we can only withdraw so much money each day with Justin´s bank card. (Oh, yeah, so I managed to leave my bank card in Alabama - highly useful - so my parents had to deposit money from my account into his account so we can both get money out using his bank card. Got all that?) At any rate, we´re highly pumped about our eight day cruise around some pretty amazing islands - swimming with penguins (oh yeah, I said penguins), playing with monkeys, snorkeling, exploring lava tunnels, eating cruise ship food (always an adventure :). Bring it on! Unfortunatley, we won´t be able to blog during that time, but we´ll be taking tons of pictures to blog about when we get back to Quito.
Bit of a tangent, back to the topic of the blog. After our deposit, we headed off to try out a vegetarian restaurant Justin read about in the guide book. It was quite scrumptious, even though Justin did say it made him feel a bit yuppie. We were both craving veggies, and veggies we had :) I was already tired, but Justin was ready to make the most of our free afternoon and insisted we go check out a museum. I reluctantly let him drag me along, and I´m glad I did.

Oswaldo Guayasamín is a famous Equatoriano painter who painted and collected prolifically until his death at the age of 79 in 1999. Before he died he donated thousands of pieces of Precolombian art to the city of Quito, and that art, along with his own paintings, is displayed in his home on the hillsides of Quito.

The location was both beautiful and painful. Beautiful because it gave us some pretty incredible views of Quito. Mount Pichincha appeared enormous now that we could finally see it from its base all the way up. It was painful because we had to hike up some pretty impressively steep hills to get there (this is why I´m always starving).

As you can see from the photos, his home was also beautiful. Well manicured lawns and beautiful artwork. We also had two ladies who were more than willing to give us a tour of the art work and precolombian collections. Sorry we couldn´t take photos - just imagine really cool art work and precolombian figures :)After the museum we headed even further up the hill (whew) to La Capilla del Hombre, which was Guayasamín´s last work before he died. (It was actually finished posthumously by contributors from Ecuador, Chile, and Bolivia amongst others). As you can see from the above picture and from the one below, it was also a beautiful place, complete with a swimming pool that I seriously considered jumping into and a really cool car.

With another successful trip under our belts, we turned our noses towards home and (thankfully) headed downhill :)