Carnaval.

Wow. I had, and I don't say this lightly, one of the funnest weekends of my life! By now you all know the drill, I'll give you some horribly pedantic description of each day of tom foolery. Skim, scan, survey as you will.

First, a little background on all this Carnaval buisness. To my understanding, Carnaval is an extended Fat Tuesday, from Friday to Tuesday the city is one big pachanga, complete with water balloons, spray foam and a myriad of other fun things to throw at one another. It has been my experience that the bus, while a hub of other undesirable things, is a prime target for being "carnaval-ed." You step off the bus in the city and are water ballooned, or you chuck buckets of water out bus windows and onto the people on the street. Most of us managed to avoid too much crazy while in Quito- but it was on later in the weekend.

Friday- Carnaval kick-off. Class was cancelled, noses were pierced and guacamole was eaten with Ruffles. For a country with more acuacates than I know what to do with, it's depressing that tortilla chips are not readily available here.

Saturday- Otavalo. About two hours south of Quito, this is a cool little town has a lot of history and is packed full of artesian markets.Sharon and I went with our host families, and had a lot of fun joking around and learning new Spanish words (chuchaqui- hangover, apure- hurry up!.) Although it rained like El Arco De Noe Sharon and I manage to bargain for some good deals. We left Otavalo at about 4- and to our surprise, Lilli my host mom, said it was early and we should do something else... Something else was take a three hour scenic drive of the Ecuadorian countryside. Surprisingly beautiful and interesting, we even pulled off the side of the road on a mountain side for some spectacular views of northern Quito. (pictures to follow)
     As if that wasn't enough for a fun-filled Saturday, I got a call when I arrived home at about 8 that Chelsea was spending the night alone in the apartment. Doesn't sound scary, but you've never lived there. I packed up and headed to the rescue of my fellow S.A.er. We were enjoying a drink and the spectacular views of the city from our roof, when we heard footsteps up the stairs... much to our happy surprise it was Sharon "Chun Bun/Ron/Ron Pasas" Chun! The three of us relaxed on the roof, popped some popcorn (on the stove, like mamma makes) and laughed a lot. After eating half our body weight in popcorn we were still surprisingly hungry, and here's where the fun hits. Washing the dishes we realize that we have no hot water, and the water we do have is exploding out of our facet in yellow/orange bursts. Pretty gross. What's a girl to do? Call Bryan Cole, the dean of men for our program. Not only does he come over to help with the water, he takes pity on our hungry souls and TAXIS WITH US THROUGH THE MCDONALD'S AUTO-MAC. I couldn't make this crap up. Our taxi driver thought we were nuts, but we payed him in dinero and paps fritas and he cranked up the Justin Beiber (which I think he had on CD, not Ecua radio.) If that doesn't say fun, I don't know what does.

Sunday- Banos. Wake up in the apartment to no electricity. Did Bryan forget to pay the bills? Nope, the whole block was with out power, we found out at my favorite Panderia, Arenas.  Sweet, doesn't matter. We're going to Banos! (Not as catchy as "I'm going to disneyland" but certainly more fun.) We trolle-ed to the Quitumbe bus terminal in southern Quito to get on our bus to Banos. About six hours later- we arrived. For reference, the ride home was only three hours. Carnaval is like rush-hour on the Dan Ryan. We passed by a Restarat, mourned the lack of spelling education in Ecuador and got ready to party.
     I'm pretty sure we found the worst restaurant in all of Banos to eat dinner at-  only about $4 a person- but we may have been eating cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets made from cabra intestines. After dinner, we wandered down the main drag of the city, where live music was playing. Oh man, we got carnaval-ed! I was blinded for a bout 47 seconds by a foam shot directly to my eye. It was insane, abuelos, ninos and the whole familia were shooting anyone within reach (especially targeting the gringos) with this soapy colored foam. Another Ecua experience that words lack the power to describe, it was SO MUCH FUN! We went back to our hostel and some people showered (if you know me, you also know I was not in that group) and played some cards while we got ready for our Chiva ride.
      Chivas are the Ecua equivalent of party buses, but are all open and some times have an upper deck you can sit on. Our Chiva left at 11pm and was a hybrid tour bus/party trolley. We Chiva-ed up to the top of the active volcano (!!!)  blasting reggae-ton and watching our friends get shocked by the electric wires that are very, very close to the top of Chiva (true story, Caleb is an idiot.) Sadly, it was too cloudy to see the volcano, but we did witness a huge town camp-fire. The chiva driver told us the men around the fire were paisos (clowns) but with their baggy pants, chained and slicked back hair they looked much more like the average urban teenage to me. Apparently is possible to live on the side of a volcano, and a good number of Banos-ians do. We all kept looking at each other and thinking "where the crap are we?!" It was great. Oh yeah, and there was more Canelazo, the hot, alcoholic drink you know and love from La Ronda. The Chiva driver told us the alcohol was just "flavor." Later on, he tells us it's Parajo Azul and it's "fuerte and barato." (strong and cheap.) classy.

Monday- El Pailon del Diablo. no big thing. Hiked to the top of mountain, climbed through a very small rock passageway to the top of a water fall. El Pailon del Diablo. Absolutely breathtaking and amazing, albeit exhausting, I won't even try to describe it. Seeing that waterfall after a pretty intensive climb made me more aware of the bigness of the God I serve. Something that beautiful comes from somewhere, and I'm glad I know who He is. I will try to post pictures of it later.

Tuesday- headed out early with the girls for the BACKSTREET BOYS concert. Yep, it was just as ridiculous as it sounds. Lots of stock images from when there were five BSBs and the same dance moves from the original music videos. Absolutely crap-tastic. Love it! The Ecuas knew more of the words than we did which was amazing, but had no clue what they meant, which was evident when any backstreet boy would say anything- the entire crowd erupted in girlish screams, squeals and cheers. Fabulous.

...and thats it. The long and the short of it (most just the long.)