Holidays in Ecuador 'after the fact'

Despite my dormant blog activity, life here has been full of excitement! The only thing it’s been lacking in is internet…so now that I’ve got some internet I figure I owe at least a brief explanation of some of what’s been going on down here! For Christmas break the missionaries headed to Quito to stay with a cool family there. But before we leave, Brittany(the other gringa) and I make a little Christmas happen here at ‘home’ for the guys(the gringos). Not the typical Christmas but one spent with the family we’ve made here J Christmas in Quito was a game of secret santas! It’s not as big as x-mas in the U.S. but they more than make up for it with New Years! If you drive anywhere on New Year’s Eve, you can’t miss the people that have gone all out with their national gender-disguising dress-up game! They stop cars with ropes until some spare change is handed over. Some other traditions include burning a huge stuffed person, jumping over bonfires, and fireworks galore! We jumped right in with the traditions, even buying some rather terrifying masks to have some fun with! The guys, being boys, were scarring us all every chance they got! We became wary of every corner we walked around, every dark room we walked in, every noise we heard at our window--we didn’t sleep much that night! The rest of vacation included some of the best hot springs in Ecuador, a view of the city from over 13,000 ft., a drastic haircut, some tourist shopping and so much more! You all should have been there! I hope I have now given you at least a taste of our Christmas here! There has never been and never will be a Christmas like this!

So I've always wanted to go bungie jumping...

Banos So y’all have been to the bathrooms before right? Well I just went for the first time! All four of us missionaries here went together and needless to say it was quite the experience! So Banos is actually a place here in Ecuador too if you haven’t figured that out yet. The bathrooms turn out to be quite the happening place! One day the guys rented motorcycles and us girls got a quad--not the fastest choice! But it was still a party let me tell ya! We went up to this viewpoint where we could see the whole town in the valley below and found some off-roading, mud and a crazy swing that swings out almost over a cliff! I was the only one crazy enough to try it and it was exhilarating! The next day we decided to rent go-karts--much better choice! Drifting around corners and going FOR all the puddles, we were saturated with mud and adrenaline by the time we got to the bridges. From these particular bridges there is this thing called a bridge swing that is somewhat like bungee jumping without the bungee--more like jumping off one bridge to swing like a pendulum underneath the other one. So I’ve always wanted to go bungee jumping and this is sounding pretty extreme….before we could really think about what we were doing we were being strapped into the ropes and stepping to the edge of the 30ft.+ bridge! A few seconds later I took the most terrifying step of my life into the longest seconds of free fall in my life! (the picture is just moments before we jumped--can you see the fear in our faces??) I was screaming in Brittany’s ear the whole time we fell together from the bridge to what we thought may be our last few seconds of existence! We were soon just swinging wildly below the bridge hardly being able to believe what we’d just done! We kept telling ourselves how hard core we were but I think we were more out of our minds than anything! Needless to say we were pretty shaky after that and let the guys drive the go-karts for awhile. We proceeded to a waterfall that you can hike inside of! We were inside/behind a waterfall! I know not many of you can say that! Lol A weekend of adrenaline and memories thought you may be interested in hearing about!

i LOVE the beach!!!!!!!

I have a thing for the beach…it kinda goes along with my thing for the sun. And that thing just got bigger because I just experienced my first Ecuadorian beach! It’s called Perdernales. The sun here is intense; When it shows its face it means business! I fared much better than the other missionaries here and came away with just some slight pinkness. The water’s warmer than SoCal and you can rent body surfing board things for a dollar an hour. Fresh coconuts (the meat and the juice), modified hair wraps, ice cream, jewelry, and MUCH more all right there! Simply amazing. We watched a pretty cool sunset from a tower of sorts and did some gymnastics in the twilight. Let me tell ya…photo shoots at the beach turn into never-ending memory cards full of fun! What a weekend. Did I mention how much I love the beach?