Ecuador X 3; the beginning

After a week and a half whirlwind of traveling we made it to Cuenca. “We” is Adam and I. He and I set out from upstate NY and headed to New York City for a couple of days on November 26th. Priscila graciously let us stay at her apartment and we set out to see as many people as we could in 2 days. One particularly silly moment was right at the beginning when the wheels of my heavyyyy suitcase wore off to nothing. Poor Adam was hauling my 67-pound bag as well as some of his things for a mile. You can follow the trail all the way to Priscila’s apartment. That night we got to go to a taping of the Colbert Report, which was lots of fun (and free!). On Tuesday I got a call from my couchsurfing friend Ethan that he was on his way into the city to spend the day with us, as did Adam’s friend Tamu. Our mini NYC trip wrapped up with a Plattsburgh (+Prisca, Ethan, and Tamu) reunion before our flight. It was at 3:30am out of JFK on Wednesday so we just pulled an all nighter…

And it kept going. Adam and I had a 12 hour layover in El Salvador and we figured we would much rather explore (on no sleep) than stay in the airport. We paid $10 to leave the airport at customs and headed out. Our guide, Alvaro, took us around for 9 hours first to El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, and then to beach “La Libertad”. San Salvador was smaller than I expected a capital to be. Alvaro was very helpful with all of our many questions about the country, the local slang etc. La Libertad was lovely, with the warm Pacific, dark sand, and a fish market. By the time our flight left EL Salvador at 7pm, we were beat after 40 hours of almost no sleep. We got to Guayaquil around midnight and mi major amiga ecuatoriana Ana Belen was waiting for us.

In Guayaquil we were able to see many friends, and Adam got to meet the family that I had lived with in 2010. We also had made it just in time for Juan’s birthday on November 30th in Milagro. This past Saturday we went to Montañita for 2 days, most of which was cloudy but still a fun time hanging out with people from todas partes. On Monday it was very sunny and we decided to delay our trip back to Guayaquil to spend some time in the sun. I got quite burned to the point of looking like a tomato, despite applying sunscreen. As if I don’t stick out enough -_- On Monday night we made it back to Guayaquil and went to Las Peñas with Galo, Andres, and Ana Belen.

Yesterday evening we arrived in Cuenca and were picked up by our lovely new family, Vicky and La Paz. They are the sisters we are going to be living with these 3 months. They took us all around last night to see various sights in Cuenca. Adam and I also have the pleasure of living with la Paz’s hija Camila, a bright and exuberant 6 year old. We are all moving to a new house tomorrow, which, although it won’t be in the “Centro” of Cuenca, has lots of space and is more modern.

Today Adam and I went to Verbo Iglesia today to meet with Gustavo, who showed us around and talked about some of the ministries we will be able to volunteer with. Adam is leaning toward teaching English with their language institute and I am more interested in helping at the orphanage, but nothing is set up as of yet. Hopefully by next week we will have a better idea of what is going on as far as out Verbo goes. We want to help como podamos!

That just touches on some of the things that have been going on since we left home. I am extremely happy to be back in my lindo Ecuador (hablando español todo el tiempo, yeii!) and with the friends que he extrañado mucho.