After last night’s devastating Packer’s loss, I realized
life’s too short to not blog.
Just kidding, I don’t care about the Packers. However, I do
care about Microsoft Word, so I’ll give them my business.
I would like to start by saying how difficult it was for me
to refrain from an alliterative title.
However, every time I tried to pair a word with “Ecuador,” it ended up
sounding like a South American version of a Ford SUV (ex: Ecuadorian
Excursion).
The beginning is usually the best place to start, but
summing up four months of my existence seems entirely too daunting. Instead,
I’ll start with last night and the whole thing can be like a mystery novel. How
exciting.
As South America is not the most ideal corner of the world
for locating NFL playoff games, I was extremely excited to hear that one of my
favorite Lojano bars, La Mancha, was playing the Saturday competitions. It was
a bit odd to watch football in this place composed of used books, original art,
and set in the living room of some long-forgotten Ecuadorian family. It was the
first time this awesome library-bar felt truly foreign, given that there were
only two of us in the room who knew how to use the term “touchdown” correctly. But
what do I really care now that the Skins are out? Time to take more interest in
the puck-maneuvering Russians.
This morning a group of four of us hopped on a bus to
Vilcabamba, a strange little world about an hour outside of Loja. It’s a town
composed of native Ecuadorians, American hippies, and retired expats who seem
to hate all the hippies. The majority of the foreigners have not bothered to
learn Spanish in their multiple years of living in Vilca, making it a less than
ideal place to practice Spanish or meet the locals. However it’s wonderful for
ice cream, Saturday night bonfires, and making me feel amazing about my hair
(read: dreads everywhere).
However this morning was not about spending a day in town,
but rather on top of it. Our mission was to hike up Mandango, a mountain on the
outskirts of Vilca. We set off with sunscreen, water, and a pound of uvillas
for sustenance. After about two hours and a bit of scrambling, we made it to
the top and were rewarded with a dazzling view of the valley below. Once we
were done soaking in the scenery and patting ourselves on the back, we crashed
through shrubbery and slid back down the mountain with lunch at the forefront
of our minds. After we let gravity do its thing, we walked to a nearby
restaurant and feasted on pizza, pina coladas, and pilsener (that’s the name of
the beer, I didn’t spell pilsner wrong; back up off me). It was a sleepy bus
ride back and now it’s time to go scrub the dirt and leaves off of me before an
early bedtime. If I don’t write
another blog for a while it’s most likely because I’ve contracted a fatal
disease from the mountain. Someone send me bug spray. Goodnight.
