CUENCA -

happens to be my favorite city in Ecuador. Charming narrow cobblestone streets, gardens, rivers, markets and old Spanish rooftops abound...and it remains small enough to amble through on a pleasant afternoon. Cuencanos are notorious for their singsong accents, too, which I have definitely began to pick up on. It´s a riot.

I am currently living with the Velez family: parents, Maria Dolores
and Fausto, and, for the first time ever, two brothers, Juan Sebastian (19) and Pedro (13). Overall, the family is super nice and
accomodating, the house is pristinely clean, food is pretty good. No
complaints here.

The past week has been one of the busiest yet. Easter weekend was amazing - the trip to Riobamba was quite unexpectedly one of the highlights of my stay. While there, we had the opportunity to climb Chimborazo, Ecuador´s highest mountain and technically the "highest" point on earth/point closest to outer space (taking into account the central equatorial bulge). Well, though we didn´t reach the very peak, we did get to the first refugio where it was cold enough to have a snowball fight on the Equator. Awesome. Later on that day, we dined at an amazing restaurant and went to Riobamba´s town festival, complete with a carnival and folkloric dance shows. It was hilarious to see some of the pyrotechnic spectacles, like the guy who charted around a flaming donkey, or the enormous, random metal structure with a whole bunch of colorful gadgets that emitted sparks and fireworks with little to no safety regulations. Oh, Ecuador.

Easter Sunday was mainly a travel day, though we did madrugar quite early to take the Devil´s Nose train ride in Alausi. It was pretty cool to ride on the roof again in true Ecuadorian fashion on one of the world´s most notably spectacular railroad adventures...including a switchback section that scaled a steep cliff! The bus ride to Cuenca was the most beautiful one thus far in my opinion - the southern sierra region kind of reminds of what I would envision Tuscany would be like, with rolling hills and really blue skies and lots of green grass and amber grains and red rooftops. We arrived in Cuenca that night and met our families after settling in and grabbing one last dinner together.

Since then I´ve been in constant motion. Monday I met with my
independent study project advisor, Narcisa, who arranged for me to
volunteer with a literacy organization while here. Later on that same
day, I visited the organization´s office and was invited to attend a
graduation of a group of 21 adults who had recently completed the
literacy program. Wowzer, it was a pretty intense experience to begin with...a three hour bumpy drive (one way) into a very remote mountain
village, a long ceremony and celebration followed by a thank-you
dinner given by the students (which obviously included cuy asado, a
campo specialty). I didn´t get home until 9:30 pm, my poor mom had
been worried sick (I didn´t have the chance to call her, having no
access to phone reception). But all´s well that ends well, and it was
a pretty sweet experience to say the least.

I went in to the office Tuesday and Wednesday, and Thursday had the
day off because Cuenca was virtually put on hold for the Fundacion de
la Ciudad festival, celebrating it´s 450th birthday. I had a lot of
fun and got to reunite with Emily, Danielle and Matt. We hung out at
the parade in the morning (and got to see President Correa there!),
walked around the center of town in the afternoon, went out for coffee
and ice cream (amazing ice cream shoppe called Tutto Freddo), at
watched fireworks and a salsa concert at night.

Yesterday I attended another graduation in the evening, and today I
spent the day hiking El Cajas National Park con mis
compañeros (matt, emily, danielle). It´s cool to have them around to
meet up with every now and again.

Anywho, I´m a busy gal on the go...about to go meet up with peeps for dinner. Chao amigos.