cambio en familia, y Ecuador!

Teodoro García 2448 2°11
C1426DMR Buenos Aires, Argentina

escribe me aquí! they changed my host family. I will not be living such a glamorous life, which is okay. I am only scared about the fact that my host mother and sister smoke in the house... barf. it says they won't do it if I ask, but I feel bad. we'll see.

Ecuador was AMAZING. it is by far, the best country I have ever been to. me and Emily Triggs went to Baños and it was so wonderful. unfortunately, the charger for my camera's battery se rompió, but I ordered a new one to come in Argentina. but that means no more pictures in Colombia.. which is breaking my heart.

anyway, we hung out with these chilenos in the hostal all night and they were absolutely hilarious. there was about 5 of them, half wearing wool ponchos, one with a mustache resembling Borat, and one was a sports journalist. all hailing from Santiago, Chile, and recently arriving from the Amazon. we spoke entirely in Spanish until about 3 in the morning when one of them started spewing out U.S. phrases como "You are coming with me for shizzle my nizzle the roof is on fire. You're busted, I caught you without your love ID. Where is your love ID? I am Mitch Buchannan. I AM WHITNEY HOUSTON! UNBREAK MY HEART!" and "Do you wear PJs? Are you a PJer? Hush little baby."

(another Baños highlight was when this old, grungy lady sitting on a bench reached out and grabbed this young guys butt and started laughing. I don't know, I am loving this blatant lack of respect for social order and law.)

as for Baños itself... it is a town about 4 hours out of Quito, of about 18.000 people. There are two main plazas and a plethora of hostals. "Un pedazo de cielo" is the motto on all of the outbound buses... (A little piece of heaven). The town was evacuated about a week ago due to predictions of volcanic eruption... it erupted last in 2006 and wiped out a fair amount of stuff, but I didn't see any of the damage. I did however, see a bus hanging partially off a bridge over the "river" (more like a ditch that fills when it rains) in Bogotá today.

so Baños greeted me with a typical $1.50 almuerzo that I had missed so dearly... and then we hung out at the hostal the rest of the night. there was a brief outing to some club but it wasn't all that great. we preferred the curb, a guitar and some crazy local randoms. the next day Emily and I got up in time for breakfast and headed out of town on some bikes. we rode along the edges of cliffs in the Andes... the whole concept is pretty surreal, really. we took this little cable car thing over a river/waterfall and to another mountain. absolutely unreal. and biking in that altitude I thought I was gonna just tip over wheezing. luckily most of the trip was downhill.

all and all Ecuador was much needed. I realized that I can actually speak Spanish, and it's the Colombians who I can't understand at all. today someone said "Con mucho gusto" and all I heard was "concho." I'm starting to figure it out a little bit better, but the Ecua accent is a damn treat. I'm moving to Baños. it's the bomb, todo eso. mmmkay chao!!