Laguna Quilatoa/rafting/Roast Pig

The first pictures are of an indigenous market and me at a near by lagoon, we hiked down to the lagoon and one of the locals was trying to talk us into riding his horses back up the hill, but we decided not to because the horses were really wild and kept running off into the bushes. I went to another city call Baños to relax in hotsprings but ended up rafting and biking all weekend and came back to Macas exhausted. The last picture is of how the locals roast a pig... with a blow torch. Buen Provecho!

Macas

THIS IS A GROUP FROM THE INDIGENOUS SHUAR

PERFORMING FOR THIS WEEKS CELEBRATION

THE CITY OF MACAS
THE SURROUNDING TERRITORY
THE STREET I LIVE ON IN MACASTHIS WEEK IS A WEEK OF CELEBRATION IN MACAS

I have been in Macas for 1 week, so far it has been interesting. I live in a very modest apartment with 2 other volunteers, there use to be 6 other volunteer but they left last week end. I work in a clinic in the center of town, it is a nice slow and steady pace. The mayors wife set up the volunteer program in Macas, next week we are planning to visit an indigenous village deep in the jungle, we have to take a plane to get there. Most of the patients they see have fevers, skin problems or somesort of stomach bug. The people here are very kind and friendly and since there are only 15,000 people in Macas everyone knows eachother.

OLD TOWN

These photos were taken in the old part of Quito, there is a more modern part but it is not very pretty. One of the photos is of the Virgen de Quito, it is a huge statue that represents liberty of Ecuador. There is also photos of the Basilica an old church, there are two large towers and the tower to the left can be climbed to the top through a series of sketchy latters. I don´t think they were concerned with liability on that one. The view from the top is pretty amazing. I will be going to the amazon in two days so hopefully I will be able to continue posting pictures.

la primera semana

Hopefully the images, I put on here really do appear. I have been here in Quito for 1 week, it is a fairly large city. I am taking spanish classes for the next week and then I will head for the jungle to a city called Macas. The first photo is of me @4100meters by the volcano that is next to Quito, it is call Pichincha. The second photo is of my only 2 friend one is from Germany and the other from Korea, the only language that we speek in common is spanish, so we have really short conversations. The third is of the Ecuador which you can see the red line and a large monument. So far it has been interesting and no major problems hopefully I can continue to update this site.

getting ready

ahhhh!