March 15

I went out again with the group with my Ecuadorian quasi-friends last week to a party at this guy’s apartment.  Everyone seemed happy I was there and I was the only international student.  One guy stood on top of the coffee table reciting poetry by heart.  Some of the people reminded me of my friends back home.  One girl is president of the Human Rights Club on campus.  Another guy had a stencil art book and a book of famous quotations about peace on his desk of his apartment.  His bookshelves were full intelligent books in English.  I loved speaking and hearing only Spanish with people my age and attempting to dance salsa (three guys were fighting to dance with me), but I was being uncomfortably hit on by one of the guys in the group the entire night.  He kept forcibly pushing my face toward his so he could kiss me even though I repeatedly told him no in every form I knew how, but everyone was drinking but me so I couldn’t really get anyone to tell him to stop.  All I wanted was to have fun and be accepted by the group so I didn’t really cause a fuss about it, but when thinking about it on the drive home I felt angry and upset.    

I wish guys would leave me alone in this country. Machismo is alive and well, and because of my estadounidense appearance, it’s hard for me to avoid it.  International girls at the school also have a reputation for being easy, so that doesn’t help either.  Another annoying part was that a few people from the group got sick from drinking, which reminded me of how much I hate my age group when it comes to alcohol.  I don’t understand how people get sick on a regular basis from alcohol and everyone thinks it’s normal.  The Ecuadorians who have lived on college campuses say that Ecuadorians drink way more than people from the U.S., which I’m not sure is true for every college campus because U of I has a huge drinking problem, so I hope Ecuadorians aren’t worse.     

That weekend the program went to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador.  (1^st Guyaquil, 2^nd Quito, 3^rd Cuenca) Since the roads are bad due to mudslides and the like, we took a plane there and back.  I felt spoiled taking a thirty-minute plane ride, but it was a pleasant feeling knowing that it would’ve taken 12 hours by bus.  We stayed in a cute hotel, April and me in this room that looked like it could have been the attic because of the sloped ceilings.   

La Iglesia

 This group of trees is in the middle of a huge plaza in Cuenca.

We walked around the city and attempted to go to a few museums, but the only one that was open was this hat museum.  A tour guide showed us how Panama hats are made and a few in our group bought some. They’re made with toquilla straw and the highest quality can take months to make and cost hundreds of dollars.  The museum had photos of Miss Universes wearing Panama hats.  The tour guide told us they’re called Panama hats because during the construction of the Panama canal, the workers wore them because of their practicality (blocked the sun, foldable, lightweight), so that’s how they got their name even though they’re made in Ecuador.  Teddy Roosevelt wore it when he visited the construction.   

 Couldn't be anything but the...hat museum

We took a tour bus later that night.  Cuenca boasts cobblestone streets, beautiful parks and plazas, a big river, old architecture, whitewashed buildings, and a reasonably sized population of 600,000 compared to Quito’s 1.5 million.  It reminded me of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico a little.  It is much prettier and less polluted than Quito.  I spent the weekend wishing our school were near Cuenca instead of Quito.  The city was absolutely charming to walk through; it was unfair we could only stay for two days.  We also went to an Incan ruins site, Ingapirca, a few hours away, which to me was interesting, but wasn’t that impressive because I know I’ll be going to Machu Picchu. 

 Flower market in Cuenca

Thursday night I went to a punk-ish band play with my friend, Sara, and Sara’s friend of a friend.  The Latino punkers moshed around screaming all the words while I stood in a corner nodding my head.  At least I saw a new side of Ecuadorian twentysomethings.  This past weekend I went to climb Pasochoa (smaller, at 4,200 m) with my Andinismo class.  On Saturday it poured and the gate to the path to the mountain was locked, so we ended up camping at this empresa hidroeléctrica (hydroelectric plant).  It wasn’t the most serene, but we were camping on grass instead of rock or cow dung, which I appreciated.  I had a good night’s sleep, which had been lacking on the other trips.  The climb was quite the challenge, though.  It was muddy and steep, and I began to wonder why I didn’t sign up for another class, like basketball.  I love to hike and be outdoors, but hiking up an incline higher than a treadmill’s highest setting is not fun for me.  The climb down was terrible, unlike Rumiñahui, because I kept slipping down the mountain in the mud.  Despite all that, the mountain was beautiful and we had nice weather, so no complaining there.  I’ve been trying to pretend to like my trips because mountaineering sounds so awesome, but it’s not for me at least with a group of go-getter non-friends.  Next week we have our exam on all the knots we’ve learned and I finished the requisite three trips, so I won’t have to worry about the class after next week, which makes me happy.  

The easy part.

The hard part.

Also, we have a kitten.  Mi hermana got to keep one of the kittens that her friend's mother was going to kill.  It's the most annoying and cutest thing.  It sleeps outside my window and has a pitiful meow.