Chivas & Mud

A chiva (for those of you who don’t know) is a party bus that is used to promote clubs and can be rented out for birthdays, holidays or whatever else (especially popular during the festival of Quito in December)! Last Thursday, I got to experience my first chiva for the birthday of one of my friends at USFQ named Dawn. The bus was rickety and pretty old looking; but what it lacked in appearance, it made up for in awesomeness! We (about 50 students from USFQ) were all given little Ecuadorian flags, whistles and lots of music to dance to as we drove through the streets of Quito. The club that the chiva was promoting is called Gia so after our ride around the city, we headed back there to dance some more until finally calling it a night at around 2:00 AM.Friday was extremely boring because I didn’t have class and haven’t started doing any kind of volunteer work yet. I did, however, get some homework done, and Julie, Alex (our Ecuadorian friend) and I went out to Mariscal that evening to get some food and hang out. On Saturday, I went back to the historical district because Julie hadn’t been there yet and I also needed to find a bank in order to get change. It was a really fun day because we met some girls from England on the bus who were taking a gap year to teach music in Cuenca (another city in the highlands of Ecuador), and who had just arrived in Quito. After showing them around all day, I discovered that they only lived one block from my apartment so we’ll probably hang out again soon! On Saturday night, I went to bed earlier than usual because my trip for Volcanology to Pichincha was supposed to leave at 3:30 in the morning. Now I can finally turn to the absolute highlight of my week! Sunday was incredible on many levels. It’s first necessary to note that my professor for the class, Theo, is one of the most hilarious/brilliant people I’ve ever met. He’s originally from Greece but grew up in Germany and married an Ecuadorian. In addition, he speaks six languages, could pass for a textbook in the fields of geology and volcanology and (as I mentioned before) is hilarious. Moving on, I picked up my friends (Sam and Julie) in a taxi at around 3:00 AM Sunday morning to meet the rest of our group in front of the Mexican Embassy in Quito. As scheduled, we departed at exactly 3:30 in a convoy of five or six jeeps, beginning our ascent to Pichincha. Sam and I concluded that the drive to Pichincha was comparable to riding a bull without being able to dismount. The roads were almost completely destroyed, but we eventually made it in one piece and completed the short, but insanely cold, trek to the top (altitude at a little over 14,000 feet). Pichincha, in reality, was pretty miserable. We had horrible luck by going on a day in which the mountain was completely engulfed in fog, when on a clear day it’s possible to see all the way to Colombia. Even so, I ended up enjoying myself. It was pretty funny how pathetic I was wearing my thin jeans, ankle socks and having to resort to using Sam’s socks as gloves, because I had forgotten my own.

At around 8:30 AM we got back to Quito and had an hour to eat before our second trip of the day to another volcano called Papallacta, which is about an hour east of Quito in the lower highlands. The drive alone was breathtaking with lush forests, waterfalls and several rivers that ran along the highway. It was also interesting to see the massive oil pipelines that I had learned about in ¨Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man¨and ¨Savages¨. I watched as they snaked over hills and then descended back down into various small villages for miles and miles. The hike, however, was, without a doubt, the best one I’ve ever done, and I have never been dirtier in my entire life. Theo led us (unnecessarily I might add) into a thick and very wet forest (with no path) in which we hiked for about two hours in search of rocks. I wish I could capture the journey in words but it’s impossible really. Let’s just say that I couldn’t stop laughing the entire time as we slid down muddy hills, fell into rivers and watched the hole in my jeans grow bigger and bigger all the while. With roughly 80 other students, it’s a miracle that no one got seriously injured. Even though the hike was a blast, it was a relief to finally be done; especially knowing that our next destination was the Papallacta hot springs. The water there was absolutely wonderful, but I hadn’t brought a change of clothes so that put another interesting twist on the trip when I returned to my apartment in Quito wearing mud soaked running shoes (with no socks), borrowed black cotton pants that were WAY too tight, and carrying my destroyed jeans that I didn’t want to put in my backpack with my other stuff. It was a great adventure and Julie and I are thinking of assembling a group to travel to Baños next weekend for yet another escapade! The pictures I’ve added are some pre-chiva shots (the second one is with Sam), Pichincha, and the sad reality of my once favorite jeans. ¡Ciao Amigos!