¡BUENOS EQUIPAJES!

June 07, 2015

¡BUENOS EQUIPAJES!

*THIS POST WAS WRITTEN ON JUNE 7, 2015 BUT WAS NOT UPLOADED UNTIL JUNE 15 DUE TO WIFI ISSUES. ENJOY!*

¡Buenos noches amigos!

Today was amazing... We started out the morning with a 5:45 AM wake up call, and immediately went downstairs to check for luggage. (it was there!) We all were so relieved to get our stuff and have fresh things to change into- and it set the tone for our whole day. We explored Cotopaxi National Park in the morning, which was an incredible and breath-taking experience (No actually, it's one of the highest volcanoes in the world at over 12,000 feet. Summit is at around 19,000) Cotopaxi is an active volcano, but was not erupting today. Nonetheless, we saw the volcano and covered the science-y part of the park.

We got lunch before we transferred to our new hotel, roughly four and a half hours from Cotopaxi. Lunch was a ham/cheese sandwich on delicious bread with my beverage of choice (water). We also tried some ice cream, which the town we were in is famous for. It was FANTASTIC, and all natural, so it didn't melt!

Our new hotel is in the mountains- I encourage you to google it: it's called Pircapamba. We have our service project tomorrow and I'm very excited to speak Spanish to the locals- P.S. They actually speak an indigenous language in the Shuid area called Chichuan (not sure if the spelling is correct there) but also speak Spanish.

Me, circa 5:50 AM

Old town Quito- on the mountains and very South American!

The five types of volcanic rock, all found in the same location near Cotopaxi because of its eruptions.

Cotopaxi! It showed itself completely for about 2 seconds. The summit was not visible for a while, and our tour guide said that was the first time in 3 years guiding that he'd seen it this clear.