Prison, Quito and the Jungle

Wow! I have so much to write, and I am so tired. Here goes!

MONDAY

As a part of my independent study, I was going to visit Quito´s dump and research Extreme Response, the poverty relief program that Michelle volunteers with. Unfortunately, michelle´s program director emailed her on sunday and told her we couldn´t visit and I couldn´t do my interview this week (long story, but I was pretty disappointed). Luckily, Jacki has crazy connections because of her missionary work so she was able to schedule a last minute ¨life experience¨for me, haha. We ended up visiting Quito´s prison for women, and it ended up being the most amazing experience I could have asked for. One of the things that michelle´s parents do as missionaries is visit the jail and speak with international prisoners. Everyone in jail (the guards, doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers) speaks spanish. These women have it so hard. They are in a foreign country and they can´t even understand what they are being ordered to do. There is no translator, so when they are sick they have no way to tell the doctor what is wrong with them. Jacki visits the jail once a week and preaches, prays and cares for these prisoners, and she was able to sneak michelle and I in monday morning.

Prison was not what I expected. Despite the corrupt government system and lack of organization, the women in this prison live pretty comfortable lives as long as they cooperate. I only met a few well behaved prisoners, so I am sure that things were much more bleak for those who haven´t earned priveledges yet, but at least on this level there were no cells. As soon as we walked in, a group of 5 or so women came up and hugged and kissed mich, jacki and I (even though they had never met me before). They were so kind and civilized. These international prisoners are almost all in prison for the same reason, smuggling drugs. Many of them were tricked by boyfriends who were just using them to sneak drugs out of ecuador. I interviewed two women, Charmagne was from jamaica and Consuela was from Amsterdam. I have decided to write my article (for my indep. study) on Consuela because her story was just incredible. I don´t want to give it all away, but she is 21, super educated and so sweet. I talked with her for an hour and was so surprised at how well I got along with her. Michelle and I just laughed as she described her life back in amsterdam. It was so crazy, if Consuela went to calvin I would definitely want to be her friend. She was vacationing in ecuador with a guy friend of hers who thought it would be smart to put a couple pounds of cocaine in her luggage as they flew out of the country. Consuela had NO idea that this friend had put the drugs in her suitcase, so imagine her surprise when the police dogs pointed out her luggage and she got sent to jail. She has been in jail for 6 months waiting to be sentenced, while the jerk friend of hers is back in amsterdam (apparently she didn´t know this guy very well…. ). I walked out of jail with a heavy heart, just shocked at how similar this girl was to me, and how one little thing changed her life so drastically. Stay tuned… I will tell more of her story in my article : )

For the rest of the day Michelle and I drove around quito. She showed me her school, alliance academy, and it was really cool to see where she spent her high school years and meet some of her students. Aunt Judy, if you still read this I took lots of pictures for you and I will post them on facebook once I am home : ) We went out to lunch with michelle´s high school chaplin, volleyball coach and friend to a crazy vegan place called El verde Manzana (green apple). Ashley (mich´s chaplin) is really passionate about the whole ¨green¨movement and has a cool hippie vibe so we got along pretty well ! Our errands for the rest of the afternoon included MORE dvd shopping, a trip to the grocery store to stock up on vanilla for the next ten years, and dinner. We were hoping to meet up with the calvin group for their last night but unfortunately they were super tired from white water rafting, so they cancelled. Michelle and I still had a wonderful night though, we went out and then to a movie!

TUESDAY!

This morning we woke up at FIVE AM to start our drive to the jungle. The amazons are only 4 hours away, but we had lots of stops to make so to avoid having to stay overnight we just made it one really long day. We went out to breakfast at another super nice B & B, and of course this had a crazy secret garden, but this one might have been the coolest. It had a tarabita (mini zipine), human size chess board, a pony and OSTRICHES! The food was great and I was so excited to meet an ostrich, so all in all it was a great morning : ) Once we were in the jungle, we took 4 different real life Tarabitas across Basasa, which is like a giant canyon with a river running through it. Words really can´t describe how amazing it was… so please look at the pictures. As per usual jungle weather, it was rainy and humid, but lovely nonetheless. We kept driving to our last destination which I don´t even have a name for… but I know it was outside the city Puyo. The Jokisches stumbled on this little zoo many years ago, and have been going ever since. This zoo is no John ball park zoo.. its more like a trail that show you animals in their natural habitat. The first thing we did was feed monkeys, and by feed monkeys, I mean get attacked haha. We brought a bunch of nature valley granola bars, and all of a sudden 10+ adorable monkeys came from the trees! Once they saw food, they pounce. They will leap from like 5 feet away from you, climb up your legs or drop from above. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen or been a part of. I think my record was 5 monkeys on me at one time. They played with my hair, flicked my earings and sat on my head. I was DYING of laughter. Mr Jokisch, mich and I were feeding them but these monkeys were so social that they would jump from person to person, and even to mrs jokisch who had no food on her! The cool thing about this zoo is it is one of the only places where you can feed monkeys. These monkeys were not in a cage, they were completely wild animals which was crazy! When you go with a tour or if you visit the galapagos you are NOT allowed to feed the monkeys, and monkeys only jump on people if they have food, so this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Eventually, about 5 granola bars later, we had to leave the monkeys. We saw a bunch of other crazy animals like an anteater, turtles, parrots, guatusa, warthogs (PUMBA!), a crocadile and one other animal but i can´t remember his name. Again, this was not a typical Zoo setting, these animals just kind of lived here. Other than the monkeys, my favorite animal was the Tapir. Its like a huge huge warthog. We climbed up this trail and found him just sitting in the shade, and he came right up to mich and I and started licking us! keep in mind, this animal is at least 400 pounds. It was so sweet.. just like a giant dog but with a pig snout. It was so gentle and patient, it let us pet him and take pictures without freaking out a bit.

And finally, we are home at mich´s house. Tomorrow is our last day in ecuador, so I will post once more tomorrow night. I am going to miss this amazing country so much, but I am ready to be home as well!

xoxo

night out with michie : )

prison

inside prison

hah.

i look just like him !! hahah

secret garden at breakfast!

do we fit in?

harold and maude!

so pretty!

la tarabita

huge waterfall in the amazons!

a river runs through it

the cable car was so rickety!

another waterfall

we made some friends.. !

look how small the houses are from the car!

thick jungle!

its called booger fruit! sick looking but you eat the gooey stuff and its so good!

hahahahhah! i love this.

attack of the monkeys!

soo cute.

the baby clung on its mommas back the whole time!

they loved mich!

HAHAHA

my favorite!

the chickens got jealous so they stampeded!

turtles

pumbas!

Tapir!

so friendly!

active volcano! that little black spout on top is the ashes!

cotopaxi again

Exploring Quito

Hi again!

We spent this weekend exploring the giant city of  Quito which was very fun.

SATURDAY

Mich and I woke up and laid out on her sunroof for a couple of hours, and then we decided to go get lost. Michelle only just got her license this summer; in the past she would take the taxi when driving around the city. We spent an entire hour trying to find the restaurant “the Magic Bean” and we definitely wished we had taken a cab. Finally we just parked somewhere and decided to walk. We asked for help every block or so, and thanks to the good people and storeowners of downtown Quito, we finally reached our destination : ) The food was great. The magic bean is a restaurant/coffee shop/bar, and it had a really cool open vibe. Later we drove to Metropolitano, a big foresty park in Quito. We drove through and took a baby hike, but it was getting a bit chilly so we walked back to the car.

Our next stop was the grocery store, and because this store is in the middle of the city, we had to park underneath it! I am so used to driving to Meijers and parking in a regular lot that it never occurred to me that people who lived in big cities would have to park like this. One of the reasons that we went to the grocery store was I wanted to buy some food from home. I miss silly things like American chips and regular bread, but above all, I miss milk. No offense to Ecuador, but their milk is SO nasty. Sorry, but it is. It comes in a box, and doesn’t have to be refrigerated until after its opened. It tastes so funny, and about a week ago I stopped trying to drink it. I feel my bones becoming brittle. So one of our missions was to find regular milk at the store.  Everything is in Spanish, so I left it up to Michelle to find it for me. We finally found a liter of refrigerated milk in a bag. I was so happy. After walking through the aisles of the grocery store, I quickly realized that they don’t have any of the same brands that America has, and when they do, they are crazy expensive. We found Tropicana Orange Juice in a regular gallon carton, and it was selling for $8.50 !!!!!!!!! I wanted to cry haha. We did manage to find Pringles and Chips Ahoy, which was comforting. After making our purchases, we walked downstairs to get our car and I immediately bit open my bag of milk. I must have looked like a crazy person, but I was so excited that I didn’t really care. My high went down pretty fast; this bag of milk tasted EXACTLY like the regular Ecuadorian warm milk. I gave it to a homeless person on our way to the next stop, Teleferico. It was probably the most unique donation that he received all day, but he was pretty happy so I guess God had a plan for me buying that nasty milk after all.

Teleferico was our next attraction in Quito, and it turned out to be one of my favorite things we’ve done on this trip. Its pretty simple, just an hour ride up and down a mountain in a floating cable car, but the view was incredible. Of course, my camera didn’t do it any justice, but we could see the entire city. On the way down the sun had set, so it was so awesome watching the lights come up on the city. Like many experiences I have had these last couple weeks, although no picture could capture it, I know I will never forget the view from on the top of the  mountain.

SUNDAY

As always, I wake up a good 2 hours before michelle does, so I spent the morning testing out a good 50+ DVDs that we have bought in the last couple days. (did I mention that DVDs sell 7/$10 here? I am now the proud owner of the entire SATC series : ) Once Michelle woke up, we got ready and drove to church where her parents were preaching. Michelle’s parents are missionaries and are often asked to preach in churches around the city. This church had 3 servies, and each service lasts 2 hours, with the sermon lasting 50 minutes! What a long day it must have been for then. Michelle and I only went to half of one of the services, and unfortunately it was completely in Spanish. The frustrating thing for me is I recognize so many words and phrases but never quite enough to understand the whole idea behind it. Even though I didn’t understand everything, I LOVED watching the Jokisches preach. They do a kind of tag-team deal, and they have such incredible passion for the Lord. They had the congregation laughing, clapping and amen-ing all over the place. I have learned so much about love and spirituality just from observing them live their everyday lives. (for example, they are ALWAYS praying. Every single time we drive anywhere with her parents, as they pull out of the parking garage they hold hands and Guillermo says a quiet prayer blessing their prayers. I only wish I was faithful enough to pray as much as they do), Anyways. Since their focus as missionaries is marriage counseling, their sermon was on fidelity and respect in a marriage. Pretty ironic, eh? ; ) According to them, people cheat when they have low self esteem and don’t know how blessed they are in their relationship. Just something to think about … hah : )

After church, we went to a pastelleria (pastry shop) to grab a quick lunch, and then shopped in Quito’s market. I am finally done shopping, thank goodness for my bank account. So that was a relief! My proudest purchase of the day was a pair of Llama earings. They are pretty funny : )

An interesting thing about Quito is it rains every Sunday. It sounds crazy; mich used to tell me that back in the states and I would just kind of laugh because I thought it was ridiculous. But it hasn’t rained in a week here, and like clockwork, this afternoon it started raining. We got some AMAZING and super cheap icecream at this place called Corfu. It really reminded me of coldstone, but the amazing thing was it was SO much better and only $1.60 for ice cream. On the way back to the car I picked up 25 roses for $1 ! That’s right, one dollar. One of Quito’s most abundant crops is roses, which makes them super cheap. I swear, if Quito had regular skim milk, I could definitely get used to living here.

Tonight, after dinner Michelle’s mom did therapy on me! A few days ago I was asking what kind of therapies they used with the people they counseled, and Jacki mentioned a sort of quazi music therapy. I was immediately interested, and she offered to show me. They have this sound clip of waves on their little shuffle ipod, and I have been falling asleep to it the last few nights. This sound clip is actually designed for therapy with the way the sound rotates from one earbud to another, kind of like surround sound but so much crazier. Its hard to explain. During the last month or so I have been sleeping just awfully, only able to fall asleep to Will & Grace (haha) or another TV. But since michelle doesn’t have a TV in her room I have just been lying still for a while until I fall asleep from exhaustion. However, these waves are so hypnotic that when I used them the last few nights I was asleep within 5 minutes! Amazing. Anyways, Jacki (mich’s mom) uses this kind of interactive therapy to help people deal with pain in their lives with that same ocean sound, and we tried it tonight. While I listened to this music on the ipod she quietly asked me rhetorical questions, and prayed for me. She had no idea what painful experience I was thinking about, which made her words even more striking. When she was praying, I could feel God speaking through her. She helped me see my situation with a different perspective, and gave me such a good way to think about my life. I am so grateful for her and her prayers, and I am amazed at how much I felt God walking with me today. God is good.

Tomorrow, we are planning on meeting up with the calvin group at night, and actually visiting a jail tomorrow morning. I am very excited. I will write again soon!

Enjoy the pictures!

Metropolitano. So many trees!

Metropolitano

look at the city in the background!

El teleferico

the theme park at the bottom of el teleferico

in our little glass bubble :)

beautiful mountains!

quito is huge!

haha..

at the top of the mountains! you can see quito and then the tallest mountain on the left is Cotopaxi!

after church.

cute little boy!

so many flowers!

YUMMMMM pastry shop.

ice cream!

ice cream in a chococone! (cone dipped in chocolate : )

Can you believe this was only a dollar? if only they were gladiolas : )

SPAAA DAY!

Oh my word, I don’t think I have ever been more relaxed in my LIFE!

I will start with Thursday. In the morning we had a girls day out with mich’s momma. She took us to the salon she usually goes to, and I got a manicure, pedicure, haircut AND hair blow out (what ever you call it haha) for $22 !!! It was unbelievable and super super cheap. If I lived here I am pretty sure I would go everyday haha. The afternoon was not so good- I got pretty bad altitude sickness. Since on wednesday we had driven from 0 feet above sealevel (the ocean) to 9000+ feet above sealevel (quito) my stomach kind of freaked out : ( i spent the whole afternoon feeling pretty nauseous.. luckily we watched almost an entire season of Gossip Girl, a fantastic TV show that we are just discovering, so I was pretty distracted. Since I was still feeling pretty sick still at night, Mr. Jokisch bought this SUPER strong antibiotic that would work in less than 30 minutes (he said it would “cure even my bad thoughts” haha), I started feeling better almost immediately. Mich and I went to one of the malls in Quito and just walked around for a while. PS. Quito has I think 4 malls, and the smallest is the size of Rivertown Crossings in MI. The one we went to on thursday had 4 floors! So crazy.

The next day we left around ten for Papallatca, a place about an hour away where they were hot springs. As usual, I had no idea what to expect. Mich said we would swim, and I figured it was kind of like a lake thing. I also was picturing “old faithful” from our national park days with the family. We pull up to a GIANT SPA and I think I about died. The Jokisches neglected to mention that this was a spa, and that we could get affordable massages and things like that. This spa is nestled between all the gorgeous mountains, and we had blue skies all day. I am having trouble finding the words to describe this place, but I will do my best. You walk in to reception and buy what massages or whatever you want to do. Mich and I got a couples deal (haha) which saved us a lot of money. The pools are free, and they are amazing. Papallatca is a place where a volcano used to be, and years ago they discovered these hot springs in the ground. This spa dug up this water, filtered it a bit, and sent it into 6 or so pools surrounding the spa. The water is PERFECT temperature, like almost as hot as a hot tub. The cool thing is the water is so naturally pure because of the sulfur from the mountains that there are no chemicals that need to clean the water, and its naturally the perfect temperature to swim in. They have jets and all sorts of cool things. So you wait to have your massage or whatever in these pools, and you can stay in the water seriously all day. Mich and I had a package, so we went to this cave/sauna for 20 minutes, then had a transitional period for 40 minutes in this other really cool relaxing room, then we had an HOUR massage. Best hour of my life haha, it was so relaxing. Then we went to the “cafeteria” which is really just like a super nice restaurant and I had red meat for the first time in a week and a half. I was so happy. Then we went out into the pools and floated around for a couple hours. Please look at the pictures, because I am really not doing this place any justice. I am pretty sure I want my honeymoon to stop there for a few days, because i have never been so relaxed in my life and I cannot imagine a prettier place to be.

Today (saturday) I think we are going to bum around and check out the city some more. I will write again soon!

xoxo,

ally y michelle

so excited! haha it was so funny seeing so many people walking around in robes and caps. We looked like a town of oompa loompas,

look at the surrounding mountains!

part of the spaa

hot springs !

mountain with snow on top!

Atacames

SUNDAY

I am at the pacific ocean!

I can’t even tell you how happy I am to be here. But let me start at the beginning of the day, because that part was pretty amazing too : )

I woke up to the smell of pancakes that Mrs. Jokisch had prepared. Because fruit is so cheap here, the Jokisches have a crazy amount of it at home. So of course I cut up a mango and put it on my pancakes. SO YUMMY!

Once we were finished packing and everything, we hit the road. We drove only for about a half an hour and took a quick stop at this GIANT crater called Pululahua. It was so interesting; my experience with craters is from astronomy class and studying planets… so when I picture crater I think of a tiny dried out hole on the surface of the moon. However, this IS Ecuador, and growth and life spring out of every corner of the country. This crater looked like God just removed an entire mountain out of the Andes mountain range, and filled it with the most fertile farmland. This crater was by no means dried out- it was overflowing with crops. On our way out, mich bought a bag of chunks of pure sugar cane. You are supposed to just suck on it and spit it out after the sugar is gone. It was delicious!

Driving today was a lot easier because I took some car sickness medicine, so the 5 hour drive to the beach really didn’t seem so bad. Although it did make me pretty sleepy, I was able to stay awake for the transition from Quito to jungle, and the drive through the Andes mountains.

While we drove through the mountains, the Jokisches told me about Los flores de Sueno, or the flowers of dreams. They are really beautiful white/pink flowers that grow bountifully in the jungle. They are called flowers of dreams because they actually have hallucinogenic powers. Some corrupt Ecuadorians will grind this flower up into a powder, and trick another person into inhaling it. Once inhaled, you completely lose free will, as well as the memory of any of your actions. This flower is so potent that if you inhale too much, you die. In fact, its kind of an old legend that if you want to kill yourself you should put 7 flores de sueno under your bed, and you will never wake up. From what I understand, this powder has the same effects that roufelin (roofies) have in America, except in Ecuador it is used not to rape, but to steal. When people are affected by this flower, they are almost always led straight to an ATM and forced to remove all their money. Mrs. Jokisch told me that once a bank manager that she knew was given the powder, and under the influence she allowed a million dollar counterfeit check to be cleared. Pretty crazy! I stayed very close to Michelle for the rest of the day haha.

We arrived at our next stop, el jardin de mariposas (the garden of butterflies) in the city Mindo. Less than a minute after we stepped into the garden, a beautiful butterfly landed on my head! I was wearing this big headband with a 2 inch flower on it in hopes to attract the butterflies, but I had no idea it was going to work so well! The entire time I walked through the garden I had butterflies landing on my head… it was pretty funny : ) The weird part was other tourists from south America kept freaking out and telling me “ una mariposa in su pelo! que bonita!” and taking pictures of me. I had one GIANT 6 inch butterfly who took a certain liking to me; I actually had to pry it off my headband!

After some delicious fajitas at a little restaurant in town, we continued on our drive. A few hours later we arrived at the outskirts of Atacames where the Jokisches own an apartment with some other missionaries back in Quito. It is RIGHT on the beach, just like Royal Villas in Mazatlan. There is a gorgeous pool as well, surrounded by palm trees full of coconuts. I didn’t really know what to expect when we drove through the city because Atacames is quite small and pretty poor, so I was just shocked at how nice this place is. After a walk on the beach, Mrs. Jokisch prepared a wonderful pasta dinner for us and michie and I watched a movie and went to sleep.

MONDAY

What a relaxing day!

I always wake up around 7am… even though there was no time change I seem to always wake up early when I am on vacation. So I waited a bit and finally woke up Michelle around 830 and we spent most of the day in the sun. The Jokisches have a little four wheeler so they drove down the beach and brought us ceviche, a typical Ecuadorian meal. Ceviche is like this brown soupy salsa kind of thing with mussles and shrimp and other vegetables in it. It sounds and looks kind of crazy but it was SO good. Mom and dad, you would have loved it. They also brought us coconut juice which was yummy too!

In the early afternoon it started to rain a bit, so michelle and I packed up and bummed around inside. Then at night we went to the main part of Atacames which mrs jokisch called Sin city. We shopped for a it at their market, and Mr Jokisch followed us three women around like our own personal body guard haha! I wasn’t allowed to carry a purse or hold any money, because the crime rate is pretty high at night. I was told that if I see a thief to not run or panic but turn around and acknowlege their presence. Mich and I were looking in a dvd store (8 dvds for 5 dollars!) and the store owner warned us that there was a robbery going on at this very moment down the street! Mr. jokisch went to go try and stop it, while mich and I dropped our dvds and ran to the car. I didn’t see anything happen but it was still kind of exciting! We drove to the restaurant where we were eating dinner which had great food but an interesting atmosphere. This little boy came up to our table (the restaurant is completely open to the market) and started to talk to us. We first expected he was going to ask for money, but our waitress came up to us and told us that this boy was the son of the store owner next door and he never accepted food or money because his mother told him not to. This boy was ADORABLE. He kind of sang when he spoke, and was just about the biggest flirt I have ever met. His name was tono (the n is an nyay.. with a squiggle over it) short for Antony. Honestly, I wanted to take him home. What a cute kid!

Another interesting aspect of dinner was the two LIVE geccos on the wall. I was eating peacefully until I noticed that about 3 feet from the ceiling were a pair of 4 inch geccos climbing across the wall. I kind of yelped and sank in my chair, and the jokisches laughed when they saw what I was freaking out about. The waitress came to see what was going on, and told me not to worry because the geccos are great since they eat the bugs. That didn’t really help me relax haha, so my eyes were glued to the geccos for the rest of the meal. Thankfully they did not attack : )

On the way home we got Ecuadorian popsicles which is literally JUST fruit juice frozen on a stick. I think if they had it in America I would eat them all day. It was SO good!

After another movie Michelle and I fell asleep.

TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY

There isn’t much to write about for Tuesday and Wednesday because we did the same things as on Monday- beach all day, dinner at the market at night, movie, sleep. The only noteworthy thing that happened is mich and I went for a walk on the beach and left our magazines and towels and books, and someone stole New Moon (from the twilight series) which both me and michelle were reading at the time. Pretty sad! However, Atacames was probably the most dangerous city I will have visited during my entire trip, and I am thankful that all our trips there were robbery-free : )

Anyway, we were originally planning on leaving on Thursday but ended up driving back on Wednesday afternoon because it was pretty overcast so we figured we might as well drive. As usual, I woke up this morning in Quito to blue skies : ) Today we have some fun plans so I will write tonight hopefully.

PS my best friend Sara Boer is in Ghana, Africa for 5 months and if you are interested in her experiences here is her blog ! http://www.saraccra.wordpress.com

prettiest butterfly i have ever seen!

mariposa bonita!

LOOK HOW HUGE THAT THING IS! The outside is brown and ugly to scare away predators, but the inside was that really pretty blue color. The big spots are supposed to look like eyes!

mich is so beautiful!

los flores de suenos.

view from the apartment!

the pool!

yep. i bought a ridiculously floppy hat and i love it!

ceviche!

coconut juice : ) in ecuador they have three kinds of coconut, the brown hairy one has milk, and there are two green ones that have juice.

pollos! (chickens)

i love to walk jimmy.

beach!

view down the beach

another of jimmy, my love.

cute little local girls playing house!

haha. michelle made jimmy swim in the pool.. he was not happy!

TONO!

such a cutie!

CREEPY guy who stepped in front of our picture as mr. jokisch was taking it ! hahaha

Otavalo y Cotacachi!

Un dia de compras!

We woke up pretty early and drove to Otavalo, a city about two hours north of Quito. They have this gigantic market where everything is super cheap. On the drive up, the Jokisches taught me some great shopping spanish lingo, as well as schooling me on the dangers of this market. It is really really easy to get pick pocketed if you are not careful. Apparently a few years back Mrs. Jokisch had her purse around her shoulder and a thief came by and cut the bottom of the purse open in hopes to steal everything that fell out! Luckily the purse had two layers so only the outside was exposed. Anyway, after that story I was pretty paranoid. I clutched my little wallet in my fist (they wouldn’t let me bring my purse for obvious reasons) and was not robbed during the entire 3 hour shopping trip! It probably helped that the Jokisches were watching me like hawks, and my little translator Michelle was also supervising me too : ) I was in my glory– I love to barter and shop. Two of my favorite things, plus some gorgeous 70 degree weather! Also, the craziest thing happened: we ran into the Calvin interim group that was going to the galapagos! Talk about a crazy coincidence! We chatted for a while and it was nice to hear a bit about their trip. They had just come back from the amazons and are headed to galapogos on tuesday.

I will not tell you how much I spent, because it was a lot. But mich and I got souvineers and gifts that we can’t wait to give you all : ) I regret none of my purchases. Besides, how often do I get to shop in south america??

Michelle’s parents want to help me completely experience everything has to offer, and since a lot of that is delicious food, I am full ALL THE TIME. In the morning, maybe a half hour after a huge breakfast, they bought me a Chirimoya. This is a small green thing, a bit bigger than a kiwi, but its insides are super soft and the seeds are as big as blueberries. This fruit is proven to fight cancer! It was so good. Ten minutes later, we stopped for MORE food. We had freshly baked (and still warm) biscocho, which is like our biscotti, but again so much better. The biscocho was kind of salty and delicious, and we dipped it in manjar de leche. Manjar de leche looks just like caramel apple dip, but it is the most amazing thing I have ever tasted. I just wanted to drink it. It tastes very similar to caramel, but its better.

Needless to say, I was NOT hungry at all by the time we reached our lunch location, la mirage. I always expect to just go to a regular restaurant, but the Jokisches keep surprising me with these insanely beautiful 5 star restaurants. This one was called La Mirage. La Mirage is also a resort/hotel and a spa, and just like Cienega (from yesterday) this had a crazy beautiful garden. The meal had many courses and although I was full I ate as much as I could. It was definitely the most fancy place I have ever eaten at. I felt like we had 6 different waiters; everytime you changed courses the waitresses would come switch your fork and rotate everything. I had no idea what they were doing but it was pretty fancy haha. Our main course was literally served on a silver platter. WOW! One of the courses was this super exotic fish thing, I don’t really know what it was. But four waiters came up and set this music box in front of each of us (in synchronized time of course). Each box was made of the most beautiful wood and had intricate carvings on the outside. When you opened it there was a little plate with the fish thing on it! It was so cool.

After dinner me and michelle went to go explore la mirage’s secret garden and on the way we met 2 peacocks, 3 alpaca llamas and a horse! We took some pictures in the garden and headed on to our next location, Cotacachi. Cotacachi is the city of leather. Seriously, you walk down the street and there are 40 stores with only leather products. I bought a super super nice leather jacket and got an amazing deal for it, so I am pretty excited : ).

On the way home, while michelle slept I got some car sickness, which wasn’t very fun. I am happy to be still right now, because weaving around mountains can be pretty hard on a full tummy.

Tomorrow we head to the beach for 4 days! Although I am loving the crazy day trips we have been going on, it will be nice to stay in one place for a while. And unlike Michigan, the temperature does not drop 15 degrees once you go by the sea… it gets warmer! I will not have internet or phone there so this is the last post for a while. Enjoy the pictures!

volcano!

la mirage, look at the ceiling!

so close to a peacock! i was so happy!

I MET SOME ALPACA LLAMAS!

best friends.

sitting under a palm tree :)

mich and pegasus.

full peacock!

cotacachi. this is what a typical city in ecuador looks like.

Cotopaxi: Day 2

Today we woke up pretty early to drive to Cotopaxi, Ecuador’s national park. Cotopaxi is a province in Ecuador and also the name of an enormous volcano, which is the park’s main attraction. Cotopaxi is the second highest volcano in Ecuador!

We drove for about an hour and a half and went to this crazy little restaurant called El Cafe de la Vaca (the cow’s coffee!). It used to be a cow farm, but they turned it into a restaurant (don’t worry, it didn’t smell like one : ) While we waited for our food, michelle and i decided to explore. Out the back door of el cafe de la vaca there was this huge pasture with tons of horses and cows, including a zipline! Of course, unsupervised and curious, mich and I tried it. A zipline in spanish is called una tarabita. After we had our fun, we went inside for maybe the most amazing breakfast I have ever had. It was called “desayuno de la vaca” and it included cocoa caliente (obviamente con queso),  papaya juice, guanabana juice, freshly baked pan (bread), homemade AMAZING mora jam, this weird hot bubbly egg and ham omelette thing which was so good. Finally, the most exciting thing was the FRESH COW MILK! I have never had non-pasturized milk before. In fact, this milk was so fresh that it was WARM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! haha. It was so amazing. Straight from la vaca.

We continued to drive for another hour to Cotopaxi. I had some really good discussion with Mr. and Mrs. Jokisch about the wealth in Quito and the government in south america. For those of you who aren’t up to date on Ecuador’s political situation, el Presidente Correa is pretty crazy. His ideal model for Ecuador is Cuba. Yikes! He wants to turn the country into communist, or extreme socialist. However, the Jokisches are fairly confident that this will not happen because of the very strong opposing middle class. We talked about the incredibly fertile nature of Ecuadorian land; as Mr. Jokisch put it, “if you drop a seed on the ground, it WILL grow no matter what.” We also talked about the problems with poverty, education and the environment. This morning, Mich and I finished a box of granola so I flattened the box and asked her where the recycling was, and I learned that Ecuador recycles nothing. Not only do they not have a recycling truck, but they don’t even have a plant you could drive your recyclable to. As an environmental enthusiast, it really bummed me out to throw all the pop cans, cardboard and paper straight into the trash. I learned a lot about Ecuador today, like the fact that even though they are a third world country, their poverty is not what defines them. They have an incredibly high literacy rate, and until recently it used to be the most literate country in south america. As the Jokisches explained to me, although the biggest class in the country is definitely the lower class, they are a very happy and satisfied country. People don’t die from hunger in Ecuador. Although they may be homeless, they never go hungry because it is so easy to grow things here and the food is so cheap. Although the government is kind of crazy right now, the people are strong and will not let Correa ruin their country. The climate honestly couldn’t be more perfect, nor the land more beautiful. It is a beautiful place to live.

Finally, after long discussions and a very speedy ride (I peeked at the speedometer and noticed we were going over 120 km/hr… which was slow compared to everyone else!), we arrived in the national park. The entire road throughout the park is unpaved, so we were thankful the Jokisches owned a pickup with 4 wheel drive! Our first stop was a mini museum with a little snack shack next to it. An Incan woman running the stand sold us some tea made of cocaine leaves. It tasted just like green tea! The tea is supposed to be very medicinal, not to mention the fact that it gives you a mild buzz. Don’t worry mom and dad, although the tea was made from the same plant that cocaine comes from, it was not processed and michie and I were NOT doing drugs : )

After another hour driving through the park, I was pretty amazed at God’s creation. The mountains in Cotopaxi were HUGE! Once we finally reached a point near the tip of Cotopaxi, we were up to an elevation of 15,000 feet. To give you an idea of how high that is, a plane usually cruises at about 30,000 feet and denver is only 5,280 feet. I have never been so high, and it had nothing to do with the cocaine tea! ha, ha. : ) Mr. and Mrs Jokisch stayed in the car while we braved the volcano. Since Cotopaxi is so high up, it was quite cold and super windy. We were actually so high that we were hiking through the clouds, so it was like walking through rain, but the rain wasn’t falling on us. Its hard to explain. Actually, since it was so windy up there, the “rain” felt more like hail. Mich and I linked arms and decided to walk as high as we could. We made it maybe 100 feet before stopping from exhaustion. It was so hard to breathe up there! We took baby baby steps… even though it was quite steep and there were no trails or anything, we probably looked pretty pathetic. We made our way down cotopaxi and back to the car, and drove to our next stop… Laguna Limpiapungo which was a very shallow lake. Mich and I took off our shoes and ran around in the lake, and even had a cow pie throwing fight with her dad.

Michelle’s parents surprised us by turning the wrong way out of the national park. We asked why we weren’t going home, and they said they wanted to take us to a little restaurant. This restaurant turned out to be this absolutely beautiful hotel called Cienega. Michelle had only been there once before when she was little, so it was kind of an adventure for us both. Hopp family: picture that place where aunt brenda always stays in Sheboygan… I think its called river wildlife? It was THAT nice.. but not as big. We sat down to a SUPER fancy dinner… I’m talking 6 utensils and everything haha! Michie and I split a meal of potato and avocado soup, dried plantains, breaded shrimp, cocoa caliente (of course), and chocolate cake with icecream. PS. America’s ice cream is rotten compared to ecuadorian icecream.

After dinner we walked out the doors into an stunningly lush garden. It had beautiful palm trees, crazy flowers and a fountain in the middle. The first thing I thought of when I stepped into it was the book “the secret garden” because it was so out of nowhere. We took some pictures and proceeded to drive back home.

Now, its time for bed. Tomorrow we are going to Otavalo and the city of leather, Cotacachi. Otavalo is the place where everything is crazy cheap and I will be doing lots of my shopping. Good thing my flight was free, right? : )

love,

allycita y michilita

PS. these pictures are all out of order. SORRY!

horses at el cafe de la vaca !

two real life condors. well.. okay just one and an ally.

mich and ally in the lake at cotopaxi!

bare feet.

chocolate caliente. and yes, that is cheese floating in there.

freshly pumped milk. STILL WARM!

slightly terrified mich on the zipline!

quick look at poverty in ecuador.

cocaine tea! haha.

desert flower!

its pretty cold when you are in a cloud!

so pretty. notice that the clouds are below us!

la cienega! so amazing.

el jardin secreto!

fresh bread at almost every meal. yumm!

the green sisters.

check out the giant pine tree on the right!

look at the molding behind us! so intricate!

mich’s parents : )

crazy driving at dusk.

zipline!

First two days in Quito

Thursday, January 14

Yes! I am finally here in Quito : )

Flying here was exhausting. Daddy brought me to the airport at 5am for a 6:30 flight. My flights were great, except for a seven and a half hour layover in houston. Luckily a couple of my friends knew I would be bored for a while so I got a few quality phone calls in (thanks kris and morgan : ). The flight from Houston to Quito was around five hours, so I read an entire Jodi Picoult book! Going through immigration was really quick since it was pretty late at night. I was so happy to see michelle waiting for me in the airport.

The next morning we woke up and I opened the blinds and saw an AMAZING view of Quito! And best of all the sky was so blue and everything was SO green. It was so amazing to see that in January there can be so much beauty in the world; its easy to forget that when you live in grand rapids haha. After breakfast I was given the official tour of the Jokisch apartment. They live in an apartment called Decameron, and they have half of the 7th (and highest) floor. The best part of that is they have a giant porch on their second floor with an incredible 270 degree view of Quito. Michelle’s family has three little Chiwawas that live on the roof: Minnie, Moosa and Jimmy. They are adorable to say the least.

After breakfast, Michelle took me on my first touristy endeavor in Quito: El Mita del Mundo (the middle of the world). I straddled the northern and southern hemispheres! Unfortunately, my camera died before we could get any decent pictures. However, it was only $2 dollars to get into the exhibit so we are planning on going back next week. Plus, I forgot to bring an egg and naturally I want to test the age old question: does an egg stand up straight at the equator?

The weather here is just perfect. We layed out on the sunroof for a while and because the sun is directly overhead and very very close to us, we got some color after only being out for an hour. (the reason we didn’t lay out very long was because Jimmy, the youngest puppy, is incredibly ADD. He attacks michelle. I think I laughed for almost the entire hour as I watched Jimmy chew on michelle’s toes, pull down her shorts and sit on her face. She was constantly pushing him away, which made lying still quite difficult. I wish I could bring Jimmy home because I think he is the funniest dog I have ever met. Imagine a baby chipmunk on ritalin) Anyway, even when a cloud passes in front of the sun, you can still feel the sun’s warmth beating down on you. Ecuador has fairly dry heat, so although I am always very warm I never get sweaty. What a change from the nasty michigan humidity!

After a quick nap we went out to dinner with Michelle’s parents. I am quickly learning what a wonderfully warm family the Jokisches are. Her parents are so sweet and unbelievably kind and generous. Whenever they drive us anywhere they try to point out as many landmarks as they can. I am honestly so happy when I see them interact; their marriage is so loving and trustworthy. They finish eachother’s sentences, and call one another ‘mi amor” all the time (SO CUTE!). Mr. Jokisch opens the door for Mrs. Jokisch every single time she gets in the car. I just find it amazing that they are so deeply in love after over twenty years of marriage! It gives me hope that not all relationships/men are complete disasters : )

They drove us to a little restaurant called “el mosaico” (the mosaic). I was absolutely breathtaken when I saw the view out the windows. El Mosaico is fairly high in the city, and an entire wall of the restaurant is actually ceiling to floor windows. I tried to get some pictures, but my camera is absolutely awful at capturing pictures in the dark, so I really couldn’t do the city any justice. In order to explain what we saw, here is a brief description of Quito:

Quito is a city that lies basically on top of and in between the Andes mountain range. Driving in the city is pure chaos; there are speed limits, but they are truly guidelines rather than rules. The only important thing to know when driving in Quito is you better have great breaks on your car, because if not you are in big trouble. It is absolutely normal to cut someone off, in fact it is the only way you can cut your way into traffic. The streets are absolutely PACKED. There are no crosswalks, so people run out into traffic all the time. Its so dangerous, and proof of that are the blue hearts painted all over the streets. There is one heart for every person killed by a car. Needless to say, I will NEVER want/be able to drive in Quito. I don’t know how the Jokisches do it. Plus, the fact that the city lies on the side of a mountain makes the roads very uneven. I think it would be fair to say that we didn’t drive on one flat road… most were at least a 30 percent incline/decline. Anyways. Back to quito- the valley where the majority of the city lies spans over 40 km. As I am looking out the window of Michelle’s room, there are lights as far as I can see. Quito has over three million residents… and unlike Grand Rapids they are no big breaks. Its just kind of one big city stretching on and on. The wealth distribution is kind of crazy because impoverished families can live only a block away from very wealthy families. Although North Quito (where the Jockisches live) is generally very safe and wealthy compared to South Quito, you can find a mix of people in between.

Back to dinner. I have only been Quito for 2 days I can already confidently say that South American food is INFINITELY better than American. You think I am joking, but I swear I am not. Everything is SO fresh. The tomatoes here taste so different because they aren’t pumped with preservatives; its like its a different kind of food. One of Ecuador’s main exports is fruit, so fruit is SO cheap here. Also seafood is super cheap (mom- we had the most amazing shrimp today and it was dirt cheap!) Ecuador’s version of juice is pure fruit juice. The juice is so thick its as if you are drinking a smoothie. Every restaurant we have been to has a giant list of juices with many fruits that most americans, including myself, have never even heard of. My new favorite juices are Mora and Guanabana. In my two days here I have already had fresh mora, guanabana, papaya and mango juice. I am in heaven : ) Also, Ecuador has the best chocolate, and therefore their chocolate caliente (hot cocoa) is to die for. Guess what they have instead of marshmellows: cheese! They call it queso fresca… but to me it just tastes like mozzarella. It kind of has the texture of jello. I know… cocoa and cheese sound pretty nasty together but it is so good. I’ve had it twice today already!

After the amazing dinner, I got a driving tour of downtown Quito. Of course, I took many pictures but literally none of them turned out. The night setting of my camera is just pathetic. A lot of the buildings in the city are hundreds of years old and the architecture is just amazing. We drove around 7 magnificent cathedrals… I can’t wait to see them in the daylight! Finally, to end the night we drove up to one of the highest points in Quito called El Panecillo. (it translates as little bread but it doesn’t really make sense). Once at the top we looked out at yet another incredible view of Quito at night. The mountains are so amazing, and although I hate to say it, they make the Rockies in colorado just seem tiny. These mountains are HUGE. A big landmark that lies on the very top of el panecillo is this giant monument of the virgin mary (the main religion of Quito is Catholicism). It was as big as a skyscraper. I was maybe as tall as her hand. It was almost a little bit creepy… but still amazing. The virgin mary overlooks the city, and ironically enough, we walked by more than a few couples making out at her feet. haha : )

We drove home and michie and I fell asleep. I am so amazed at this culture I am being thrown into, and I am so blessed to be here! More tomorrow. I am new to this whole blog thing, but I added a bunch of pictures to the gallery so hopefully you can look at them!

view from my room :) quito!

another view from the sunroof. amazing!

Carolina, the park (view from the sunroof)

michelle and i :)

from left to right: Moosa, Minnie, Jimmy (Mich and Ally) on the sun roof. una familia feliz : )

jimmy makes me so happy. i carried him around in my pouch haha.

i will never forget the view of quito at night. SO amazing. i wish this picture could do it justice.

el mosaico. so amazing! again, the picture is terrible but it was so pretty.