I am in love, alright, with my crazy, beautiful life.

I am a terrible blogger. My apologies for not updating you all on my adventures for nearly

two weeks! But I can explain…I promise. The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of fun/school/more fun. Two weekends ago(July 10^th-ish), Amanda, Ariel, and I went to a town called Baños for the weekend. Baños is about 3 hours south of Quito by bus and is famous for its thermal baths (baños, if you will) and extensive canopies, waterfalls, and mountains. We headed out on Friday morning on the bus and let me tell you, the busses here are sure a treat. There are not really any interstates here, so the bus spends a majority of time winding around two-lane highways and through small towns. Baños is only 180 km from Quito(about 100 miles), yet it takes 3 hours to travel there. Also, the bus drivers apparently enjoy scaring the shit out of passengers. Every speed bump and corner was taken with more speed than normal, causing us to fear for our survival. After surviving our bus adventure, we spent some time hanging out at our super nice eco-hotel which cost us each $12. Our hotel was a large home owned by an Australian couple and their little boy, John. The owners made a delicious homemade breakfast (included in price!) and bom

b snacks(available for cheap purchase). It was probably the best deal I have ever participated in. Also, the hotel had a massage therapist that offered an hour-long massage for $25! It was the best(and cheapest) massage of my life!! After some chillin’ in our swanky hotel, we headed to the town to dance/drink, where we were all hit on by various Ecuadorian men. Our Friday was a little lackluster, but little did we know we were going to have a fun turn of events on Saturday.

After hitting up the municipal hot springs (a little dirty, a little smelly, and a lot of scantily clad Ecuadorians), we headed into the downtown area to grab a bite. We were eating some sandwiches when a group of 4 boys and 1 girl came into the restaurant. We were confused becaus

e they were apparently bilingual but we thought nothing of it. As we got up to pay, the girl(Laura), began talking to us in perfect English. Turns out she is from Houston and is dating an Ecuadorian (Walter). After a couple minutes of conversation, they invited us to hang out with them for the afternoon and go hiking to a waterfall. Since you only live once, we decided that new friends would be fun. We packed up our stuff in their “Magic School Bus”, their

mode of transportation for the weekend, and headed out for some adventure. I have included a picture of me zip lining across a giant valley/waterfall, which only cost me $10(freaking cheap). Unfortunately, I did not have enough momentum to make it to the end of the zipline, so a small child had to come rescue me. Not embarrassing at all. After the ziplining adventure, we hiked to a waterfall in the dark, drank some beer at the base of the waterfall, and headed

back into the town to eat/go out. As the night went on, we found out that our new friend Walter is actually a semi-famous actor in Ecuador and that his family owns approximately half of Ecuador. What was awesome was that he is so incredibly humble. After a night of awesome drinking and dancing, our new friends invited us to the coast the following weekend to hang out with them. Even though it sounded a little bit like the movie “Taken”, we knew that these guys were awesome and decided to take them up on their offer.

Fast forward through the school week and we were on a plane to Guayaquil the following Thursday. When we arrived at the airport, we were greeted by Leche, Jack, and Laura with roses. We were then whisked away to Walter’s mansion to change our clothes and head to Montanita, the beach town we were going to(and where Walter has a beach house). We arrived in Montanita at about 2:00 a.m. and were informed that the party was about to begin. We dropped our bags at our hostel(which was owned by one of their friends, Picoto), and headed out to the bars. In Montanita, the bars get hopping around 2:00 and keep going until 8:00 in the morning. We ended up staying out until 4:30 a.m. on a Thursday. Latest I have ever stayed out, let alone on a Thursday. The next morning, we headed to some beaches to hang out, surf, and tan. We also bathed ourselves in mud(see photo), which is apparently good for your skin(but it smelled like ass). After a great day in the sun, we grabbed a snack, which I can’t recall the name of. It was basically a chunk of fish(maybe tuna?), wrapped in plantain, and fried to delicious perfection. It kind of tasted like a fish corndog. It sounds weird, but it was absolutely awesome. We headed back to town for a late dinner, pregaming, and headed out to a bar where our friend Leche was playing a show(he is a bassist in a band). The awesome thing about Montanita is that there are little tiki-hut bars in the street. You just walk up to them and they make you awesome (and cheap) drinks. I have honestly never seen a street so packed at 12:00 a.m. There are also all of these random food stands all over the streets. One thing we had EVERY night after dancing was peluche, which was grilled corn-on-the-cob brushed with mayonnaise and sprinkled with cheese. Peluche literally means “teddy” in Spanish, and our friend Jack, who speaks some English, kept calling it “teddy corn”. Hands down the best drunk food EVER.

On Saturday, we went to Walter’s beach house for the day, which was frickin awesome. As we were given the tour of the home, we noticed original indigenous artifacts(worth millions), as well as pictures of Walter’s dad with Jacques Cousteau, NBD. We got to spend the whole day on their private beach, where their maids prepared us a smorgasbord of seafood and rice. My life is awesome. More partying, tropical drinks, dancing, and peluche followed, and by our 3^rd night of partying I was feeling like a local. In summary, I had the time of my life and can’t wait to visit Montanita again(hopefully soon!!). Hope all of you are having fun, too J Hasta luego, amiguitos.