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HolaDÍA FELIZ DE VALENTINES! Hope everyone had a nice day..in Ecuador it is still only 5:45pm so the night is young! I´m going out tonight to see one of the volunteers Ecuadorian boyfriend sing in a bar, I think he sings some indigeous music as well as the normal Spanish music so should be fun! Well let me try and update you with what I have been up to since my last journal entry. Last weekend I went to Mindo which is 2 hours north of Quito. Anyway it is a very small town surrounded by forest and mountain, there are alot of mountains here in Ecuador which you may have noticed from my pictures. It was really good to get away from the city and be able to breath pure oxygen as Quito is very poluted! Anyway had quite an active weekend (just call me Lara Croft), in the morning we arrived we went to the rainforest where we took a cable car thingy over the mountains and then did quite a bit of walking to get to the waterfalls, once there most of us didn´t have our swimsuits with us but Andrea (the volunteer who has left Quito but I bumped into in Mindo, turns out she was staying the same room as us in the hostel-small world) jumped off this high rock into the river..another girl went up to do it also but couldn´t do it once up there and I don´t blame her as it looked pretty scary plus it was hard to tell how deep the water was but the man that worked there assured us it was safe :-)! After we finished with the waterfalls and walking we then did an hour horse riding, which was a nice way to view some more of mindo although I didn´t get faster than a trot as I´m a bit inexperienced to be galloping along like Black Beauty! That evening we had a nice meal out and managed to find something different from arroz (rice) for a change, over here they like mucho arroz! The hostel we stayed in was a little wooden hut surrounded by trees and the river which was very basic but lovely. On the Sunday we walked up to the mariposa (butterfly) farm and managed to see the buttleflies go from a catterpilla to a butterfly apparently they only have a life expectancy of one month once they are a butterfly..FACT FOR THE DAY..LOL! Andrea and I then went off to do thing called canapaying (not sure if that is spelt correct) where they attach you to a cable and you glide along...there were 10 of them..bit scary really but great fun..at one point I was attached to the man had to position myself like superman as I glided along the cable it was really good fun and felt like I was flying!! The weekend before that Emma, Christine and I went to Riobama which is about 5 hours south of Quito. We explored the town and then on the Sunday we got a bus to Alousi and from there we got on the train which is called devils nose train ride. The train track was built quite a while ago and was suppose to a proper train but it has to go backwards to go forwards when turning and it was not very convenient at all so they stopped it and now it is only open for tourists. We sat on the roof and seen some more countryside, etc. I have pictures and will download them tomorrow.This weekend it is carnival in Ecuador and I think the rest of SA too. This is a water festival and involves people throwing water at each other. Like Guy Falkes at home the children and teenagers start early so this has been going on for about 2 weeks and I´ve been hit with a water bomb a couple of times..you have to really watch when walking up streets as the children just throw them out of windows and then hide! Plus I seen some men throw a bucket of water over some girls walking along the street as they drove past..all part of the fiesta (party) experience so can´t really complain. Anyway for the carnival we get 2 days off next week so we have a 4 day weekend!! So I´m off to Tena this weekend to make the most of it, one of the volunteers used to volunteer in Tena and knows lots of people up there so it should be a good weekend. Plus I am going to venture into the Amazon for a couple of days.Right I´m off now, email me with your news! Cia x
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