On Wednesday was the soccer game Ecuador vs. Brazil. It was embarrassing. Apparently the Ecuador selection is awful this year... we lost 5-0 which is unheard of, even against a great team like Brazil.
I had a couple tests this week and they went really well. I now have a break from school for a while as far as tests and presentations go... although I do have to start reading 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which is hard enough in english and I have to read it in Spanish!
So this weekend was great! On Saturday morning at 6 am we left for Cotopaxi which was AMAZING!!! It's a glacier covered mountain which they say is one of the most beautiful volcanoes in the world. It is an active volcano and is the second dangerous in Ecuador. It's not like spitting ash or anything, but it is overdue for an eruption and when it does erupt, at any moment, it will be absolutely devastating for the country. As my awesome professor Theo says, "it is dangerous to forget the past" and that's what much of the ecuadorians have done. They build in risk/danger zones of the volcano which will all get destroyed when it erupts. This is what will happen. Cotopaxi will erupt and cover the entire country plus much of Colombia with ash. This ash will cause major economic problems... no internet, electricity, phones, planes, etc. Then the hot material, gas, and rocks (piroclastic material) coming out of the volcano will melt the glacier causing 3 huge crazy hot mud/rock flows throughout the country destroying a few cities and many bridges/damns/electricity places as well as killing people. But enough with this stuff that will someday (hopefully a long time from now) happen.
So we got to the park and a lot of it was flat ground... absolutely flat. this was from the la har (piroclastic flow). We then drove the bus a bit up to the volcano and parked. Our profe Theo directed our class to run down this giant hill of rocks to see old lava flows and stuff. It was really fun, but then the hike up was pretty hard because all the rocks were really loose.
The above is my class practically falling down this hill of piroclastic material. And my awesome profe Theo being himself!
It wasn't too cold, which was nice. We hiked up to the refuge at about the midpoint of the volcano where the snow begins, which was a little rough.. I definitely took at least 3 breaks on the way up.
The walk to the refuge is the picture above
We took a break at the refuge for some hot chocolate which was really good and we continued up the volcano for about 25 min. until we got to the glacier.
My pictures don't capture it at all but it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. The clouds were moving a lot so we didn't see everything for very long but it was wonderful! There were also some really cool snow foxes running around up there. The landscape below was also beautiful, but again we couldn't see very well because of cloudcover. Cotopaxi was amazing and I'd love to climb to the top if I had time, but I don't!!!
Saturday afternoon we headed to Banos and stayed in a hostel for $5, which was really nice, but I didn't sleep very well :( BUT somehow I'm still really awake and I haven't slept yet. We had to "wake up" at 6 am today to go see Tunguragua volcano stuff. A destroyed little community by a la har last year. That was a little sad. We also talked to this really beautiful indigenous man who lost a lot in a la har that destroyed his community. It was super interesting and he had one of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen. We had some talks with Banos officials and then people who have lived there and and whenever an emergency happens, the people never get the money. There is a lot of gov. corruption there and it was really awful. Tunguragua is an active volcano too and spits out ash almost every day. It's not really that dangerous in general except for the mud flows that happen once in a while. Banos was beautiful as usual! I feel like I'm running out of things to do! By the way, I'm not going to Colombia anymore because plane tickets are too expensive.
Miss you all!
Also, Ecuador, especially Latacunga, has creeeepy garbage cans! They are all over!
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