Whoops, kinda forgot bout my little blog for quite a while. I´m leaving in about 45 min for a bus to Mindo, a gorgeous town that houses an amazing cloud forests and tons of huge waterfalls, but I´ll try to fill you all in about the last few weeks of my life as much as possible in the next half hour. Before I start talking bout my crazy adventures to the jungle and the coast thought I´d share with you some of the craziness that is Ecuadorian politics. This article gives a pretty good (fairly left, quite optimistic, thanks erik) of what´s been going on the past 2 weeks or so (if this doesn´t interest you skip down aways):
¨Ecuador’s Nascent Leftist Government Victorious in Confrontation with Right
By Roger Burbach
The two month old government of leftist Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and
the popular movements that back him have emerged triumphant in their first
battle with the oligarchy and the traditional political parties that have
historically dominated the country. Correa in his inaugural address in January
called for an opening to a “new socialism of the twenty-first century” and
declared that Ecuador has to end “the perverse system that has destroyed our
democracy, our economy and our society.”
Correa’s presidency is rooted in a militant mass movement that has been
mobilizing and challenging the country’s ascendant economic and political
interests for years. The Ecuadorian political system, referred to as a
“partidocracia,” is run by factious political parties dominated by oligarchs
who pull the strings on a corrupt state that includes Congress, the Supreme
Court, as well as the presidency until Correa’s election. Even Michel
Camdessus, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, once commented
that Ecuador is characterized “by an incestuous relation between bankers,
political-financial pressure groups and corrupt government officials.”
The central demand of the broad movement that brought Correa to power is for a
Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution that breaks up the current
dysfunctional state, ends the reign of the “partidocracia,” refounds the
country as a plurinational, participatory democracy, reclaims Ecuadorian
sovereignty and uses the state to advance social and economic policies that
benefit the people, not the oligarchy.
Correa upon his inauguration issued a decree calling for a plebiscite for the
people to vote on April 15 for the election of a Constituent Assembly. The
Congress refused to accept the president’s initiative, passing its own law
saying that such an assembly would not have the right to limit the tenure of
Congressional members or any other elected officials until their terms expired
with the next elections. It would not be an assembly with powers to refound the
country’s institutions. Then with the intent of turning the election of assembly
members into a virtual circus, the Congress declared that anyone could put their
name on the ballot for the assembly. No signatures or petitions were required,
meaning that hundreds or more could simply sign up to run for any given seat,
making the balloting virtually impossible to administer.
Correa responded by taking the Congressional legislation, eliminating the
onerous clauses, tailoring it to his original decree for a Constituent Assembly
to refound the country, and sending it the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal,
which rules on elections and electoral procedures. Hopes were not high, as the
Tribunal is historically viewed as part of the “partidocracia.’’ The popular
movements began to demonstrate in front of the Tribunal and Congress, calling
for their closure, and for Correa to simply issue a decree for the Constituent
Assembly.
Rene Baez, a political analyst at the Catholic University of Ecuador, says: “To
the surprise of virtually everyone the popular repudiation shook the
consciousness of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.” Lead by its president, Jorge
Acosta, a member of a traditional right wing party, the Tribunal declared that
the statute proposed by President Correa to refound the country’s institutions
would be the one that would be voted up or down on April 15.
Outraged by this decree, fifty-seven of the one hundred deputies of Congress
voted to depose Acosta from the Tribunal. The next day Acosta and the Tribunal
responded by expelling the fifty-seven deputies from Congress for their
unconstitutional actions.
The people took to the streets in a jubilant mood. Backed by demonstrators,
Correa ordered 1500 policeman to surround the Congress to enforce the decree of
the Tribunal, preventing any of the fifty-seven deposed representatives from
entering. They attempted to hold a rump session at the Quito Hotel, but it went
nowhere, with demonstrators ridiculing them outside by throwing pieces of dried
pork fat at them as they entered and left.
Since a quorum of fifty-one members is required in Congress to conduct business,
the deposed members hoped to provoke an institutional crisis. But because of a
quirk of Ecuadorian law, each deputy of Congress is elected along with a
substitute legislator from the same party. The Correa government made it clear
it would seat any of the substitutes, if they accepted the rulings of the
Electoral Tribunal. Twenty substitutes almost immediately broke ranks with
their parties, and Congress had the quorum necessary to function.
“This is a major blow to the right wing and the oligarchy,” says Rene Baez. “The
‘partidocracia’ has been gutted in the political realm.” President Correa
proclaimed: “The fifty-seven deputies tried to sow chaos in the country…now
they have been sanctioned and deposed. Congress will continue to function.”
While the plans for the Constituent Assembly to refound the country move
forward, Correa on the same day that he declared victory made it clear that he
intends to take advantage of his powers and a more pliant Congress,
particularly to control the country’s private banks. In the midst of the
political crisis, the banks spread rumors of a “liquidity crisis,” saying they
were short of funds and might have to close their doors. Correa declared: “The
problem is the exact opposite: The banks have ample funds and reserves, they
are breaking historic records with their profits, exaggerated profits based on
high interest rates, these will be regulated and controlled.”
Correa is setting up a special commission to investigate bank accesses and
corruption dating back to 1998. “Let’s be clear” he said, “The banks are never
again going to be in the position to break the state.”
With the victory of Correa and the popular movement, a leftist axis of nations
comprised of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador is consolidating in South America
that is bent on carrying out profound social and economic changes at home while
challenging the historic domination of the United States in the region. Correa
has already announced he is shutting down the largest US military base on the
South American coast at Manta, Ecuador. He is also moving forward with the
expropriation of Occidental Petroleum, the largest petroleum corporation in the
country, merging it with the state-owned company PetroEcuador, which in turn is
signing a number of accords for cooperation and joint investments with PDVSA,
the Venezuelan state company.
Simultaneously, the popular movements are moving forward with their plans to
make the Constituent Assembly a democratic, participatory process. In “An Open
Letter to the People,” signed by many leaders of the country’s popular
organizations, they declared: “The Constituent Assembly should be an organizing
process for the Ecuadorian people, including workshops, seminars, and
discussions at the grassroots of society that spills over and includes the
different social sectors, women, the indigenous peoples, the Afro-Ecuadorians,
workers, professors, students, informal merchants …”
“Never before has it been so clear that it is the people who make history. Today
we are at the beginning of an era of popular power, marked by the initial work
of the Constituent Assembly. It flows out of the resilience of the Ecuadorian
people. It is potent and tumultuous.Ӭ
Pretty interesting stuff, no? Back to my travels... Bout 2 weeks ago, I can hardly remember now me and a few friends met at the bus terminal around 7:30 on a Friday night, packed and ready to head to Mindo (as previously described) for the weekend. However after about half an hour of scurrying around the bus terminal looking for the bus we realized that there was not one that night to Mindo. So, we looked around at the busses and destinations we had to choose from and decided why not just go to the jungle, the almighty Amazon? We bought tickets to Tena, about 5 hours from Quito, hopped aboard the bus, and set off for the jungle. The ride there was pretty dark which hindered one of my favorite activities in Ecuador, staring out the bus window and our journeys through the country, but nonetheless the farther west we went I could sense a changing of scenery and smell the jungle´s fresh, damp, exotic air. We eventually made it to our hostal in Tena at around 2:30, and were very pleased with its comfort and location right along a river.
The next morning we awoke ready to make the most of our time in the Amazon and set out talking to various tour agencies about possible adventures for the day. After some time we made plans for a day trip into the real jungle, not just the town of Tena. The trip began with an hour drive to our first stop at a big river which runs through the jungle. Like most trips I´ve taken here, the views along the way were amazing, though disrupted at one point by a quite unfortunate incident. As myself and two others were sitting in the back of the pick up taking in the scenery and fresh jungle air, we were startled by a loud thump and bump of the truck. Wondering what it was we turned around in time to realize we had hit and killed a dog :( It´s true most dogs here don´t have a home and don´t lead the spoiled life of most pets in the states but we nevertheless felt pretty awful for it.
At our first stop, the river, we unloaded our equipment into an oversized, motorized canoe and spent about 20 minutes cruising down the river towards the jungle station where we would begin our excursion. The station was very expansive, impressive, and made entirely of bambu and after a brief few moments there we put on our enormous rubber hiking boots and set off with our great guide whom referred to himself as Mosquito, a native of Tena who´s knowledge of the jungle could lead you to mistake him for Tarzan.
Unfortunately that´s where I´ll have to stop for now, I´m off to another exciting adventure. I´ll try to be a little more timely in these posts!
Take care, ¡que les vayan bien!
Brett
Friday, March 23, 2007
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Carnaval Part II, Papallama, Ecuador Video
Hello!
Been a little while since I wrote about the first part of our celebration of Carnaval, sorry for the delay - had a pretty busy week in school writing an 8 pg paper and a 10 min presentation about the evolution of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos islands, pretty exciting stuff... Back to carnaval where I left off.
The morning after our exciting day of jumping off bridges and partying in the streets, we woke up bright and early (around 7:30am, which for those of you that know me well enough is pretty early for me), ate a quick breakfast, and took off to meet up with our guide for the day. Once there we loaded up the van, threw the giant raft on top of it, and set off on a beautiful drive about one hour into the Amazon. I still cannot get over how incredibly green and beautiful this country is - every time I leave the cramped, enormous, somewhat polluted city of Quito I am blown away by the scenery. We eventually arrived at the river where we started our rafting adventure and I was awakened (awoke?) from a little nap by a loud thump which turned out was our driver running into a concrete post. Was this little mishap a sign of things to come...? We laughed for a bit about the little dent in the bumper and proceeded to unload the gear and begin our rafting lesson. First our guide, a really good, funny guy who was 24 and lives in Baños, asked for 2 captains to sit in the front of the raft and guide the stroking. No one was to eager to accept this duty as none of us had ever rafted before so finally Kraig and I agreed we´d do it, and it turned out that we had no real duties except sitting in the front anyway. Once we all had our assigned positions in the boat our guide taught us how to stroke forwards and backwards, jump in the boat if need be, react if we fall out, help others back in the boat, and celebrate making it through a rapid with a cheer and a high five of the paddles over our heads. Eager and ready to take on the river, we finally got our boat in the water and took off and, to be honest, I was pretty nervous at first. For the first few little rapids I noticed myself involuntarily sinking in towards the middle of the raft each time, but my nerves shortly turned into excitement and I began to look forward to each rapid as another opportunity to get soaked or lose my balance. At certain points throughout the excursion our guide told us we could/should jump out of the boat and just ride the current in the water (it wasn´t till after I was told there were probably pirahnas in the water, though I guess they´re not as aggressive as many people think). The first time he did so, we all kind of looked at each as if to question if he was serious, but after he pushed some of the girls sitting near him overboard I quickly jumped in. I purposedly made a point to stay near the boat, but others were not so wise. After most of us had got back in the boat 2 of our friends, Katy and Leah, found themselves a good 25ft from the boat and not moving nearly as quickly as the current was carrying our boat. Somehow Katy made her way back to the boat but Leah wasn´t moving at all and wasn´t starting to get a little nervous to say the least. Nevertheless, we found a way to paddle towards and after a few minutes of confusion we managed to get her back in the boat, though some people now doubted our guide´s advice to just jump in the water (I still thought it was fun and proceeded to jump out a few more times down the river). Shortly after our first little mishap we were making our way through a rapid when we hit a big wave and a few people fell inside the raft, no real harm done. Or so we thought. We soon realized that the rubber coating surrounding the intertube that kept all the air in had come undone and that the boat was undeniably beginning to lose its form. This was pretty obvious when those people sitting in the middle of the boat were sitting closer and closer to the water by the minute. At first we thought we were losing air and that we´d never make it down the river in the raft, but our guide eventually brought it to our attention that the boat was simply becoming deformed and all the air was being pushed to the front and back of the raft. After about 10-15 min of continuing with our damaged boat, we stopped along some extremely rocky shore to make some adjustments. First, the guide flagged down a few other passing-by rafts and advised all the girls to join other rafts and that us guys would try to fix the boat and meet them at the end. It was getting later in the day by this point and I was beginning to wonder if we ever actually would see the end of this journey. We spent about half an hour twisting ropes in and out of varios places around the boat, attempting to restore some shape to the deformed tube. Finally our guide was satisfied that the boat would work so we flipped it back over, eased our way back in, and once again set off the to face the river, just the 4 of us, me, Adam, Kraig, and our guide. We spent a good few minutes joking around that we were better off without the girls and that it was probably them who broke the raft anyhow, and our spirits were once again restored as everything seemed to be going smoothly. In fact, there were no problems from there on out, despite the fact that our poor raft was still far from in perfect condition. The only part of this whole adventure more amazing than the actual tackling of the rapids was our surroundings. Not only were we paddling down an awesome river in Ecuador in absolutely perfect weather, but we were in the Amazon forest surrounded by breathtaking cliffs, waterfalls, mountains, birds, trees, flowers, sounds, skies...the list could really go on forever. The trip certainly enhanced my desire to get back to the jungle, soon and even deeper in it. We must have been making pretty good time down the river (post-accident) because we reached the finishing point only minutes after the other rafts carrying our female castaway counterparts had. The entire experience was such a thrill that I´ll never forget, and the little problems only make my story and memory that much better! My only regret is that none of us brought a camera and so there´s no pictures of all those amazing scenes we saw along the way. The ride back to Baños was very relaxing after the vigorous few hours on the raft, despite the constant aqua-attacks of those along the road who kept up with the Carnaval tradition of trying to drench passerby´s.
Immediately upon getting back to our hostel most of us settled down for a nap. After we all woke up we had dinner at a super delicious and fun restaurant next to our hostel where we thoroughly enjoyed our food and were treated to a short but really nice concert by an indiginous, very talented band with an array of interesting string, wind, and percussion instruments. After dinner we found a chiva (party-like bus that you can ride on the roof of, which is of course where we sat) that took us to the top of the volcano that nearly covered Baños in lava in 1998 (i think). Once at the top, we were treated to various performances by fire dancers and jugglers and a spectacular view of the city down below. Photo of the fire dancer:
We descended the mountain again in our chiva (ducking along the way to avoid branches and cables) and unanimously decided we were too tired to attempt to spend another night out amongst the Carnaval craziness. We woke up, said our goodbyes to Baños and took the sobering busride back to realiy and the end of our incredible Carnaval vacation.
Fortunately, however, we only had 3 days of class left that week. What´s more on Thursday after class I discovered a group of people, mostly gringos who once lived in the U.S., who play ultimate frisbee (my favorite sport to play, unbeknownst to practically every Ecuadorian) every Tuesday and Thursday in the enormous Parque La Carolina pretty close to my house. It was sooo nice to be able to play frisbee and get some exercise again and the people were all extremely nice. In fact, the group of people have been playing at the same time and place for about 10 years now and many have lived in Quito for even longer than that. A few people that I talked to came to Ecuador as part of the Peace Corps and never left. Needless to say, I´m pretty excited to have found this group of people and to play some frisbee with them as much as I can.
When our short week of class ended we spent Friday night in Quito, but on Saturday 4 of us took off to Papallacta, or Papallama as I sometimes jokingly refer to it. This small village is located about 2 hours from Quito, in the central/northern Andean highlands of Ecuador and is famous for its natural volcanic spring baths. The drive there is slightly frightening and a good portion of it takes place high up in the mountains where the roads are thin, winding, and adjacent to steep dropoffs with only a poor excuse of a wire fence separating the road and the giant drops. Fortunately these bus drivers are pretty good at what they do and we got there with no problem. That weekend it was extremely cloudly, breezy, and fairly chilly up in the mountains but the minute we dipped ourselves in the super hot, relaxing springs there were no worries. It was a very relaxing day and a half, spent almost entirely in the many baths surrounded countless tree and cloud covered gorgeous mountains.
I got a few pictures that I´m trying to put right here that aren´t working right now, maybe if I leave some random space here I´ll remember to go back and add them...
We made sure to leave Papallacta with enough time to make it back to Quito before the Badger game against Ohio St. I hadn´t seen a game yet in Ecuador and I was more than excited to the 1 vs. 2 matchup. Unfortunately the one game I was able to catch had to be the most tragic I have probably ever watched. At least at the sports bar we were at the majority of people were Liga fans (Quito´s soccer team) and they also lost a close game at the same time, so we werent the only ones upset. Though I´m pretty sure we did make our grief a little more noticeable.
Following the weekend and Wisco´s tragic defeat (and Butch had to go and hurt himself!) I had my busiest week of school yet, researching and writng all about a bunch of Finches. This weekend has been a nice release though, we decided to stay in Quito and I spent a lot of the time with my bro and some of his cousins and friends who are in town for a while and a lot of fun. That bout wraps up the last 2 weeks, we have off school on Wednesday for a teachers´ conference so I think some of us are going to a town called Mindo, about 2 hours from Quito, well known for its wide variety of eco-touristy opportunities and activities, cloud forests, great scenery, etc...should be a nice getaway.
I made a little video montage of some of my adventures from the first two months here and put it on the internet, you should be able to access it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trmfSbv1rW8
Take care and keep in touch!!
Brett
Been a little while since I wrote about the first part of our celebration of Carnaval, sorry for the delay - had a pretty busy week in school writing an 8 pg paper and a 10 min presentation about the evolution of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos islands, pretty exciting stuff... Back to carnaval where I left off.
The morning after our exciting day of jumping off bridges and partying in the streets, we woke up bright and early (around 7:30am, which for those of you that know me well enough is pretty early for me), ate a quick breakfast, and took off to meet up with our guide for the day. Once there we loaded up the van, threw the giant raft on top of it, and set off on a beautiful drive about one hour into the Amazon. I still cannot get over how incredibly green and beautiful this country is - every time I leave the cramped, enormous, somewhat polluted city of Quito I am blown away by the scenery. We eventually arrived at the river where we started our rafting adventure and I was awakened (awoke?) from a little nap by a loud thump which turned out was our driver running into a concrete post. Was this little mishap a sign of things to come...? We laughed for a bit about the little dent in the bumper and proceeded to unload the gear and begin our rafting lesson. First our guide, a really good, funny guy who was 24 and lives in Baños, asked for 2 captains to sit in the front of the raft and guide the stroking. No one was to eager to accept this duty as none of us had ever rafted before so finally Kraig and I agreed we´d do it, and it turned out that we had no real duties except sitting in the front anyway. Once we all had our assigned positions in the boat our guide taught us how to stroke forwards and backwards, jump in the boat if need be, react if we fall out, help others back in the boat, and celebrate making it through a rapid with a cheer and a high five of the paddles over our heads. Eager and ready to take on the river, we finally got our boat in the water and took off and, to be honest, I was pretty nervous at first. For the first few little rapids I noticed myself involuntarily sinking in towards the middle of the raft each time, but my nerves shortly turned into excitement and I began to look forward to each rapid as another opportunity to get soaked or lose my balance. At certain points throughout the excursion our guide told us we could/should jump out of the boat and just ride the current in the water (it wasn´t till after I was told there were probably pirahnas in the water, though I guess they´re not as aggressive as many people think). The first time he did so, we all kind of looked at each as if to question if he was serious, but after he pushed some of the girls sitting near him overboard I quickly jumped in. I purposedly made a point to stay near the boat, but others were not so wise. After most of us had got back in the boat 2 of our friends, Katy and Leah, found themselves a good 25ft from the boat and not moving nearly as quickly as the current was carrying our boat. Somehow Katy made her way back to the boat but Leah wasn´t moving at all and wasn´t starting to get a little nervous to say the least. Nevertheless, we found a way to paddle towards and after a few minutes of confusion we managed to get her back in the boat, though some people now doubted our guide´s advice to just jump in the water (I still thought it was fun and proceeded to jump out a few more times down the river). Shortly after our first little mishap we were making our way through a rapid when we hit a big wave and a few people fell inside the raft, no real harm done. Or so we thought. We soon realized that the rubber coating surrounding the intertube that kept all the air in had come undone and that the boat was undeniably beginning to lose its form. This was pretty obvious when those people sitting in the middle of the boat were sitting closer and closer to the water by the minute. At first we thought we were losing air and that we´d never make it down the river in the raft, but our guide eventually brought it to our attention that the boat was simply becoming deformed and all the air was being pushed to the front and back of the raft. After about 10-15 min of continuing with our damaged boat, we stopped along some extremely rocky shore to make some adjustments. First, the guide flagged down a few other passing-by rafts and advised all the girls to join other rafts and that us guys would try to fix the boat and meet them at the end. It was getting later in the day by this point and I was beginning to wonder if we ever actually would see the end of this journey. We spent about half an hour twisting ropes in and out of varios places around the boat, attempting to restore some shape to the deformed tube. Finally our guide was satisfied that the boat would work so we flipped it back over, eased our way back in, and once again set off the to face the river, just the 4 of us, me, Adam, Kraig, and our guide. We spent a good few minutes joking around that we were better off without the girls and that it was probably them who broke the raft anyhow, and our spirits were once again restored as everything seemed to be going smoothly. In fact, there were no problems from there on out, despite the fact that our poor raft was still far from in perfect condition. The only part of this whole adventure more amazing than the actual tackling of the rapids was our surroundings. Not only were we paddling down an awesome river in Ecuador in absolutely perfect weather, but we were in the Amazon forest surrounded by breathtaking cliffs, waterfalls, mountains, birds, trees, flowers, sounds, skies...the list could really go on forever. The trip certainly enhanced my desire to get back to the jungle, soon and even deeper in it. We must have been making pretty good time down the river (post-accident) because we reached the finishing point only minutes after the other rafts carrying our female castaway counterparts had. The entire experience was such a thrill that I´ll never forget, and the little problems only make my story and memory that much better! My only regret is that none of us brought a camera and so there´s no pictures of all those amazing scenes we saw along the way. The ride back to Baños was very relaxing after the vigorous few hours on the raft, despite the constant aqua-attacks of those along the road who kept up with the Carnaval tradition of trying to drench passerby´s.
Immediately upon getting back to our hostel most of us settled down for a nap. After we all woke up we had dinner at a super delicious and fun restaurant next to our hostel where we thoroughly enjoyed our food and were treated to a short but really nice concert by an indiginous, very talented band with an array of interesting string, wind, and percussion instruments. After dinner we found a chiva (party-like bus that you can ride on the roof of, which is of course where we sat) that took us to the top of the volcano that nearly covered Baños in lava in 1998 (i think). Once at the top, we were treated to various performances by fire dancers and jugglers and a spectacular view of the city down below. Photo of the fire dancer:
We descended the mountain again in our chiva (ducking along the way to avoid branches and cables) and unanimously decided we were too tired to attempt to spend another night out amongst the Carnaval craziness. We woke up, said our goodbyes to Baños and took the sobering busride back to realiy and the end of our incredible Carnaval vacation.
Fortunately, however, we only had 3 days of class left that week. What´s more on Thursday after class I discovered a group of people, mostly gringos who once lived in the U.S., who play ultimate frisbee (my favorite sport to play, unbeknownst to practically every Ecuadorian) every Tuesday and Thursday in the enormous Parque La Carolina pretty close to my house. It was sooo nice to be able to play frisbee and get some exercise again and the people were all extremely nice. In fact, the group of people have been playing at the same time and place for about 10 years now and many have lived in Quito for even longer than that. A few people that I talked to came to Ecuador as part of the Peace Corps and never left. Needless to say, I´m pretty excited to have found this group of people and to play some frisbee with them as much as I can.
When our short week of class ended we spent Friday night in Quito, but on Saturday 4 of us took off to Papallacta, or Papallama as I sometimes jokingly refer to it. This small village is located about 2 hours from Quito, in the central/northern Andean highlands of Ecuador and is famous for its natural volcanic spring baths. The drive there is slightly frightening and a good portion of it takes place high up in the mountains where the roads are thin, winding, and adjacent to steep dropoffs with only a poor excuse of a wire fence separating the road and the giant drops. Fortunately these bus drivers are pretty good at what they do and we got there with no problem. That weekend it was extremely cloudly, breezy, and fairly chilly up in the mountains but the minute we dipped ourselves in the super hot, relaxing springs there were no worries. It was a very relaxing day and a half, spent almost entirely in the many baths surrounded countless tree and cloud covered gorgeous mountains.
I got a few pictures that I´m trying to put right here that aren´t working right now, maybe if I leave some random space here I´ll remember to go back and add them...
We made sure to leave Papallacta with enough time to make it back to Quito before the Badger game against Ohio St. I hadn´t seen a game yet in Ecuador and I was more than excited to the 1 vs. 2 matchup. Unfortunately the one game I was able to catch had to be the most tragic I have probably ever watched. At least at the sports bar we were at the majority of people were Liga fans (Quito´s soccer team) and they also lost a close game at the same time, so we werent the only ones upset. Though I´m pretty sure we did make our grief a little more noticeable.
Following the weekend and Wisco´s tragic defeat (and Butch had to go and hurt himself!) I had my busiest week of school yet, researching and writng all about a bunch of Finches. This weekend has been a nice release though, we decided to stay in Quito and I spent a lot of the time with my bro and some of his cousins and friends who are in town for a while and a lot of fun. That bout wraps up the last 2 weeks, we have off school on Wednesday for a teachers´ conference so I think some of us are going to a town called Mindo, about 2 hours from Quito, well known for its wide variety of eco-touristy opportunities and activities, cloud forests, great scenery, etc...should be a nice getaway.
I made a little video montage of some of my adventures from the first two months here and put it on the internet, you should be able to access it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trmfSbv1rW8
Take care and keep in touch!!
Brett
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