Lets ride 4 wheelers up an active volcano.

Due to an extensive demand for an update I am blogging. Just kidding Stephab. Wellll lets see whats new. Hunter and I have some pretty serious sickness going on. Not that serious but we both have felt bad for about 3 weeks and today we got some medicine that should kick it in the butt- hopefully. The final countdown has begun, 2 weeks and 2 days left. This past weekend was phenomenal- Saturday being potentially the best day of the entire trip. We went to Baños, a city about 5 hours outside of Quito known for its hot springs (Baños being the spanish word for baths), as well as for its active volcano which recently had a fairly big eruption. Friday after school we navigated our way to the bus terminal (well Charles navigated us) and eventually got to Baños and found a bad A hotel. (anyone going to Baños should stay in Hotel Ross- ten bucks a night plus breakfast.) Upon arriving Sarah and I decided it would be a good idea to try the local Capriña. This was around 5 oclock so by 9 we had turned the town into an Ecuadorian Bourbon street. At 9 we got our whole group together (17 of us) and took a party bus to the top of the volcano. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see any lava. When we returned from the volcano/lookout point we went to a bar for a little bit but around 12 I was ready to be in a bed. The next morning we got up and all rented mountain bikes for 5 bucks a piece and went on literally the most beautiful bike ride of my life. We went pretty far I think around 20 miles, saw a ton of waterfalls and mountains, rode a cable car across a river and then hiked to see one of the bigger waterfalls which was a pain in the south american ass to get back up- but well worth it. The people from the bike place picked us up at this point and we all loaded into the back of a pick up truck- I wish someone would've kept count of the number of times this has happened- and went back into town. From here we got a little lunch and then decided to rent dirt bikes, 4 wheelers and dune buggies (me) to drive up the volcano. It was amazing!!! I mean the views could literally not be any better and this was nice because it required no physical strain for the most part. We got back to town around 6 and then went to an incredible cheap international restaurant called Casa Hood. I had pad thai, hummus, chips and guacamole AND the best mocha milkshake i have ever had. Between the 9 of us we ordered an absurd amount of food were all stuffed and spent only 75 dollars. It was great. After this we got a few bottles of wine and went to the roof of our hotel which turned out to be a great look out spot. We sat up there and just hung out until we all fell asleep. The next day Sarah and I shopped around, then rented a dune buggie which we drove around town for a while and then ate some lunch and watched the final world cup game. Afterwards we got a private bus to take us back to Quito- a great idea.

Monday our class went on a field trip with our hilarious ecology teacher to the Paramo- a region of Ecuador similar to tundra but with some other stuff.. i cant remember anyways it was really cool. Tomorrow we have our midterm in Ecology and a presentation and Friday we leave for the Tiputini Biodiversity station which should be bad to the bone no doubt. Got to go study!