Sunday:
Woke up and went to the community bank for a meeting to go over the by-laws that I had typed up. Afterwords I went to the soccer fields to watch 2 games. The season is almost over, and the guys from my town´s team asked me to play with the next year. I´ll see if they follow up.
Monday:
Got up at 6:00AM to head to Quito to catch the bus to Cuenca. I met up with 3 friends and we started the 10 hour trip (about 180 miles as the crow flies). The tip went well and it was nice to hang-out with friends. WE got to Cuenca around 8:30, checked into the hotel, grabbed a delicious Colombian dinner, went to a cool bar, and then to bed.
Tuesday:
Had a great breakfast at a Swiss restaurant and walked around town until a bunch of our other friends showed up. We switched hotels to the one where the Halloween party was, hung-out taking turns complaining about our sites, and then went to a Mexican place for dinner.
Wednesday:
Spent the morning and afternoon relaxing and visiting with friends I hadn´t seen in a while. Then we got ready for the party. The foul of us in my training group went as characters from the Mexican TV show "Chavo del 8". The show is from the 70´s, but is on TV here every night. You can see pictures and a description of the show here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Chavo_del_Ocho
As you can see, our costumes were good.
Thursday:
After breakfast I caught a bus with some fiends back to Quito. The ride up was a little rougher after a night of partying. Unfortunately I got dropped off at the entrance to my site after the last bus in had passed. I had to walk a hour in the rain. This was the first time that I was really nervous in Ecuador. There are a lot of mean dogs on the road, and people have been robbed there too. I guess since it was raining the crooks and the dogs didn´t want to go out, so I didn´t have any problems.
Friday:
The big celebration for the day of the dead is on November 2nd. What is called the Día de los Defunctos is very important down here. It is a national holiday. I was beat from not getting any sleep on the bus, so I slept in. When I got up, we BBQ´d pork steaks and chicken and then had that with rice and potatoes (grilled and not boiled for a change). WE also had a tasty blueberry drink called "Colada Morada" or "Purple Punch" (my translation). We drank that with "Pan de Guaguas" which are small loaves of bread with a human form. Both of these are very traditional in Ecuador, and I´d guess that they have pre-christian roots. Then we went to the cemetery to visit the graves. I did go to my neighbor´s grandparent´s graves with her for a minute to say a prayer. There were a lot of people cleaning the grave sites, but more were outside the cemetery selling foo, beer, and junk to put on the graves. After hanging-out for a bit, everybody went to the center of town to drink and dance. I left right away because I wanted to write this blog post and get some rest. Tomorrow I´m leaving early to go to Latacunga for the festival of "Mamá Negra" or "Black Mama". With a name like that how can I not go.
