An Ecuadorian Mission Experience

Hey there folks,

Today was a beautiful day! We woke up and thought that it was going to rain. The clouds were gray and sat like heavy fluff on the mountains. Amazingly, even with a 50% chance of rain everyday, it has yet to rain on us. Today was our ReCreation day of fun and personal time. After breakfast, we headed to the local artisans' market in Quito.

It was a really neat place with all sorts of items for sale: scarfs, tshirts, hats, blankets, hammocks, jewelry, etc. The aisles were narrow and people were everywhere. Many of the items were handmade, and they were all beautiful and native. Everyone got to experience haggling and bargaining. It was pretty exciting.

We took a packed lunch with us, and headed to the Equator monument. There are actually a few different Equator monuments. They all are slightly off dead center of the Equator. The one we visited was really neat as it had a museum and tour about local indigenous people. We got to see a real shrunken head and learn about the native people and animals. Then we got to play on the Equator! We straddled the line and took photos, and then we tried to balance an egg on a nail. A few of us pulled it off!

After we left the Equator, we headed up to El Refugio. El Refugio is similar to Kanuga. It is really nice, and it is thought to be the only camp in Latin America with a high and low ropes course. We didn't get to do the ropes course, but we saw a couple of the apparatuses. They were intense! The zip line was way up on the mountain and zoomed over a valley between two mountain sides. We were given an hour and a half to go out in nature and have quite time with nature. That was both really cool and refreshing. If you went hiking, you were to stay with one other person. Lauren and I hiked up as far as we could go, probably not too far from the ridge. The view was breathe-taking, and we saw/found some neat things like wild strawberries. It was fun, but it is really difficult hiking on a mountain when you are at 10,000 feet!

After hiking we enjoyed hot dogs over the fire and guinea pig. The locals call it coy. It really wasn't too bad. It tasted a lot like duck. Taylor was extremely adventurous and tried an eyeball and the brain. After dinner, we debriefed, enjoyed some more quite time by the fire, prayed, sang, and ended the night with smores!

Then we found out that our bus wouldn't start, so we hung out for a while. We actually had to assist a tractor in pushing the bus a little ways up the mountain. No prob. Luckily it started up and we made it back to the hostal just fine.

Tomorrow we will be serving at the Episcopal Cathedral. Very cool. I can barely keep my eyes open, so...good night!

blessings,
dorian