wide open spaces

last weekend was a quito weekend. my friend's boyfriend was in town so we had to show him the city and do all the touristy things. on friday, we went to my favorite little cafe for the most delish and cheap lunch and then spent the day downtown in el centro. i finally went in the amazing museums and churches quito is famous for. there is one church we call the "gold church" because literally 85% of the inside is made from gold! it is so beautiful and wicked cool to see, but unfortunately no cameras allowed, so you all should just come to quito and see for yourself. we also ventured six blocks up a 45 degree-angled hill to see the cathedral. wow, now that is something spectacular! it is bigger than one could believe, has amazing stain glassed windows, and ridiculous architecture work. and then we went where no gringo is supposed to go - the black market. we knew the general area of where it was located, but had to ask about 5143534 people who all gave us different directions. finally, when one woman said "oh are you looking for the market with all the robbed stuff?" we knew she would point us in the right direction because thats exactly what we were looking for! see i needed a new cell phone, didnt want to pay $60 for one, didn't really care if it was old or used or stolen, and so the black market was my destination. and my was it worth it! i got a phone in really good shape for $20 (my friend has the exact same one and he paid $55 for it... sucker). we hung around downtown for the rest of the day, had a very overpriced but delicious pizza dinner, and then went to la ronda because all visitors need to spend a night at la ronda! we got some canelazo, watched street performers, and listened to good ecuadorian music - exactly what la ronda is known for! oh andddd listen to this: a random ecuadorian came up to my guy friends, asked them if they could put on these brand new ecua shoes (picture a cheaper version of chuck taylors and everyone wears them around here) and asked if he could take their picture. maybe an ad campaign of some sort for the ecua shoes with the tag line "gringos wear them too" ...? we didn't know what was going on but after the guys had their photo shoot the guy said they could keep the shoes! ahh i've been dying to get my own pair of ecua shoes and now my guys got them for free... so jealous.
on saturday, i spent the day with the Melos. and it was extra special because it was the last day Ale was in town for her spring break from Georgetown! they picked me up midday, i had an awesome vegetarian lunch at their house, and then just hung out basically. pia showed me her beautiful ceramics pieces, i helped ale go through old things and pack up her bag, and just had a very relaxing day in their amazing home. and if they weren't generous enough - they even took me out to dinner later that night at a very nice oriental restaurant where we feasted on spring rolls, dumplings, fried rice, and sushi YUM! i love having them so close to me in quito! and sunday was a very chill day spent doing homework, taking a run in the beautiful weather, and talking on the phone with the fam. a great ending to a relaxing weekend!
so i was really upset when this weekend rolled around and my friends and i realized we didnt really have anything planned. i love quito, but i love traveling the country more and i just think its a waste to spend two straight weekends in the same town! but luckily, i got invited camping. remember those guys i mentioned that i met in montañita but they just so happen to go to USFQ with me? well they and some of their friends were planning an overnight camping trip near cotopaxi mountain and invited me and 5 of my friends along. so saturday morning, we met up at the school, stocked up on food and drinks at supermaxi, and hit the road! this was one of my first adventures in ecuador where the mode of transportation was not a bus. i must admit, ecuadorian drivers are scary and bad, but you get places a whole lot quicker by car, that's for sure. after about an hour and a half, we arrived at the entrance to a camp site near cotopaxi, but when the police told us it was going to be $5 a person and they were going to take our drinks and food away we said no thanks. one of my ecua friends knew another entrance through machachi that didnt include any lame policemen! so i thought, ya know, the entrance would be right down the road a few miles or something, well i was completely wrong. the ecua boys didnt know the exact route, the roads were unpaved and in the country, and we had to stop at a farm and help these guys get their car out of the mud. luckily we had good friends and good music so our road trip across all of ecuador was actually really enjoyable! finally, we reached the entrance and the only reason we were allowed to pass through was because one of my friends knew the owner of the farm... how lucky?! and it was beyond worth the wait! we were the only people within hundreds of miles in this completely wide open and natural "desert" in ecuador! it was one of the coolest things: green grass, huge boulders, gigantic rolling hills, snowcapped mountains, wild horses, wild bulls, volcano eruption remnants, and 3 cars full of crazy ecuas and gringos! after getting stuck in the mud and stopping numerous times to take pictures of the amazing scenery and animals, we finally made our way to a lagoon at the base of cotopaxi mountain - ecuador's most famous mountain. it was already getting dark, but it was still one of the most beautiful things i had ever seen. we set up tents, tried to make a fire, basically failed, and so we had a "dinner" of a few pretzels and some peanuts. we were roughin' it. it was absolutely freezing (we were at the foot of a snowcapped mountain) - even with four layers and a sleeping bag - so the majority of us ended sleeping in the cars haha i guess we weren't reallyyyy roughin' it. but got a pretty good sleep, even though it was still so cold in the car, and woke up early enough to see the sun rising, the moon setting, and the sky the coolest shade of blue i have ever seen! we hit the road a few hours later and thankfully it only took us two hours to get back home. that made me happier than ever because i was about to eat my left arm... remember i hadn't really eaten much since the muffin i had had at 10am the day before. so the eggs and toast i made back at home in quito tasted like a 5-star meal!
...so two really fun weekends as usual. it's crazy because i have now been here for over two months and have only two months left! time flies when you are having fun and i'm going to do whatever it takes to jam pack my weekends so i can do everything and see everything that needs to be done and seen in ecuador before i leave! cuenca, the rainforest, galapagos, back to montañita, canoa, and otovalo just to name a few :)

hope you are enjoying life as much as i am.

PAZ, scm

p.s. pictures of this amazing camping trip to come soon!

 plaza grande in el centro

 church in plaza san francisco

 cathedral

 beautiful!

 friends in the plaza!

 view from the lookout at our campsite

 cotopaxi... we camped right at the base at the lagoon

 wide open spaces!

 a donkey came to our car

some friends :)

¡el mejor fin de semana de mi vida!

everyone says you know you've fallen in love when you have butterflies in the stomach, a beaming and constant smile, and that "can't get you out of my head" feeling. well if that's true, i have definitely fallen in love. no no not with some ecuadorian hunk, i have fallen in love with montañita. montañita is a beach in the middle of the ecuador coast, about 3 hours outside of guayaquil and i was lucky enough to spend my entire carnaval there. oh carnaval is basically like the mardi gras of ecuador. from the friday to tuesday before lent starts, ecuador goes wild, especially at the beaches. spraying people with foam, throwing buckets of water on people's heads, 24/7 celebrations - everything goes during carnaval. my friends and i had been planning on going to montañita for carnaval for a while because we heard about an awesome surf competition being held there. and when i told my host family and other friends that i was planning on spending carnval in montañita, they all said i was going to have a great time, but i needed to prepare myself for craziness. so we prepared by buying masks, poppers, fireworks, face paint, whistles, beads, and other obnoxious party things and we were SO ready for carnaval!
at 11pm thursday night, my 10 closest friends and i boarded the bus to guayaquil. 8 loooonnnggg hours later we arrived, and boarded another bus that would take us to montañita. even though it was early and we had hardly slept a wink on the overnight bus, we were too excited to sleep and within 3 hours we finally were at the beach! and i fell in love pretty much immediately. montañita is a small surfing town with probably 1000 inhabitants. the 4 roads that run through the town are lined with quaint hostals, delicious batido (juice/shake) stands, empanada, hamburger, and ceviche carts, and people selling jewelry and artwork. our hostal, montezuma, was 1 block from the beach and had delicious meals for $2. we squeezed 11 people in 1 room (my mom said "ew" when i told her that), but we had 5 beds that became sandy and sheetless in 1 day, a bathroom that was a stinky swamp by saturday, and a balcony with a hammock from which you could see the beach! when we arrived, we headed right for the beach. it was the friday before carnaval, so all the tourists hadn't quite arrived but the beach was still pretty crowded. even so, it was awesome... extremely beautiful, extremely hot, but the water was the perfect temperature. spent the whole day at the beach, met some interesting people, and after "showering" (aka 20 second rinse off in freezing cold water) we watched an amazing sunset. i've seen some pretty breathtaking sunsets in my day at caswell, but this was definitely one for the books. after sunset, my friends and i then walked around the streets of montañita, met even more interesting people (and when i say interesting i mean super weird but really cool!), and had a fabulous dinner. the evenings/nights are what make montañita montañita. literally everyone in the town is out about either selling stuff on the curbs, entertaining, or walking around... it's indescribable! seriously, as i write this, i'm thinking wow montañita doesn't sound that exciting but i guess i just can't put into words its amazingness. there's such a welcoming feeling and a sense of community and excitement and free spirits ahh just thinking about it makes me want to go back right now! that night we went to a beach club that had tribal dancers and bongo drums, and i even got painted in glow in the dark paint (and that was the beginning of me wearing paint for 5 days straight). i don't really know what we did for the next like 10 hours, but i stayed out long enough to watch the sunrise on the beach - a sunset and sunrise all in one day!!! and after only about 2 hours of sleep, we got up and repeated! by saturday, all the tourists had arrived and the beach was packed. but that didnt keep us from spending all day at the beach with some naps here and there. funny thing is - the whole reason we had wanted to go to montañita was because of the surf competition that is held every year during carnaval, so it was pretty ironic to find out that this year the competition had been held in february instead! but it was fine because there was still plenty of surfing to be seen and plenty of hot surfer guys to look at and make me jealous that i didnt have a surf board with me. we watched the sunset again, had delicious and cheap street food for dinner, and hung out on the streets of montañita at night, and gathered in an internet café to watch UNC crush dOOk in basketball YEAH HEELS! i met really cool people from all over the world - there was a guy from atlanta who had come to ecuador for fun and owned a batido shop on the beach (my inspiration for wanting to live there!), 3 guys from argentina who were traveling south america and making a video for facebook (keep an eye out for me in their vids!), a tattoo artist from columbia who had just moved to the beach, and 2 really nice boys who go to USFQ - my university near quito. although we pretty much did the same thing every day - beach, sunset, craziness at night, sun rise - every day was beyond fun! oh and remember how i mentioned the foam earlier? yeah, i would guessitmate i got foamed about 6 times per day, so i just stopped caring about what i was wearing / what i looked like and stayed in my bathing suit, shorts, and bare feet all day long. when tuesday finally rolled around, none of us were ready to leave. i seriously considered calling my parents, telling them i was dropping out of school, and staying at the beach. but i thought that wouldn't go over too well so we boarded the bus to guayaquil at 5:30pm. we heard the bus ride home from guayaquil would be about 10 hours so we caught the 9pm bus from there back to quito. what they didn't tell us was that our bus driver was a crazy man with road rage. picture a 50 passenger bus going 120mph, weaving in and out of cars, while winding through the Andes Mountains. yep, that was our bus. so instead of getting back to quito at 7am we got home at 4am and had to find cabs at the crack of dawn! a $4 cab ride and 40 minutes later (that's expensive, man!), i was in my bed at home and sound asleep. i slept for the next 12 hours, but that seemed fine since i had probably gotten about a total of 8 hours during our 5 days in montañita. BUT IT WAS SO WORTH IT! if you can't read spanish the title of this blog is "the best weekend of my life" and although that might not be entirely true, spending carnaval in montañita was definitely one of the best times of my life! i even cried that wednesday night we got back to quito because i missed montañita so much... lame i know, but that shows my true feelings!
well, as many of you know, my grandpa is very sick and right before i left for the beach, they brought him home to my house. i felt guilty having such a great time in montañita because of what he was going through, but i sent him a video and got the go-ahead from my family to have fun - because that's what Cal would want me to do. and when i returned home, i got all the emails and videos from house and it sounds like my family was having just as much fun celebrating Cal's life back in VA as i was having at the beach!

so once again, i am having the most amazing time in ecuador - learning a lot and meeting cool and interesting people who challenge my ideas and make me think differently about this world - and i am just so thankful for this opportunity to live and study in ecuador. i really do wish i could be back at home with the fam during this difficult time, but i'm pretty sure i'm right where i am supposed to be.

viva la vida,
shannon <3

p.s. and a special shout out to my roommates at unc, chelsea and erin, who just found out they will be studying abroad! chels in china and erin in argentina - oh man y'all, get ready for the time of your lives!!!

view of montañita from our balcony!

sunset! 

the perfect day!

painted and foamed - story of my life.

we <3 montañita