Baños and Carmen´s Grad

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Well last weekend was so fun that I´m still recovering.
Carmen´s grad was interesting, I guess her school in San Lorezo teaches music, so there were a few performances by the graduates during the ceremony (she specialized in administration though). After the ceremony we went up to the farm in Canduya for the party Manuela and Wilson were throwing. We helped prepare the massive pig they bought and we were like a big Ecuadorian family. Carmen´s brother and sister were there as well, and they were very friendly. We could only stay for the lunch (chicken soup, cuy, fritata, and potatoes) and not the dancing because we had to get back to Guaranda to have dinner with David´s parents. So much eating.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early to catch a bus out to Baños. We got in around noon and wen´t for lunch. It wasn´t a very good lunch and I felt kind of sick after. We split up after that to check out the town and what activities we´d want to do for the weekend and met back up at 6 to go to the pools as soon as they opened. I decided I wanted to go repelling in the waterfalls and then bike to Machuay, which takes you along a route where you can see 6 different waterfalls. Baños is on one of the rivers leading into the amazon, so there are about 60 waterfalls draining into the river from the Andes.
The baths were nice although too crowded to be truly relaxing in my opinion, I prefer to relax without touching 10 other people´s skin. After the baths we went for dinner, which was again not very good and I definitely felt sick after. It was an italian place and I had lasagna, but it was more like cheese and ground beef soup with some kind of weird white sauce. Everyone but Vashti wanted to go out dancing, so I tagged along but I had to leave after about 45 minutes because I started to feel very very sick. Luckily Vashti and I were sharing a room and she was sick too so we had a little pity party and watched the latest star wars movie.
Sunday we went repelling and it was amazing! I have some photos that I will upload for the next entry. Our guides Juan and Marcelo were quite taken with Vashti and flirted with her in awkward spanglish that was quite funny. Also in our group were two Chinese tourists who spoke no Spanish and somewhat limited English, which also made for some funny times. I got pretty scared when we did the biggest cascade (over 100m) because I made the mistake of looking down when I was at the top. I´m pretty sure I turned even whiter than normal.
After that Vashti and I hopped on our bikes and headed down the highway to Machuay. We stopped along the way to take a very fast cable car across the river and check out another waterfall. Unfortuantely I can´t remember the names of any of them , but I can tell you that they were all very pretty. Sunday night we went out to kareoke and ended up salsa dancing above the kareoke bar, whichw as really fun.
Monday we relaxed and checked out the other baths outside of town, which were less crowded and therefor more enjoyable. We went out to kareoke again Monday night and then salsa dancign again after. I still don´t know how to salsa dance, but that didn´t seem to both anyone on either of the nights.
Tuesday mornign we went horseback riding up to yet another waterfall, which was fun but in the last 20 minutes I did soemtihng horribleto my back and it´s still very sore. Tuesday afternoon we came back to Guaranda and met Nadine (who went on the Ecuador trip with GOSA 3 years ago and now works in Qutio) for dinner.
Yesterday we were supposed to do a workshop in Gradas but hardly anyone showed up so we postponed it, probably for the best since we were all a little tired and sick.
Today we went to a community near Gradas (I´ll relay the name later because I don´t remember it) and it was great. They were very appreciative and eager to learn, and participated a lot. We did 3.5 hours and covered family planning and sexual health. We´re going to be going back to that community again next week because they were so resceptive.

Sorry this is so breif but I need to get home soon because my back is killing me.

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