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Published: July 19th 2008
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poured gas and threw matches on. Voila. fun times Hey eveyrone!Okay so I´ve been at the reserve now in Ecuador for about 2 weeks, and so far its going really great! We´re in Quito this weekend to see some more sites, and doing laundry and internet. Last weekend me and a few other volunteers went to mountain bike down Cotopaxi volcano/mountain. It was pretty insane, the top was fricken freezing and i dont think any of us were really prepared. It was blizzarding on the top, and the descent down was about 30 km. The very top was the hardest, cause we were frozen to the core, and the brakes on the bikes were a bit useless, cause you kinda gotta brake all the way down as to not fall off the mountain. ha. Anyways, hands were totally frozen, so it was a pretty freakish ride down the first part. After bout an hour, we descended enough to defrost, and the rest of it was much easier. btw the company we went with was called the flying duchman. ha. Anyways, after that we went Quilatoa, a really tiny town that had the Quitaloa crater lake, which is absolutely beautiful!! I couldnt even fit the whole thing onto my camera lens,
what a shame.. We stayed in this hotel that night, which was relatively decent (according to my rapidly falling standards) The only bad part was that it was reallly REALLY cold. The room we were staying in was probably like minus 15 degrees. This person was suppose to come and light our fire, but he never came..so we were like screw it....we´ll just go to bed. Slept okay, not the best, but enough to pull through the next day. We woke up the next morning at 5;30 so we could climb down into the crater lake at 6. Descent was about 400 m vertically down and then back up. Brutal, but definetely worth it. I´m definetely getting some serious exercize on this trip. Anyways, after that, we drove a bit down to another town, where we were told to get off and bike the rest of the 32 km. It was soooo much fun, all down hill. OMG. The interesting part was that right before we went, the guide´s like..ya..dogs tend to chase people on bikes, so dont try to go faster than them, just get off and use your bike as a shield. holy ship. I was behind Brynn
Cotopaxi
at the top and Jay, and I saw the dogs go after them, but then they saw me coming down and they´re like..hm lets go after her instead..double ship..i ended up doing the opposite of what the guide said, and peddled faster, but I got rid of the dogs. Okay the funniest/worst part. So while we were going down, all the kids in the towns and along the road are really excited and friendly and like to shout hola! to us. But while Brynne and Jay were going down, some of the kids shouted hola! and then threw rocks at them. Cripes. I almost pissed myself when i found out. lol. But ya, all in all the weekend was amazing!! Hope i took good pictures. Not sure actually at this point if theres gonna be any pics on this next blog, but i guess you´ll find out., Righto, so the reserve. Last last Tuesday, I headed off to the reserve. Took a bus and was told to get off at km 58. This isnt really a stop btw, you gotta go up and tell the bus driver you want to get off. So I managed to get off at the right place, my
cotopaxi
at the top bag gets dumped at the side of the road, along with me, and the bus drives off. I look around, have no idea where to go, so i start walking in no particular direction. After a bit, this family spotted me, and i must of looked really lost, cause they pointed at me to go to some house. I went there, and thankfully the reserve owner was there and offered to drive my stuff up to the reserve later. Oh, ya the hill that you gotta walk up to get to the reserve is brutal. Took a couple of pitstops and such along the way. But ya, so i got to the reserve fine, and everyone there is really friendly, and we have a pretty hilarious group of people. Breakfast is at 7 30 every morning, then we work from 8:30 to 12, have lunch from 12 to 2, and then work again from 2 to 5. Work is pretty good and sometimes hard. I´m time restrainted right now so ill tell you all about life at the reserve later. I´ll just say that the food is great, night times are the best, cause we all get together to talk
cotopaxi
the biking duchman! with our bikes on top or play cards or whatever game. Really fun, cause like i said, people are hilarious. I dont have any pictures of the reserve yet, but hopefully ill post them later. Gonna try to download the pictures now. Hope this blog wasnt too boring or confusing lol. I´m definetly having a great time here, missing home a bit, but still awesome. Time just flies by here. Anyways, gotta go, miss you all, and hope that everyone´s having a great summer as well. I really appreciate all the messages from everyone, its really nice getting them. I´ll try to reply back to everyone once and a while. Karen and Gary and mom, tell dad to read the blog and email me. Havnt heard from him in forever. love you all, bye!!!!!!!
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Jenn
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Good to know you didn't get lost HE HE:). Spiders, Ants your brave i couldn't take it!