Another wild weekend with Molly

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So, the second attempt at writing this. Friday afternoon, after lunch and a nap Molly and I decided to take a walk. We nap after every meal, and unsuccessfully attempt to walk after each nap. We decided to explore parts of the city that had never been explored before...a street parallel to Colon. We bought a few CDs, me with Mollys advice and walked about a mile to find an open bank to change our tens and twentys into fives, because no one here has change for those large bills. After we got home and ate, we took yet another nap that was only supposed to last an house, but lasted two.We were woken up by the maid, Sandy, at 8:00. We then got ready to go out and went to the airport to pick up Raissa, the director of the program ELI, which we are volunteering through. She was about 45 minutes late and Molly, Katy and I were planning on going out straight from the airport.We asked Raissa if she wanted to come with us, assuming she would probably say no, but we were shocked to find she wante to come out with us. But, she first needed to wash her face. The traffic on the way to the house, in Mariana´s dying car...(it actually died today, for real)....was so bad we were hardly moving.This can all be blamed on the president,....people are trying to force Lucio out of power because he is surrounded by corrupt people. Anyway, when we finally made it home...Molly, katy, and I waited in the car for Raissa to wash her face, which took over half and hour. By the time she finally returned, with her clean face, it was midnight. So off we went to our favorite bar where everyone knows our name.
It makes us feel less like awkward gringos that travel in packs, and kind of special, that we are friends with all these ecuadorians and when we walk in we get a kiss and salud from everyone.
Saturday....I woke up at 8 from an alarm I had set the night before because we had decided to leave for Otavolo at 9. Didnt happen.When i woke up everyone else was still sleeping, excpet for Molly, who was in my bed. I asked Mariana if I should wake the others up, and she said I could let them sleep a little more...ok...we had a breakfast of eggs and tons of rolls with butter and pina jam...by about 10:30 we were off.
We walked up the large hill from our house to catch a bus on the side of the highway. The ride was two and a half hours, of course Molly and I slept the entire time, and we were shocked when we watched the sign for Otavalo pass us and we did not stop for about another half an hour. We found that our first destination was not Otavalo but rather Irbarro. There is a lake and a small town here.gfdsgfsd The lake is not special, but a typical medium sized lake. Mariana asked us if we wanted to take a boat ride around it. Molly and I quickly answered no....we wanted to get to Otavalo, and we have seen lakes before. But, Raissa and Katy thought it would be great to see the lake from all angles. We each paid a dollar to sit with a bunch of strangers in hideous life jackets for no more than 25 minutes, in which molly and I spent the entire time conversing about the boys at our favorite bar, which we were anxious to get to that night.
After the lake we waited on the side of the highway in a sand storm for about 10 minutes for a bus. We got on it...then switched to another bus...and ended up in Otavalo. We shopped around, bought a few things, saw the ex-Mariana (coordinator for ELI), and decided to go to Cotocachi, the leather capital. This time we took a taxi, mucho mejor. Molly fell in love with every turquoise leather jacket and purse she saw, but her self discipline is better than mine, i bought two purses. We then left on a bus, but it was so packed that we had to side up front, Molly on the floor, and she fell alseep on my legs, unfortunately she did not drool, I thought it would be funny, she usually does on my pillows when we nap.
We got off, walked across a bridge over the highway, and went home. We went to our bar, again, but first, we had to go with Mariana to two of her friends bars. We went to one that was pretty cool, but just opened two weeks ago...and this is where we learned that Quito is in a state of emergency and has been for a few days, something we were completely unaware of. The next bar we were surrounded by people old enough to be our grandparents, quite the experience. Molly and I drank a drink each as quickly as we could and bolted for the door. And off to our bar. The next day we fiound out that the others had racked up a bill of 80 dollars, in vodka, we were glad we left.
Sunday...again we woke up early to Mariana freaking out because the maid was not there to make breakfast, this is an every sunday occurance when Sandy gets a day off. Mariana cant function. And yet again Mariana put meat in my eggs, Sandy never forgets. As we were eating this boy from Japan came to the house because he wanted to join us on the days excursions. So we left, after Mariana painted her face with make up in the dying car to Mitad del Mundo. Molly, Katy, and I elected to stay in the car, seeing that they had been there once and I have been there twice.It is just a line on the ground representing the equator, and its not even in the correct place. After waiting for about an hour, of which I slept and almost killed Katy for continuously waking me up, we left the car in the parking lot and got on a bus for Mindo.
Molly and I slept the entire way, and were completely disgusted by the girl sitting next us sucking on chicken bones. The bus dropped us off at what they said was Mindo, but it was actually another ten minutes away. We all piled into a car after fighting over whether it should cost four or three dollars, and drove to mindo through the pouring rain. During the ride, Molly´s door came open, and she had to hold it the entire way, then we realized the trunk was open because there was a man sitting in side, we wished we had known in advance about that option.
We arrived in Mindo, a really small town that basically consists of one long dirt road, but it was really pretty. We decided to go rafting, Molly and I were really hesitant, we arent exactly the white water rafting in the down pouring rain kind of people. But we did it anyway. Molly was excited to find that our guide was probably the hottest guy en Mindo, but was disapointed to find that he was missing his front teeth. Oh well. The rafting was great, Molly and I screaming the whole way, it was actually a lot of fun and I want to do it again. After we changed clothes we had lunch, and went to look at this cafe that had a million humming birds in the backyard. It was amazing. We then went home, picked up the dying car, ate food and went to bed, the story of our lives. That was our weekend.

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