i havent given up on blogging! i just took a bit of a break. what happened well i dont really know. what i am going to do though is rather than go day by day with all the details from my life i am just going to recap on some notible memories. right now i am in an internet cafe and i dont have too much time so i think i will only talk about what i have been doing this week.

QUITO- the reason for coming to quito was to go to the french embasy to get pepes visa to go there. if i havent mentioned this already pepe has a girlfriend from belgium that he wants to go visit. one of pepe and my mutual friends offered pepe a visa to go to france. a visa to go anywhere inside the european union gives you the freedom to travel anywhere inside the continent (which includes belgium). so monday night we headed by night bus to quito. the bus was 8 hours nonstop through the night. everyone i talked to said how awful the trip was but i didnt find it that bad because i slept the entire way. when we got there we had an hour to check into a hostel and go to the consulate. we did that and then evelyn (she came too) and i waited outside the embasy for about an hour for pepe to come out. when he came out he didnt have a visa or even his ecuadorian passport. the embasy had told him that he would have to come back on friday to get his passport and visa (if they decided to give it to him). so we elected to stay until friday night waiting for the passport and having a good time in quito. later tuesday we met up with my friend from argentina aniko (i met her in cuenca and we keep crossing paths). aniko and pepe went out on the town tuesday but evelyn and i stayed in the hostel resting. wednesday was far more interesting. we got a late start but after we were actually doing something we headed to quitos historic center. there we toured around the various plazas and cathedrals. i went into one cathedral which i think was called san marcos and it was by far the most incredible cathedral i had ever been to. the entire place was made with gold. everything was beautiful inside- art work, the cusufixes, the chapels- everything. then after that we went to an ecuadorian history museum. i know only a little bit about ecuadorian history (this museum didnt help that much) but all i can say is that poor ecuador has some bad luck. first of all it was conquested by the spanish and one of the last notible things that happened was when ecuador lost a war with peru (ecuador lost most of its jungle in this conflict). the last touristy thing we did was we went to the top of some mountain to look out over the city. at the top of this mountain was a statue of the virgin mary. below us quito sprawled out endlessly. it look as though quito stretches so far out that it falls of the high altitude valley it is situated on. wednesday night we bought food at a grocery store and cooked and ate in the hostel. thursday we set out to go to one of quitos most famous tourist attractions-el teriferiqo. its this tram that hauls toursist high up into the mountains surrounding quito. the view going up once again was stunning but once we arrived at the top everything was covered in fog. the four of us hiked around enough to enjoy the andes and then we returned back to the hostel. at the hostel we arrived just in time to watch a really important soccer game. the game was the semi finals of a club cup (meaning not national teams) played all throughout latin america. a team from quito played and beat a team from san lorenzo argentina. once the final goal was scored and the people of quito realized that their city was in the finals the city exploded. people broke out of bars to party in the streets. the streets were full of people singing, people cheering, people drinking and riot police. it was a good night. friday morning was the moment of truth for pepes visa. aniko and i went with him to the embasy and when it was all over pepe came out shaking his head. he didnt get his visa. i was stunned, angry and dissapointed. i couldnt beleive that they didnt accept him, the embasy didnt even give a reason. moments later pepe tearfully called his girlfriend and said that he probably wasnt coming. we thought of everything we could do, all the people we could call for pepe to get another invitation to go to europe. we unfortunately didnt come up with much. however later that afternoon pepe and i went to the american embasy to see if we could get papers to fill out for the visa and the invitation. we didnt get any papers but a website where we can fill out all the material. dissapointed we havent done much today. pepe and evelyn are planning to return to guayaquil tonight. aniko is going to some town in the middle of nowhere and i am hopefully going to spend the night in quito and then go to quilotoa. quilotoa is a crater lake high in the andes, it looks cool. maybe in the next couple of days there will be some result on pepe going to europe but we will just have to wait and see.
-mark

sorry i havent been posting stuff with gerat frecuecy but whatever. monday was my brithday. in the morning i went to work until about 12. two things happened that are worth wrtting about. the first thing is that when my group visited our first family we found that one of the family members (a 22 year old son) had been slashed with a machete. apparently this happened due to a heavy night of drinking. the three of us juconi workers were shocked. we then walked about a kilometer to the nearest doctors office. then the clinic shocked me. it smeled like infection, the "doctor" carried in dirty instruments, and he did a very bad job of stichiting up the wound. i didnt stay long at the doctors office. my job was for the day to take pictures of all the family members in our foundation. this is the second interesting thing that happened to me: i went out in the slums alone. most juconi workers refuse to do this because there is a heavy risk of getting robbed when you are alone. i feel safe enough in this particular slum and i know my way around quite well and therefore i did this. i got most of the pictures of the families (a few members were missing) and then returned home. at home my host family had prepared a lunch of lasagna and decorated the house with ballons. after lunch we had cake and took pictures with everyone together (minus evelyn because she was working). after a pretty basic afternoon some of my friends came over and we hung out on the porch until the wee hours of the morning. on tuesday i was supposed to go in early and teach math to some kids but no one bothered to tell me that they werent coming in. this made me mad because i now officially only have to come in on tuesday for two hours. jack and i ended up leaving early because we had a concert to go to. the concert was incredible to say the least. we were seeing mana. the first expirience came when we were about two miles from the stadium that they were going to play at. there was traffic stopped that far away. after we parked the car (i got a ride with fernando evelyns boyfriedn) we had to brave the lines. we did the line the latino way and cut in front of everyone else. then we went to find our friends somwhere in the 60,000 plus stadium. we ended up climbing over people just to get to four square feet of space. we then wated for the concer to start, it started on latin time about two hours late. we were in the bleachers and the stading room only spots where all below us. it was like a sea of black haired heads and then a giant stage surrounded with speakers the size of houses. once they turned out the lights (and turned the spot lights on) the sea of black heads turned into lights from cameras and cell phone, almost like stars. mana came out and played a song but i couldnt hear it because everyone was so amped that they sang along. it seemed like everyone in the stadium was a mana fanatic. i went for the expirience because i really didnt know the music and it was definatly worth it. wednesday i went to work completely solo. i liked that because i had a lot of freedom to do things the way i wanted and i didnt have to wait for people. one thing i did was i cleaned the wound of the poor guy who got slashed. thursday with some sort of glitches i didnt have to go to work at all. i mostly just loafed around and put off writting a blog. in the after noon all the exchange students met at one girls house to talk to a doctor about medical issues in ecuador. that was pretty boaring because the doctor was actually a specialist in diabetes and only talked about that for two hours. after that all us exchange student hung out a little. friday i only had to go to work in the morning. in the after noon i had another meeting at the afs office to meet the new guayaquil director. saturday morning, at the crack of 7 o clock, all of us exchange students met at the bus station to go to the beach. we went to the beach to stay at a hostel and have some sort of conference. the beach was right behind us as we talked about a series of really boaring exchange student topics. at the end of the day and the first part of sunday we had time to enjoy ourselves at the beach. i got home to guayaquil tired, feeling a little sick and a little discuraged. even though the beach reunion was boaring i came to realize that i hadnt done anything out of my way culturally. i havent taken dance lessons of learned about native art or anything like that. so i am going to try and do that with the help of my host siblings. this week has been different because juconi is doing some sort of workshop that they dont need volunteers, so i havent had work all this week. monday collin and max (two afsers from cuenca) came to stay at my house for one night-they were on theyre way to the beach. we did a lot of hanging out and catching up. they are having a very bad time with their situations in cuenca. monday night we met up with all the members of our group and had a party. the only problem was that i felt sick and didnt exert much. i felt bad about that but o well. tuesday i spent resting. wednesday jack and i planned to go to cuenca. i wasnt too sure if i was going to go because i had some kind of sickness that i was nursing but i got up the strength and headed to the bus station to meet up with him. our bus was nice and me and jack ended up sitting in the two front seats (what gringos), the only problem was that there was no window. o well we tried to sleep for the duration of the four hour bus trip. we didnt see much, including the bad roads, but at the end of the trip we drove through the extrodinary cajas national park(we did see that). when we arrived in cuenca we got in a cab and went to a really groovy hostel. they had room and so we decided to stay there. i must say one thing: i really like traveling with jack because we always try to do things as cheap as possible. this makes expiriences that much more interesting. our hostel by the way costs $6 a night. after setting our things down we headed to find some lunch. we did that at $1.50 and we ate until our stomachs were bursting. after lunch we wondered around town and stopped in at a tourist information office. then we rested at our hostel a little. after that we set out to find jacks host sister who is in town for a university seminar. we found her after a few minor mishaps. i should digress here to describe what cuenca is like... cuenca is a town high in the andes mountains in the south of ecuador. it was built by the spansih and there is an incredible old town with lots of cramped european like streets dalloped with sky-skrapping churches two monistaries and a cathedral-that means they are really good catholocs. the people seem very affluent and sometimes i feel more like i am in spain than in ecuador. people are also very sophisticated here-ill get into that. anyway once we met up with jacks sister she called a friend that we were going to meet up with. he picked us up and took us to his families bar. the bar was probably the coolest, most classiest bar that i had ever been to. there was all this cubist art on the wall, really cool lighting and it had a great view of the city. the guy who took us to this bar was also really interesting. he spoke four and a half languages and was a really classy dude. after the bar excurssion we headed back to the hostel early. to our surprise we forgot that our hostel was also a working bar-meaning very noisy. we went to our rooms and found the place still very noisy. the next morning (today) we woke up later than expected and ate pancakes for breakfast. at breakfast jack and i met a girl from argentina who was traveling to mexico-like i havent met enough of these people. we decided to go to cajas national park. so we went to the bus station and did that whole scene and finally got there an hour and a half later. the mountains in this park are amazing. they are jagged yet bumpy and glacier like ponds are speckled all over the place. the three of us set out on a trail but only made it about one kilometer. we climbed a bit of a peak and just chilled there for about an hour looking at the incredible scemery below. it was very cold, a little windy and of course there were some annoying bugs but the worste part was the altitude. this is probably the highest i have ever been- about 13,000 feet-without the help of an airplane. also physically speaking it was also the closest to the sun i have ever been(my hands and face got sun burnt. exhausted we limped back to the bus stop to wait for the bus. in cuenca we just rested, ate, and showered. after i finish this blog we are going to try and meet more cuencanas with jacks sister. cuenca is cool. my parents are coming this weekend so maybe i will have all new stories to tell soon. also i cant put up pictures on my blog right now, sorry the computer is a little sick.
-mark

okay last week was pretty fun. mainly because there was a couple from belgium visiting. they are friends of pepes belgian girlfrined and are traveling from argentina to mexico (most of that by bus). monday and tuesday nothing too interesting to speak of happened. wednesday got a little more interesting. in the morning i met with pati from work and we headed to the city center to buy our juconi families some school cloths. i never really spend too much time in the center but it can get interesting during the day. its very south american, its very busy, its also very much a city center. people selling everything everywhere, lots of heat, lots of smells, lots and lots of busy people and a couple of head hunting buses that sprint through the packed streets. somewhere inside of inside of this were three juconi members and three families going from store to store buying shoes and uniforms. my job was more or less crowd control, controling the masses of little ecuadorian children running enthusiastically from one distraction to another. at midday we finished and i got to go home to have lunch with my family. after lunch i went to an afs event at the main office. there we met up with everone and headed to a home for batered women and children. going to this home was incredible not because it was an interesting place but because the director told us about the foundation in a long two and a half hour introduction with no breaks or questions. some of us fell asleep. after this all of us afsers went to have some drinks and discuss our situations. after that i went with my friend from norway christine or "la puka" to meet up with pepe and the belgians (their names are jean-yevs and cora but its just easier to refer to them as the belgians). we spent the rest of the night enjoying the night scene that pepe and i know well. thursday i helped another juconi worker (yasenia) get uniforms for her juconi familys. yasenia has a gift to work for juconi; she is the best worker that i have seen at juconi. she took eight families (the average size of each family was about six people) through all the steps. i worked crowd control. we finished early and i got to go home early. that night i went to see a movie with jack and evelyn. we saw that one movie where the prez of the usa gets shot. even though it was in salamanca i really didnt like it. friday we had more global education in the morning, this time slightly more interesting. friday afternoon i spent shadowing jack as he went to rent a tux for some event he had and then we both had a meeting at the juconi office to asses our sistuation. that meeting went fine. it sounds like we are doing pretty well in our jobs and for that we dont have to work quite as much anymore. on saturday after a lot of loafing around pepe, evelyn, and the belgians headed to playas, the closest beach town to guayaquil. we had planned that a lot of my friends would go with us but when it came to be saturday everyone seemed to have other plans. when we got to playas it was dark which was a bummer because we didnt see the sunset. we stayed at a hostle owned by one of pepes friends. on that note i have discovered that very few people in this country arent friends of pepe. this hostle was in this guys farm house so we stayed along side the family. after settling in we headed to the center to meet up with a friend. also at this time two of my friends met up with us. they had been traveling the andes and had to traveled eight hours to get to the beach. the rest of the night, and some of the morning, we spent checking out the night life in downtown playas. on sunday we woke up at about 11 and our hosts fed us a breakfast of friend fish, fried plantains (verdes which are harder greener plantains) and other breakfast stuffs. that kept us all stuffed for the rest of the day. later half of us went to the beach and me and pepe went to meet my friend poncho-my other two friends went back to guayaquil early. poncho is cool guy who met in guayaquil a week ago but we spent a lot of time hanging out this past weekend. he is really into surfing and he lives in playas on the weekends just to surf and relax. so we definatly had to take out some boards and go surfing. pepe, poncho and i surfed pretty much all afternoon on some kind of small waves. it was a lot of fun and hopefully i will get a chance to go back to playas and do this again. later pepe and i met up with evelyn, and the two belgians to see the sunset. it was a nice sunset, slightly obscured by some high rise apartmemnt buildings, but such is ecuador. it was tough saying good bye to the belgians because they were very good people and we spent a lot of good times together, pepe even teared up a bit. we got on our bus (it was packed but we got seats) and headed back to the big city. shortly after leaving playas the bus was stopped by police and every man had to get off the bus and every woman had to stay on the bus for inspection. there were two dozen police armed to the teath with submachine guns going through our bags and patting us down. such is ecuador i guess. after this was all done we were aloud to get on the bus-the cops didnt find anything-and about 30 guys piled back into their seats mutterign "shitty police". finally around ten we got home ate grilled cheese sandwiches and slept. no major plans this week but i will keep you all updated.
-mark

3/28 to 4/7

well last sunday sunday marked the end of an almost perfect week in ecuador. i had an incredible time in the mountains. this is the thing i love about ecuador: in the same week-in the same day even-i can be sitting on a beach enjoying perfect sand an surf and then three hours away i can see the awsome andes mountains. everything becomes different when the ecosystem and climate change, the culture, the people, the language etc.. anyway i waited all friday for sonja and pepe to get off work. we where supposed to leave by one but that soon became five. our bus left with us on it at six. the bus trip took three hours and we had no scenery to look out because we left after dark. about an hour and forty minutes into the trip our bus ran out of freeway and we traveled on bumpy mountainous roads. we were headed for the small town of pallatanga but we were on a bus bound for a city past that place. we ended up stopping at a place for everyone to get something to eat. pepe told us that we were very close when we at this bus stop but once we asked someone at the resturaunt we found out that we were actually in the town itself. feeling pretty dumb we went into the center of pallatanga to find a hotel that one of pepes friends had recomended. the town was completely deserted at nine a clock at night; a total ghost town. we found one open resturaunt, ate there and just went to sleep; its incredible that we were all in bed by ten on a friday. the next day we woke up to the sounds of noisy village life. the town of pallatanga is a the center of life for so many people who live in the mountains around. people come into buy stuff, go to church, go to work etc.. i said earlier that the culture changes with the scenery. in pallatanga women wear boler hats and wrap themselves in colorful shalls. the faces of people look more incan. the spanish accent is less agresive and the people are so much more friendly. after breakfast the three of us treked up a road that was supposed to take us to a bunch of water falls. what happened was we followed a river for an hour and a half then we climbed into the surrounding mountains. i thought these mountains would be rock faced and there wouldnt be much vegitation. actually everything was green and exploding with life. as we climbed up and up would be greeted by farmers and families of farmers who spoke in thick quichua accents. we saw one water fall, it was really nice but the view from this water fall was even better. as soon as i can i will put up some pictures. we continued upward to one last mountain farm and then we decided that it was a good idea to turn around. we had no water left and the next village up was three hours by car. back in the village-which got busier- we were ravenous and dehydrated, luckily we got a big lunch at a friendly sierrano restaurant. we rested for a little while after that but when we woke up we realized that the village was having some type of festival. we went out for a little while to see this specticle and we determined that it was just a saturday night and people were having a good time. the next morning we were invited to go to a farm by a guy who lived in pallatanga on the weekends and guayaquil on the weekdays but we missed our invatation because we got a late start. at around miday we set out up the mountains again to enjoy a part of some raging river. we sat by the banks of this river and i realized that there was no human made object withing 360 degrees of my eyesight-i always love that feeling. i wanted to go to the mountains to breath some fresh air and clear my head, by sunday afternoon i had accomplished my mission. later sunday afternoon we had to get home. this was supposed to be easy because pallatanga is a junction town, busses stop there on their way riobamba. unfortunately every bus was really full and after waiting for an hour we took whatever bus we could find. the bus we got was indeed full and the three of us ended up standing for the duration of the three hour trip. when i got home i was exhasted but sunday night i got a good sleep, enough to start the week off on a good foot. monday was a normal day of visiting families in the balerio district. tuesday all the people from afs were supposed to meet to having "global education" which is where some dude talks about issues in ecuador. he didnt show up and then afs in guayaquil insited that there was never such an appointment. so the seven of us all went down town to go to an artisan market. it was pretty cool i got an andean bag. after the market we went to the mall and hung out there for a few hours. i went home midafternoon to help set up for the birthday party of my host cousin. after that we had a pretty mellow, low-key party and it was fun. wednesday was another boring day of work. after that i went home to sleep. thursday i went to work with families in the south. there i work with one boy tutoring math and the other (in a different family) just mentoring him. the boy who i teach math didnt show up. i found it really difficult to talk to the kid who i mentor but i enjoy the challenge all the same. at first he only gave me one worded answers but later when i took out my spanish atlas we got to talking about geography. at the end of the day we had ice cream and he then said more things to me than i did to him. thursday night i went to the gym for the first time. all i can say is that it feels good to be doing some form of exersice again. after that i went out with my friends to play pool. that was a good time but a little expencive but still cool. on friday i worked at the office a little bit but then four of us from the foundation went to recruit some new street kids. we went to a highway over pass next to a mall in the south. there we played soccer for a couple of hours. this was a little tricky. the overpass that we were under was surrounded by a constant stream of cars and buses. kids would kid the balls-by accident- into the streets and we would have to rush across the hissing and honking road to get the ball. it was also a humid 95 degrees out. it was a fun time and it was fun playing some soccer. one kid wanted to play but said he couldnt because he had to sell his packet of breath mints. pati and i said that we would try to help him by selling them for him while he played. this was impossible for me to do. i would have to ask people to buy them practically begging them. after half an hour we gave up i played goal for the next hour and a half. i guess thats another reason why i respect these kids; their job is next to impossible. later friday night pepe and i went to go meet some friends of his from belgium who are traveling from buenos aires to mexico city (that is really really far) by bus. we took the metrovia (its works like a subway system but its above ground and uses busses) which i like. it felt like i was taking a subway in any developed country. but then, when i wanted to get off the bus the doors started closing. pepe got off but i didnt, so i got off at the next stop and walked back to where pepe was. that pissed me off a little bit but it was a beautiful night in downtown guayaquil and i was intent on enjoying it. once we met the belgians we met up with my friends at a night club and hung out there until the wee hours of the morning. it was a good time and the people from belgium turned out to be really cool. saturday i spent resting and washing my cloths. sunday was going to be a day of epic adventures and it was. first thing we did was take the belgians to the parque historico which this place that is half zoo half historical park. the zoo part was interesting because it there were native ecuadorian animals in their native habitat-the park was built on a mangrove. then once you exit the jungle there is a reconstruction of what downtown guayaquil used to look like. appently there was some great fire that burned the place down back in the day and most of the buildings here where built withing the last forty years. the historical part was nice but i had to leave early to meet one of my friends to go to a soccer game. i went with my friend jose and his cousins to an emelc game. beforehand pepe had warned me to be careful because such an event can get out of hand. entering and buying tickets was just like any baseball game but with longer lines and more "police" with submachine guns. we went to our seats, which were actually just designated places to stand, and waited for the game to start. once the game started the 25,000 fans (all dressed like me, in a blue emelec jersey) started thundering away with chants, songs and some serious drums. it was like a dream, i loved it and i must go back again. i rooted for emelec the best i could but i didnt know any chants. some of them where really simple but others captured the heart of the blues. good stuff i hope to get some photos up of the game and other stuff but unfortunately my computer at home broke and now i have to go to internet cafes. ill keep you guys updated the best i can about the this week.
-mark

right after i wrote my last post i got a phone call from one of my friends who lives in salinas-a beach town two hours aways from guayaquil-asking me if i wanted to go there for the night. so tuesday afternoon i got my things together and hopped on a bus and headed there. when i got there i met my friend patricia-who lives in salinas, jack, his host brother, caterina-my friend from italy, and some of patricias friends. we ended up hanging out at patis house that night. her house is a really cool place. salinas is a really cool place. but anyway patis house is this really old wood house (contrary to all the concrete houses here) that is surrounded by tropical trees and right next to the beach. salinas is a very affluent town because it export a lot of ecuadors oil. parts of salinas look like miami beach with high rise apartments and hotels, water front bars and lots of really white sand. anyway tuesday night was really fun and really early wednesday morning we all decided to take a swim at patis beach. the next day we went to salinass water front to hang out at the beach and eat sea food. then in the afternoon jack, his brother and i headed back to guayaquil. later wednesday night pepe and i put on a party at our house for caterina because she was leaving the next day. it was a good time because so many people showed up, many of whom didnt know caterina, but whatever. thursday i went to see caterina off at the airport but saying good-bye was an anticlimatic experience. i rested much of yesterday and then last night pepe, a friend and i went to club to hear some "jazz" music. it wasnt a good concert and we left early. today i am going to the andes with pepe and sonja-my friend from austria. hopefully we will get there before it gets dark but if we dont o well. i am really looking forward to some cold air.
-mark

i put some pictures up but if you want to read about what i was doing then read the next two posts.

i guess im having some technical difficulties but whatever. okay last weekend (the weekedn of march 15 and 16) pepe, evelyn, her boyfriend fernando, evelyns best friend naomi, sonja (from austria), christina (from norway), cateriana (from italy) isabel (from norway), elizabeth (from wisconsin), her host brother, jack and his host brother and sister and me all went to this funky beach town called montañita. the place is a famous ecuadorian surf spot and it manages to attract a hefty number of foreigners from all over the world. the beach was nice but we where there for the legendary nightlife and it was legendary. the whole town partied until the sun came up. then we spent the rest of sunday relaxing on the beach. it was a lot of fun. montañita is in a region called ruta del sol (sun route) where there are many towns next to the beach. it is a really beautiful spot with white sand beaches, clear water, real ecuadorian villages and there arent towns that are poisoned by concrete hotels. it was a really fun weekend to say the least traveling though was not so pleasurable. saturday we took buses which was nice enough but for half the trip (which was three hours) we had to stand up because the bus was packed. then returnning i got a ride with fernando but his car was packed so someone sat on my lap for four hours-we ran into traffic. the next week work was more or less the same routine but the juconi workers became more and more tired and frustrated. by the end of the week people were very precicely deciding what they were going to do with their free time. amzaingly wedenesday i gathered up enough energy to go to some discos in downtown guayaquil with my friends and some of pepes friends. it was a long night but really fun. our group ended up meeting a group of americans on spring break. i remembered then how much i dislike americans in large groups. the next mornin at breakfast my host mom told me that i was going with her to the beach that day with some of her friends and i would stay there for two nights. so i had to go to work and tell my boss that i couldnt work that day then i returned home to get ready to go. we where supposed to leave at one in the afternoon but that soon turned out to be four in the afternoon. i should say here that in this past week my spanish has gotten significantly better and now i dont really have problems communicating. also my brain has started to program itself in spanish where somtimes, i think of phrases or words in spanish first and then translate them into english. even writting this is a bit difficult. anyway so my host mom and some of her girlfriends and some of their kids (three were my age) all arrived at a beach house in ballenita. ballenita is a collection of houses that mostly belong to people who live in guayaquil but stay there on the weekedns. at this beach house i got a lot of rest, i read a lot and we spent most of friday at the beach. the beach we went to had very mellow waves and mostly families showed up. the only downside was that because i have had baking problems i had no money and i felt a little constrained. the next day, saturday, i traveled by bus to meet up with my friends in montañita (i cashed some cheques so i wouldnt starve). on the bus i met a couple of american spring breakers on their way to the beach. it was nice to talk to some people from back home who werent complete idiots. i was really excited to meet my friends in montañita but when i got there they were all tired and they didnt feel like doing anything. we spent most of saturday at the beach. then saturday night we went to the discos and bars the problem was that the town was completely packed. it was hard to breath let alone dance. the next day evelyn, pepe and i (they were there too) got a ride to guayaquil with pepes friend. we where really tired when we got home. this week i dont have to work so i have been resting, playing poker with evelyn and fernando and just hanging out. hopefully later this week i will be able to go to the andes. i miss dirt and cold, fresh air so the andes sound good. i was going to visit some friends in cuenca but since one of them is ill i dont know if that is a good idea. ill keep yall posted.
-mark