Our first full weekend here, May 11-13, we had some friends come visit. Gaby, previously mentioned in our Guayaquil post, came and stayed with Allison. Two brothers also came down. Oscar, also from Guayaquil, and Karim, who’s from Columbia. Stephanie already made a post about our first preaching trip which happened on Sunday, but that weekend had a lot more going on as well. On Friday, we went hiking in the Andes Mountains at a national park near here called Cajas. That will get its very own special post, which will hopefully be on here soon. :-)
After hiking, we got ready to go to Tiesto’s, a restaurant downtown. I would not be lying if I said it was the best food I have ever had in my life. I cannot wait to go again, and seriously wish that everyone could come here just to try it. The food is Ecuadorian with Mediterranean fusion. It’s a bit expensive for here, (Expensive being $15 a person….I will miss food prices so much when I leave!) but worth every penny. There were about 12 of us who went and I think we all walked out with a smile.
Karim and Oscar hadn’t been able to make it to dinner, so afterwards we met up with them and their friends and went to Coffee Tree. Coffee Tree is pretty much the Ecuadorian equivalent of Starbucks. I wasn’t a huge fan because their prices are similar to the states which means WAY overpriced for here. However, I did eat a brownie, so all was not lost. It was nice to be able to hang out with new friends and get to know each other. Steph and I taught Clue Suspect to Reuben(His wife, Diana, went hiking with us in Cajas. The two of them are one of the nicest couples ever!) and Josue(one of Karim and Oscar’s friends). We played for over an hour and the boys eventually got the hang of it. Haha. P.S. If you haven’t played Clue Suspect, you should! It’s a card version of the board game and only takes about 5 to 10 minutes to play through one game. We eventually said our goodbyes around midnight and headed home.
On the second half of our tour, it started raining. We at first tried to tough it out, but after some mishaps with the umbrellas, we headed to the bottom floor. After we finished, we headed to some of the markets to shop! I love haggling here cause it’s always a test to see how low you can get the seller to go. The sad part is you have to be willing to walk away from an item if they won’t give you a fair price. One of the markets is full of crafts. It was so cool to see things you would not find at home. After shopping for a bit, we hurried home. We still had Chinese meeting that night!
Our second Chinese meeting went a little smoother I think, just because we hadn’t been traveling through the country all day and we were actually prepared. Haha. Kaitlyn had decided to stay home though. She’s decided Chinese isn’t for her. (I don’t blame her. I love it, but it’s hard!) After the meeting, our visitors and everyone else in Chinese went to a microbrewery downtown. Again, it was very nice to be able to talk and get to know everyone better.
On Sunday, we had our Spanish meeting, followed by the Chinese preaching trip. Since Ashley and Kaitlyn stayed in Cuenca, they spent the afternoon hanging out with Karim. Ashley here. :-) Kaitlyn and I decided to eat lunch with Karim since Oscar had to head back to Guayaquil. His nephew passed away the day before so he had to leave. We said our goodbye’s to him and went in search of a place to eat. The cab driver told Karim there was a pizza place nearby or we could eat at Ferialibre which is this outdoor market with food, clothes, etc. We walked towards Ferialibre and there was a goat wandering around. Kaitlyn said I can’t eat here, they might kill the goat for my food. (hahaha) We all laughed and looked for other restaurants. When we got to the pizza place the cab driver mentioned and it was of course closed. I kept joking with Karim because he kept saying it was only a few blocks and it seemed like 12 blocks before we even found a few restaurants. A lot of things are closed on Sundays here so it’s difficult to find anything. We finally settled on a chifa (a Chinese restaurant) . Karim used to be in a Chinese group in Colombia so he spoke Chinese to a few of the workers. We ended up laughing at how long it took us to get there and we got to know Karim a little better. He is in an English group in Colombia with his sister. He really likes it and he has basically been traveling through South America. He is currently in Bolivia. He’s been staying with friends, visiting various Bethels, and making new friends. He ended up losing the chip with pictures of us in Cajas, but he has pictures from the bus tour of Cuenca that are online. We will hopefully be able to post some up soon.
Later that evening, we all met up to go to Josue’s for a mini dance party. Hopefully, by the time I come home, I will actually have a clue to what I’m doing. Dancing is so far out of my element but I WILL learn!!
After we danced for a while and most people left, we played the most twisted game of Uno. There were so many house rules added in, I don’t even know how I followed along. It was crazy and fun though. (One thing that totally confuses me is that for a lot of card games the turns go to the right instead of to the left. Not always, but a lot. Ha) After a few rounds, we said our goodbyes and headed home. Allison and Gaby needed to go home too, so we decided to share a taxi. I still don’t know how it was possible but we fit 6, 7 if you count the driver, into a taxi the size of a Honda Civic. I felt like a human jigsaw puzzle. We finally pulled up to our apartment, untwisted ourselves, and finished our once again, hectic weekend!
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