Ode to Allison

In honor of Allison returning home today(YAY!!), we're posting our own little tribute to her! It's been a long 5 weeks without her, and we're super excited to have her back.
The first day we arrived, Allison went out of her way to make us feel at home. She instantly felt like one of us(obviously this was not the case with Stephanie, since they've known each other their whole lives). We had many a crazy adventure. Here are some pictures and stories from those times that we haven't blogged about!

Roses from Allison when we arrived. SO SWEET!

In May, Allison and Tania(a sister from out hall) decided to take us to an orchard farm and to Chordileg(a little town known for its silver). The orchard farm was pretty amazing. Orchards are very delicate plants so when they plant them, they put them in a glass bottle and hermetically seal them for almost 2 years. They finally get planted in their own soil, but they still have to be cared for very carefully. The orchard farm had a TON of different varities and it was so neat to see all the beautiful flowers that Jehovah has created.

The faces of both Ashley and Allison crack me up!

When we visited Chordileg, Steph and Ashley decided to step up and be brave. They both got their second holes pierced. It was amazingly only $5! I was a little jealous considering I had spent over $30 back home, shortly before we came down here. It was hilarious all of us being shoved into a little store watching and taking pictures as they sat there.

Something we realized in Chordileg about Allison is that she is an amazing bargainer! She has this way about her, where people just agree to things. We used this knowledge later for our own advantage. Mwahahahaha! We went to one of the markets in Cuenca. We made friends with this one merchant who has a "secret room" as we call it. It's in a building above the market and had everything!! Using Allison's powers, we ended up getting good deals from him. You rock Allison!!


Along the way(who can ever remember dates), the Lopez family held a despedida for Allison. This was one of our first few parties, and Kaitlyn and I definitely did not have dancing down(not saying we do now!). Allison always helped us out. ;-)


Allison, all we can say is thanks for being your awesome self and we're so glad you're coming back.


PS. On a personal note, I love you forever for bringing me my chocolate pretzels. You have no idea how much I want those right now. :-)

Cuenca Canopy

When we arrived in Cuenca, we made a list of things we had to do while we were here (remember the task napkin?). One thing was go zip lining at Cuenca Canopy. I had been dreading it since I saw it on our list, mainly because I’m a chicken, I don’t like heights and because oddly enough, I don’t want to DIE!

Unfortunately the dreaded day arrived. We met at Jeff and Jenny’s house, where we ate lunch and then off we went to catch the bus. One bus came and it passed us despite the fact that we were standing at a bus stop with a sign. So we walked farther up the road to the next stop and waited for the next bus. When it came, we couldn’t believe how packed it was. But we were troopers and stuffed ourselves onto the bus in true Ecuadorian style. WOW, I’ve never been so close to strangers before. We made it out to Ricaurte where there was a taxi stand. Because there were six of us, we had to get two cabs. The cabbies wanted to charge us $6 per car to get to Cuenca Canopy, but Stephanie stuck to her guns that it should only be $5 and IT WORKED! We took this crazy road which consisted of very deep holes at very fast speeds. 

When we walked up to the window to pay, I really wanted to back out, but I guess at that point it was a little too late. So they suited us up in all this heavy stuff and gave us helmets and off to the first one we went. Like I said earlier I’m SCARED of heights! And to me the first one was up high and I had to walk up these stairs that didn’t look all that safe or sturdy. But I made it to the top and it was my turn. Stephmom and Jeff were standing at the bottom watching me. The guy hooked me up to the line and told me to sit……and off I was. SCREAMING!! Even though I was only about 20 feet off the ground. (It was more like 10)

The next lines got progressively higher each time. After about 3 or so I got use to it, but it was still scary. Eventually I could relax enough not to break down the whole time. The last few were extremely high but they were really fun, except the bug flying into my face. Too close to my mouth for comfort. 

 
We finished the last one and had to hike back to the top and it was a killer. We all took a little rest after reaching the top. Then back to walking to the front desk. We took off all the gear (which made us all feel 10 lbs. lighter) got our bags and headed to the restaurant area to get water and relax for a few before heading on the long hike back.

 
This hike wasn’t bad because Jeff was behind me which means he was REALLY slow. It was just a very long hike. So once we got to the top we rewarded ourselves with either ice-cream or a popsicle. Me, Stephanie, and Jeff all got a frutilla popsicle. Ariel and Jenny got ice-cream and Ashley decided not to get anything (Topsy, bleh!). After waiting a very long time, our bus finally came. It took us to the end of its route and we had to catch another one which dropped us off close to Jeff and Jenny’s. We headed back to their house to get our stuff and head home. 

After all my fears of heights and not wanting to zip line, I can now say that it was really fun and I’m so glad I did it! But I’m still scared of heights :)  - Kaitlyn