La Fiesta (Viernes)

Friday, we left for Cuenca. The bad news is the transportation was two hours late to pick us up. The good news is that we got two smaller vans instead of one larger one, and at a lower price. If we are going to be totally honest, each of these vans was almost as big as one of the bigger ones.

We rode through the mountains and YOU GUYS. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I like words. I have lots and lots of them. However, I do not have words for the things I saw riding to Cuenca on Friday. After a minor season of freaking out in a stretch of no visibility and excess winding and passing, we broke through the clouds and were above them. We looked down on a sea of clouds as far as the eye could see that broke against mountains on all sides. I have never seen anything like it.

We arrived at the hostel to find cute little rooms, a cute little cafe, and a cute little courtyard with cute little hammocks and less cute, less little toilets-turned-seats/planters. We also found a quite friendly, quite hungover kid in one of our rooms (that I walked into), so that was fun. We were all excited to be there and even more excited to order mac n' cheese for dinner, on the project.

Back at the hostel, we found quite the party. The same techo track for seven hours, a bonfire, drunk people, drugs, this hostel really had it all. Jason and Jeremy cleared the whole dance floor, besides the unmovable man with sun glasses and a backpack, with their "break dancing," in the words of the Ecuadorians. We learned to fit in a bit better by "slow dancing," which entailed head bobbing and a slight sway or side step. However, one of our new friends pointed out that our American humor was excessive, so I guess we never fit in completely. He also pointed out that I looked like Taylor Swift, so any insults are forgiven.

We also were able to engage in some spiritual conversations around the fire before our new friends got too drunk. Though I'm told the music didn't stop until about 3a.m., I slept fairly soundly in my bonfire-scented jeans on what very well could be the hardest mattress in Ecuador, if it was really a mattress at all.

Life is crazy,

Jenna