I didn't really do anything substantial up until this past weekend so I haven't had anything really cool to blog about until now! This past weekend was adventured filled and exciting! Saturday morning, some friends from the school and I went on a hike up into the mountains that surround Quito. There really isn't a good way to get up there, so we took a cable car up to the top of the mountain and began out hike. The pictures speak for themselves, I told my friends that they are so real they look fake! We hiked for about 2 hours, had lunch at one of the peaks and then hiked to the waterfall that you see in the picture. I want to go back up there later on in my stay and do the 2.5 hour hike to one of the volcano basins that overlooks the city. Overall, it was a great hike even though it was a tad cold up there I'm from Michigan so I can handle cold :p
Sunday morning Abby and I had lunch with our host family and then they took us to their country club (yes they are members to a country club) it was amazing! They have like a thousand tennis courts, 3 pools, a full 18 hole golf course, a huge horse arena, a huge clubhouse, a full gym, several restaurants, a church, squash, volleyball courts, several soccer pitches and a ton of other stuff! It was really neat, I can't wait to go back there. The family said that when we have a nice day we could go back and spend the whole day there, I'm game!
Later, we then traveled a bit further to the middle of the world AKA the Equator. There is a hugh monument build there on the imaginary line that divides the planet into 2 hemispheres. I posted several pics of Abby and I standing in "separate" parts of the world. It was really neat, although a huge tourist trap. How many times will you have the chance to say that you were in the middle of the world! The monument was emblazoned with the cardinal points of the compass rose (in Spanish of course), so the pic of us standing on the "O" means East. They say that there are certain things that you can only do on the Equator like stand an egg on one end without any help or watch water drain from a buckets in different directions above and below the Equator. You had to pay to see these things and we didn't so I guess I'll just have to take their word for it.
Overall I had a great weekend with my friend Abby and my host family. We do "family" activities every Sunday and I like that. It's a great way to get to know the country. I'm not sure what we are doing next weekend, possbily another hike to another nearby volcano where we can ride horses, donkeys and do some more hiking. If you love the outdoors like I do that Ecuador is a great place to travel. Stayed tuned and I'll keep you updated!
Chao for now,
~ Jon








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