finally!

I finally made it to the Sierra, which is the Andes. I put an exlamation point in the title because it is something I have been wanting to do since I got here but for one reason or another it hasn´t worked out. Anyone who I have been in regular contact with over the last few months has surely heard me complain more than once about the wicked heat and humidity that one can enjoy on a daily basis living in guayaquil. In Canada people like to go to mexico or a beach to escape the cold, here, I want to go to the mountains to escape the heat. Everyone here always talks about how cold it is in Quito and the sierra, but since they have no idea what cold really is, I figured that cold for them would be perfect for me, and I was right.

I am not implying that I haven´t enjoyed my time here, but if I had to do it all over again I would definately look for an internship some place in the mountains. In the 2 short days I spent there last weekend I literally couldn´t think of one thing in Guayaquil that I liked better than what I saw in the city of Loja, or the town of Vilcabamba. I went to sleep in a hot and dirty city and when I woke up I couldn´t see anything but clouds out the bus window cause of the height we were at. When I could see something it was incredible views of very steep, green, cloudy covered mountains. As soon as I got off the bus at about 8am on saturday I immediately could sense the change in air temperature and see a huge difference in the overall cleanliness and
order of the city.
Me and the other canadian intern I was with got a taxi and went to the hotel where two other interns (brazil and holland), who had arrived the day before, were staying. The reason for the trip was that there was a national AIESEC conference in the nearby town of Vilcabamba that weekend, and even though we weren´t participating in the conference they invited the interns along (and paid for our bus fare and accomadation) as a ´cultural activity.´ So we ate breakfast at the restaurant of a local aiesec member and then he spent the afternoon taking us on a small walking tour of Loja. I think he said there were about 200,000 people there but it seemed like less.
In the afternoon we took a cab to the town of Vilcabamba which was about an hours drive from loja. The scenery here was even more spectacular than the route into loja, yet due to the terrible sleep I had on the bus, I only was able to enjoy it for about 20 minutes before I woke up in vilcabamaba. Vilcabamba is a very small town that has the nickname of the valley of long life, due to the supposed life prolonging qualities of the water there. If people do in fact live longer there I would attribute it to the complete lack of stress that the residents must have to live in such a quiet town surrounded by gorgeous scenery. I am sure 90% of the town´s economy must be based on tourism because I didn´t see much else going on there.
We went to the hotel were the conference was, checked into our rooms, showered and then walked back to the town to eat dinner. We hung out in the central plaza with a few beer killing time until the formal dinner for the conference was over and the party started... ------------------------------------- the next morning we woke up late and went for breakfast (again just the four interns as the aiesec people were at the conference). The rest of the day we spent walking along a road that kind of made semi circle above the town offering pretty good scenery, and that was about it. We got on a bus with the aisec people to go back to loja about 6 and then hung out there until we got on the night bus at 11 to take us back to guayaquil. It was nothing overly exciting (except for one event I will explain after I get home for the sake of moms sanity) yet was one of the most enjoyable weekends i have spent here since i arrived.

Its 8pm here now and dinner should be ready so I am heading back to the house. I want to write a bit about what has been going on with the job and english classes etc.. but will have to do it another night. The good news is that this is my last week of teaching english to kids which I am extremely happy about. Don´t have anything planned for next weekend although if nothing comes up I plan on visiting a friend I met while I was in Argentina, he also lives in the mountains....