I'm starting to think that it is my fault for all the ties that Emelec has been having.  Every time I go to watch them play, they end up in a tie.  Emelec is a local professional soccer team in Guayaquil.  The game today was another one with an insane atmosphere.  One of the new teachers went with me again.  He is from South Africa and has seen professional soccer all over the world, including this year's World Cup.  According to him, he has never experienced a crazier, better soccer atmosphere.  It is amazing how passionate they are about their soccer.  The games are so fun.  The stadium is old and has so much character.  They pack so many people in there that you stand the whole time.  In fact it is so packed that you cannot leave to go to the bathroom, which makes it interesting.  This particular time, we couldn't wait until the end of the game.  It is extremely common to use an empty beer cup or bottle to "relieve" yourself.  To make a long story short, we ended up with 12 cups filled with a yellow substance that wasn't beer.  Sorry to gross everyone out, but it was hilarious!  The cups were just out in the open and to "relieve" yourself it was just a matter of turning your back to the crowd.  No one thought it was the least bit strange, except us of course.  At least we were kind and didn't drop them from the balcony like some people did.  What an experience!!!

One of the biggest shocks when I came back to Ecuador was people's reaction to what I looked like.  I knew that after being sick for some time and backpacking for a while that I had probably lost a bit of weight.  I kept getting a lot of comments about how much weight I lost and how skinny I looked.  I stepped on a scale and it turns out I lost over 10 pounds.  I've been trying everything that I can to gain it back.  It's been kind of fun.  Between the start of school, earthquakes, snow, and another clasico I've started to settle back into a routine. The earthquake part was easily the biggest one that I've felt. I had felt a few last year but they weren't enough to cause any alarm. This one had me crying and screaming. Okay maybe not crying and screaming, but I did leave the building. It ended up being of 7.1 magnitude. The epicenter was pretty far away and it was pretty deep. It gave the students a lot to get excited about. Last weekend I took another trip to Cuenca with some of the new teachers. I ended up going to Cajas National Park for a short hike. It was raining the whole time. By the time it was time to try to catch the bus back to Cuenca it was frigid. We were waiting for almost half an hour when a mixture of snow and sleet came down. I never thought I would see snow actually falling in Ecuador. A few weeks ago I also headed to another soccer game which was a great environment as always. Below are a few pictures. It is just about time to start thinking of my future plans for next year. I wish I was better at making big decisions . . .

Much love and take care!!!

What an amazing trip!  From Tupiza, Bolivia to Lake Titicaca to Cusco to Machu Picchu and many places in between, this was definitely one of my favorite trips that I have taken.  I learned a lot about myself, what I'm looking for out of life, and much more.  The trip ended on a great note, as I met up with friends that I hadn't seen in over a year.  We met up in Lima and then went onward to Cusco.  In Cusco, we checked out some of the ruins in the surrounding area and in the Sacred Valley.  To check out the Sacred Valley, we hired a driver for the day.  Francisco was our man.  He was pretty funny and gave us a great day to check out Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Chinchero, and Moray.  His deal was that if he didn't get us to all those places then we didn't have to pay him.  That resulted in us taking a few shortcuts to get to the different sights on time.  One of the shortcuts he had never taken before.  We crossed a rickety old wooden bridge.  He paused several times to bless himself just incase the bridge decided to give way.  The road that it opened up to was incredible.  The sun was setting and hitting the valley and the snow capped peaks at just the right angle.  At one point we hit a traffic jam of locals with their sheep herd.  All the sights were stunning, but our favorite was Moray because we hit it at the perfect time of day and we had it to ourselves.  


The Inca Trail itself was an interesting experience.  The first two days I was thinking that it wasn't near as hard as I had heard and read about.  Then . . .  came the sickness.  It was by far and away the worst that I have ever felt in my life.  I'm relatively certain it was something that I had eaten.  That night was a pretty painful night that led into a 5:30 wake up (it didn't matter because I couldn't sleep anyway) to get ready for the day's 10 hour hike.  Twelve of the the thirteen people ended up getting sick throughout that night.  Miraculously, everyone dug down deep and made it up to Machu Picchu.  Looking back on it, it was all well worth it.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.  It astounds me how much punishment the human body can take.


Spending time with my friends was really great.  It was hard to leave.  I am really grateful to them for coming down and sharing in some amazing experiences.  I am also grateful for their long standing friendship.  


Here are a few of the pictures along the way and some videos that I've created.  All of them except one of them can be viewed in HD.

Here are the videos (if you're having trouble, double click them to see them on the YouTube page):









Much love and take care!