Saturday Fatigue

Come 6 a.m., the students who had wanted to go signal-hunting decided they wanted to sleep instead, so I wandered off alone in a relatively level direction and explored a riverbed/ditch until breakfast. Even though it was not steep, there was a serious wind, which slightly complicated the Recapture and Release phases of the morning’s work. The wind exacerbated the students’ fatigue, but they continued to work pretty hard on the studies of volcanic succession on rocks and on the quadrat throwing/abundance determination of two speices. They were thrilled to be done, though, and were rewarded with a wonderful lunch, complete with birthday cake! It was more of a birthday loaf, but I shouldn’t complain—it had frosting! The added beauty of this whole weekend is that I didn’t have to pay a penny (no, I take that back—I paid the 16 and the 39 cent tolls because I had it handy)! How great is it to be a teacher?!

So after a long drive back, I arrived at my home around 6 p.m. with the sole intention of sleeping. I wasn’t even going to shower nor eat, but then Vanessa called. She is the daughter of Monica’s friend (the pediatrician of Sofy and Jairito) and had told me long ago that she would invite me out sometime to go dancing. Well, though I do love my sleep, I knew I had to aprovechar this invitation. She said two of her friends had a friend who was having una reunión (she didn’t know if she could call it a farra (fiesta) or not because she wasn’t sure there’d be dancing!) and we could always go elsewhere if we didn’t like it. And because taxis are carísimo at night, and she, too, lived outside of Quito, she and I would spend the night at her friend María Rosa’s house. The only other option is really to rent a hotel for a night, which ends up being about half the price of a taxi, believe it or not! So I ate, showered, and caught what might have been the last bus to Quito for the night (8:30 p.m.). María Rosa picked us up, we went to her house where she showered and got ready, and then we picked up the 3rd friend Caty around 11 p.m. Now, a little about these girls: I think they’re all 26 or so, and they’re super chévere! Vanessa is so nice and welcoming, is looking for a job as a tourism/hotel administrator, is taking French classes, and is happily single. Caty is very de moda (fashionable) and flirty and amazingly gorgeous, though it was quite sickening to see how alllllll the guys just ogled at her. And then there’s Maria Rosa, who basically is Amy. She studies interior/industrial design, has decorated her house in this amazing way (and some of her art is even on the walls, too!), is super skinny, has short hair (pretty rare here among girls), and is really down-to-earth. I miss you Ames! [by the way, in the most exciting news ever, she bought her plane tickets and is FOR REAL coming to visit me! Ay, the adventures we’ll have!!!]

But anyway, we get to the party and I know the guy! He used to teach at el British and now teaches English at a local university! What are the odds of my new Ecuadorian friends taking me to a party at the house of one of the 5 young people I know in the whole country?! It wasn’t terribly happening at first and we were planning on leaving, but then we started dancing a bit and I got in one good meringue. Boo. I long to salsa dance so badly!!!!! So at about 1 a.m. we decided to leave for real this time and we drove around the main night-scene part of Quito searching for a club that wasn’t charging cover. I was really happy to not be with a group who didn’t mind dropping $15 for a few hours, and in the end we just stopped at a popular hot dog stand, dropped Caty off, and went back to go to bed! We were all too tired to make going out worth it, and I’m not actually bummed at all with how the night ended up! And, uy was her bed comfortable!