Still on Vacation

Carnaval
Basically, Carnaval is four days of party. Unfortunately, it does not exist in the U.S., but it is the four days proceeding Lent. What we have in the U.S. is a measly Marti Gras and not everyone celebrates it. I was informed by my host brother, Tony, that pretty much all the people of Guayaquil leave for Carnaval. It doesn´t matter where, though mainly the beach, they just leave. I had plenty of ideas of going to Ambato and such, but I ended up like the rest and found my way to Salinas. My family, still without a beach house, was not able to take me, so I went with another exchange student, Kendel. We left for their beach house, and I was suprised to see how unused it was. They admitted that they rarely went to their beach house. In fact, I had been to Salinas more than they had this year. We got out of the car, and unpcked, then decided to leave again, so we could go to another beach, and we went to Montañita. 
This is Kendel Lipe and I at sunset in Montañita. 

We saw some strange sites at the beach. Yes, this is a real turtle, but unfortunately, I think it is dead. When went to alot of beaches, which was great, but the main event was playing Carnaval. The idea is men versus women (though that is not really followed) and you buy these cans of phone they sell, and spray them at people, in the face. People are not too sympathetic, and I admit, it was fun spraying people in the face. Take a PictureDoesn´t work so well. 

We were planning to leave on Sunday, before Carnaval actually was over, but I was able to convince Kendel´s parents and my host parents to let me stay at the naval base with some friends. I would have missed a significant amount of action if I hadn´t gone, one was meeting the President. At the naval base they had a free movie theater, so one night we decided to go see a movie. The only movie showing was, My Name is Khan, about a Muslim American, who has aspegers and he has a mission to meet the  president and tell him he is not a terrorist. While in the airport, the security pull him to the side, because he looked suspicious due to his Muslim nature and his the way he acted with aspegers. They asked him what he was doing and he told them his mission, the security, not believing what he said would be possible, let him go and told him to tell the president "Que Onda?" or "What´s up?". We really enjoyed the movie, but it was pretty serious.  Julian, Johannes, Kendel, Ayrton and I walked around afterward trying to figure out what to do. Kendel said we should go get a movie from her "uncle´s house", her uncle, being her exchange uncle, who happens to be Rafael Correa, the President of Ecuador. We approached his house which was very small, and I noted to my friends that in the U.S. we would have already been shot as we got closer. We knocked on the door to a small house, and a man opens the door in his pijamas, and it took me a second to realize, that it was Rafael Correa himself. We greeted eachother and our friend said, "Que Onda?" to him, and he responded by saying, "Oh, you saw the movie tonight too?". Apparently, Rafael Correa was with us as well in the theater. We got a movie and left, and Rafael Correa thought I was from the U.S. No, I did not get a picture. I had my camera, but with him in his pijamas, I think it would be crossing a line. 

Family Change Up 
Life has been kind of crazy lately, but I have enjoyed it. I have changed host families, which actually was quite sudden when it happened. I changed with the French girl, named Emma, in my club. My host family is officialy Cecilia and Rafael Lopez. All of their kids are grown up and out of the house or far off in another country. In this case, in Minnesota of the U.S. My first day was spent being sick and I admit, I vom´d a bit. This did not stop my host mother from dragging me out of the house to go to the mall to eat, which I didn´t, and to a family member´s house to say their goodbyes. Did I mention that my family was leaving for Miami the next day? This meant that I would have to move once again, but to Puerto Azul, the biggest ciudadela in all , and coincidentally, where Signe lives. Once again, we were neighbors in Puerto Azul. 

This is where I was living in Puerto Azul temporarily, and I loved it. It was so Un-Ecuadorain with the style of the home. I had a host mother, an 18 year old sister, a 20 year old brother (we shared the same birthday, fun fact) and a 15 year old sister. I felt like a could relate more. During my stay they, I got to attend a day at the University  with Paulina. Hopefully, I can continue that, and it means I can audit classes for free! Cesar was the older brother, Paulina was my sister closest to my age, and Silvana was the youngest. When I was there, I got to go to her quinciñera that was in our house. The house is more German looking and the way that it is styled makes it perfect for parties.
Las Peñas

We also did some touristy days in Las Peñas, which is the oldest neighborhood in Guayaquil. It is most noteable for its colorful houses. Las Peñas is on a hill, so there are 500 steps you can walk up, each step has a number on it. 

Me, Julian, Signe, and Tim

We also discovered it was a common place not only for tourists, but for couples to go. This is a picture from the top of the lighthouse.

Galapagos

On the 16th of March we left for the Galapagos. I was lucky to be living in Guayaquil, becuase we would just fly out from there. The flight was about and hour and 30 minutes long and we flew into the island of Santa Cruz. The airport was really small, and it only had a tin roof. We got off to do some more transportation by bus, then by boat, and then by bus again. All we were missing was a train ride. It was kind of like the Amazon in that sense. Our hotel was alright. It had a pool, which was a plus. The great part of our hotel, was that we could walk places. We were in a little town, which was really safe, and it was nice for all of us to walk around at night. In fact, we were in walking distance to alot of things. We went to one of the national parks the first days and saw lizards, iguanas, and turtles. 

Cactus Tree, only found on the Galapagos

On the first day, we saw "Soltero George", or Lonesome George. He was called this, because he was the only one left in his species.  Also only found on Galapagos...

Red Iguana 

Spooning with the Iguana.

Iguana hug? 

My iguana friend

 He is just too adorable

 Sea Lion close up

 Spooning sea lion

 AWWWWWWWWWW 

So, I decided to join them. 

In the morning of the next we went to the Charles Darwin park, where we saw LOTS of turtles. We went to the Island Isabella, which is the largest one. 

 Just the Visitor Center 

 Some more tasteful art

 Courting Turtles

A bit of a show off, this one.

The little ones always looked angry.

Mean Turtle. 

Turtles walk funny

Later in the day we went to the beach, which was amazing! I didn't get burnt on the entire trip to Galapagos, which I am happy about. However, I was peeling due to the weekend before, when I went to the beach and none of us had sun block... Not good. I was peeling the entire trip.  I felt like Michael Jackson, because I was both, black and white. But like he says, "It doesn't matter if your black or white". I wish I had a picture of the sheer contrast of my skin. 

Picture of the side of our boat. I don't know why I like it so much. 

 Sea Lion

 I am kind of proud of this one. I managed to capture not only a bird in action, but a penguuin peaking out of the water as well. 

 I spy a sea lion.

 I liked taking these side boat pictures, because it showed a really cool contrast with my new, red hair.

Sharkies

Iguana

I sea lion!

Sleeping like a rock.

 Words cannot express, just look at them. 

 Each time looked at the different shades of blue, I could never decide which one was my favorite.

 On one hand you had this amazing, light blue. 

 On the other hand, there was a really dark blue, that i couldn't keep my eyes off of either.  The sun was super strong.  Here is a picture that is exclusive and not on facebook, because it is so bad. 

Normal photo.

 These are some of the pretty fish we saw when we went snorkling

More pretty fish

Such gorgeous blue water

 This picture didn't turn out too well, because I was too close to the sea lion

Boobie spotting. Yes, that is their names. You can only imagine the tourist items to purchase.

 Me hanging out

Cliffs

More Cliffs

And More Cliffs

Natives Jumping off cliffs

In the water by the cliffs

And is it possible? MORE!

 We went to these cliffs on Santa Cruz, of which we jumped off of. It was really vibrant, blue water, that was really cold. However, the coldness was the last thing on our minds, because it was a bit intimidating jumping off a cliff. While we were there a bunch of kids who lived on the Galapagos were jumping up from the highest and tallest ledges. They were able to scale difficult parts of the cliffs in mere minutes, and I couldn't believe their lack of fear for the long fall below.  The children were afraid of nothing, and flew through the air, after seconds, making a smacking sound in the crystal blue water. 

Casey Cliff, basking on a cliff

On the last day, we walked so much! We took a long walk to tortuga bay first in the morning to a gorgeous beach. 

 I just couldn't believe how close you could get to the animals without them be perturbed.

 They just walked without paying attention. 

 Iguanas 

 Some animals bothered others. 

 And another great picture of mine! Makes me happy. 

 My favorite animals were the sea lions. I even swam with them, when we went snorkling and touched one. 

 They were incredibly cute

 Nose

 This is a bird we fed some chips to. 

 Tortuga Bay

 Tortuga Bay

We later went to volcanic caves. Galapagos and Hawaii are similarly constructed as islands, and both have volcanic bases. Odd that I have been to one and not the other. Here is me going down into the caves.

We went down to the Love Tunnel. There was a story that lovers met in this tunnel, because it was a forbidden love. It's more or less the Romeo and Juliet story of the Galapagos. 

Into to the Volcanic Cave

This heart shaped area is one of the reasons it is called the Tunnel of Love. 

In the night, we went to a plantation that our hotel owned. There, we did some karaoke, dancing, pool and such. 

This is a group photo. And when I said pool, I meant, play pool. No one was allowed in this one at our feet. Some people jumped in and nearly got yellow cards for their obstruction of rules. Oops. 

On the way back to the airport, we stop to so the "gemelos" or the twins, twin craters. 

The trees that were around that area of the gemelos were kind of strange. 

After I got off the airplane from the Galapagos, I took a cab with two exchange students that were living in Puerto Azul as well, Signe and Tim. We took a kind of sketchy cab at that, and I guess you could say that was our foreshadowing for trouble. We were driving on our way back, when the police on motor bikes stopped the car, and demanded to see our immigration papers. The cab driver told us it was because he did not have any plates that we were stopped.We had an identification card that the governement gave us to carry around instead of the passport all the time. In fact, we use it every time we travel, and in the airport and such. The police told us our cards were not sufficient and that we needed our passport, and a letter from our school saying where we were studying. We knew we didn't need it. The police said we would have to accompany them to the immigration office. Signe and I were laughing out of disbelief. So, knowing we did nothing wrong, we agreed.

 Everything was going fine as we followed the police, but the cab driver told us he did not want to go to the immigration office, because it would cost him his job. He had no plates, and it would give his cab a bad name. Everything was so incovenient, that I thought maybe the cab driver and the police were working together. So, I stopped the cab, finally fed up. I called over the police and begged with the most whiny, Ecuadorian voice I could muster, "please sir, we really don't want to go to the immigration office. Can I pay you $10 dollars, so we don't have to go? He responded rather quickly by sayinng, "$15" and I said whiningly, "please don't be bad, I only have $10". He conscented and smiled and we left. I was super furious. We over paid the cab, and the police abused money out of us. Talk about corrupt. 

NOW

 I am now back to living in Urdesa alone, in an apartment. I am close  to everything, but no one is close to me, nor do I live in the safest area either. I am going to ask for a change of host families for that reason. It has been discussed in the past. Now, I am waiting  to see what I do next. My cellphone is currently broken, so I think I may be go to la Bahia to see if I can get it fixed for cheap. Apparently they cell a ton of cellphones or anything for cheap there. I am looking forward to it. 

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