adios quito...

figured i'd better finish this thing off right...

our last 2 days in quito finally felt like vacation. we had our beautiful hostel as home base and all the time in the world, with very little scheduled (a farewell dinner with the group and a final "exam" friday eve, but that was about it).

we spent our mornings in the daylight restaurant drinking coffee and enjoying bread and eggs - always a big breakfast in ecuador... after digesting, lauren, anne and I took advantage of the side yard/garden and did workouts on friday and saturday.

repacking for the trip home proved to be a puzzle. i wanted to fit all of my souvenirs in my carry-on bags and threw everything else, dirty and haphazardly, into my one suitcase for checking. a lot of clothes stayed in ecuador as donations to the school (which advertised a program that distributed donated clothes to those with the most need). the day lauren and i walked to the school to drop off my bag of clothes it was closed, which we hadn't yet seen during our time in quito. so after debating whether or not i would be able to throw it over the fence topped by barbed wire topped by three layers of what appeared to be electric fence, i looked around (guaranteed appearing very suspicious to the nearby security guards eying me curiously), and flung the bag up and over the wall, just clearing the top wire. success! we hurried away before the bomb squad got called in...

grocery store runs for plane snacks and some final time in the market kept us occupied for a day. i bargained down to my last penny and even started including stationary and other random gifts I had brought along to give to gloria's "children" (until we found out they were older than us). my best trade involved a long list of random item: apple flavored chapstick (unused, obviously), a lanyard, like 5 pair of earrings, a wallet, a notebook, a cosmetic bag, and some other things i cannot remember + $7 in exchange for the most ridiculous souvenir i purchased - a fluffy alpaca stuffed animal made with real alpaca fur. anne and lo tried to talk me out of it but i couldnt leave ecuador without one! it is impossible to look at this thing without laughing, and no one can resist touching it - how could i not want one?!

we got mani pedis one of the days with almost every girl in the group. certainly more business than the place usually gets in a day, i would imagine, but they managed the crowd well and we eventually all left with pampered hands and toes (many hours later given that they only had two foot tubs for soaking). french tipped manicures and pedicures with brilliant designs on our toes were a total of $8 - cheap!! gotta love this place. the sanitary technique may have left a little to be desired but i'm almost 2 weeks out from mine as a write this and without complication so i can't complain. the other interesting thing is that of the 4 "women" who were doing our mani pedis, I am fairly certain that half of them were actually men - the beard poorly concealed by foundation is kind of a dead giveaway... and there is only so much you can do to cover up male bone structure; i always think the hands and wrists are a dead giveaway. but regardless of gender they were skilled and we had a great spa day getting the rainforest cleaned from under our nails and scrubbed off of our feet (it is amazing what a week in rainboots will do to your toes!).