Hopping...

So, Remar, pretty chilled, we were pretty low key on the card making front, though that is where i spent my week… annoying thing is how the kids, particularly the teenage boys, insist on trying to matchmake Pascal and I! Grrr!!! It’s very hard to know how to deal with it! I guess that in a round about way it’s sweet, it could be a sign of affection that they insist on setting me up or it could just be ‘that’ stage!

Nice of them to let me know…
This week I found out through the monthly Latin Link prayerfile that 2 new striders are coming to Ecuador, to Quito, and to Remar! You’d think they’d let me know seeming as we’re here at the same time, there’s actually only an overlap of 2 weeks, but still!! But anyway that’s really quite exciting, and Tati is thrilled!

Can’t keep up…
More new volunteers this week, 5 american lasses, who will come just one day a week for the next few months whilst they’re here studying…

Over the border…
At the weekend, Paquita, Armando and I took a trip uup northh, to Tulcan basically in order that we could pop over the border for a shopping spree in Ipiales! At the border I tried to get a stamp in my passport, but before I could get the Colombian one, I had to get an exit stamp from the Ecuadorian side but the man wasn’t there to buy the form!!! The crazy thing was there was a Colombian lass who needed to get all the paperwork to get back into her own country!!! So, Ipiales, is the nearest Colombian city to the Frontera, and is very popular for Ecuadorians to nip over and do abit of shopping! The funny thing is, it literally has all 4 seasons in an hour… 15 mins hot, 15 mins windy, 15 mins raining, 15 mins sunny … no joke, it actually happens like that!! We set off at 6am (!!!), and made the journey in 3 hrs!!! (4hrs in bus, but then when buses leave, there is lots of traffic!) It was lovely to journey at that time of the day, watching the night-time clouds roll back from the mountains!! We shopped hard for a couple of hours, then went for lunch, and I ate my first Cuy!!! Which is in fact guinea-pig! I didn’t like it that much, the skin was rather like pork cracking (tasty) but the meat chewy and tastes abit like the brown meat of a chicken (which I don’t like very much)… reckon my bro will be upset to read that I’ve finally got round to eating a relative of his much loved child-hood pets!!! Then we went back to shopping before heading back to Tulcan where it was almost freezing! Ok, so it wasn’t freezing, but it was pretty cold!!!

a 'cuy'

Over the paramo…

Sunday morning we took a back path from Tulcan to the village of Angel, over the paramo, the highlands, which was actually a path the guerillas (FARC) have used in the past (!!!!) – it took us 2½ hrs to go 43km on a very bumpy road, but it was worth it! Armando called it virgin land, untouched --- it’s very different to anything else one would see, it’s covered in plants called (in Spanish) frailejones, the mountain sides are littered, freckled in them… and Armando says that in the twilight they almost look like loads of little men with helmets!

Frailejones in the paramo

Then we went on to San Antonio de Ibarra which is famous for it’s wood pieces and I bought Tati’s birthday present… I was wondering what on earth to get her, and I found a beautiful wooden frame and I’m going to put in a picture of her two daughters! Yeay! Sorted!
So yep, that’s about it for this week…
Keep well! Me xx