Saturday

Breakfast Saturday morning was quite yummy. I never knew that Latin-Americans love their bread so much, but they do and I’m forever glad. The van picked us up, and off we went to the largest market in South America, the market of Otavalo, which, coincidently, is the only thing I read in my Ecuador book before arriving. Basically, think of every Mexican market ever, and then times it by the size of space. IT WAS HUGE. And there really weren’t as many tourists as I was expecting, o be honest. I spent a lot of money. Probably more then I’ve ever spent in one day in my life. That’s actually a huge exaggeration and not true at all. BUT. I bought a lot of things, cuz everything was so cheap!! For example, I got two pounds of blackberries for ONE DOLLAR. WHAT?! Also, I ate them all, which is hilarious cuz I’m one of he only people who hasn’t gotten sick on the trip yet. Ha. But yeah. We had like three hours to shop and Maddie and I got lost, but I got almost everyone’s presents out of the way, so that was worth the hmm where is the bus? feeling that lasted for like half an hour. After that we went and ate a “light lunch” which in Ecuador means a three-course meal, and headed back to our host families. Now, I have to say, as a family, we’ve been to a lot of really cool and unbelievable beautiful places. However, the area where the Runatupari live rivals all of them. There are mountains in every direction and green hills and valleys and gorges and they live IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. It’s great, basically. Except for the spiders. So, then I sat outside and did the huge amount of homework I had. So. Here’s the thing. I didn’t really realize that this would be like school. But it is, and that idea is both unexpected and unwelcome. SO MUCH HOMEWORK. But, it was actually ok in this case because one of the dogs came and curled up with me for the entirety of the time that I was reading. I felt loved, and the need for a shower. At dinner, we did our assignment and asked our host mom all about how tourism affected their culture and she said it didn’t except they could sell things in the market instead of traveling out of the country and I’m like…but…you speak Spanish… o.O