All you can do is laugh and say "It´s Ecuador" haha

If you ever come to Ecuador, you will realize that to any question you have, the answer will become "it´s ecuador", or so it has for me. When you wonder why the poor donkey was pushed off the edge of the cliff, it´s because it´s ecuador. When my host family is an hour late, it´s ecuador. and when I get an awesome leaf-shaped piece of bread for breakfast, "it´s Ecuador".
Since I last wrote on my blog, things have changed a LOT and I am so glad. I decided on Friday morning that I was not going to stay at hotel La Reina Del Cisne but instead asked Veronica and Olmedo if I could find a host family or hostel to stay at in Loja. Immediately Veronica said I could stay at with her mom. Friday we had a meeting with all the promotors (which lasted a whole hour and a half and let´s just say it was much more casual and relaxed than any meeting y´all have EVER been to). It started at 9am but we didn´t get there until 10am and then we actually started at 10:15am (what can I say, we were on ecuadorian time. Just a forewarning, I think I have become accustomed to it... oops). They decided on secret santas for christmas and decided a few dates for other things and then we left (and yes all of that took 2 hours haha). I drove back with Veronica and Olmedo and as we were driving back we pulled onto a dirt road about 15 minutes outside of the center of Loja. I FREAKED out once again and continuously thought "what have I gotten myself into?!?!" (once again I am thinking this haha) but it turned out we just stopped by a random statue of jesus and mary that was being built in someone´s backyard. The statue of Jesus was probably a good 25 feet tall and still didn´t have arms and the statue of mary was gray and white and she was pregnant and was about 20 feet tall. It was very odd to be in someone´s backyard next to a farmhouse. WHO KNOWS what that was all about. Anyways, that ended up NOT being where I am living. I am actually living in the upstairs part of Veronica´s house with her Mom and the empleada (the maid) and Veronica lives downstairs with her hubby and 2 1/2 yr old son, Brian. He is so cute! I love love LOVE my living situation now! The food is good and they don´t stuff me, there are people around so I´m not lonely (and they are NICE and Friendly! Imagine that!), the shower supposedly has hot water (I haven´t tried it yet) I have my own room with a comfortable bed, and I don´t have a curfew (I even got keys to the house!) !!! So as of now life is great.
Today Megan and Jake and I went to Vilcabamba. Jake is staying in a jail cell of a hotel (literally. Lonely Planet describes it saying "For beat-up digs that barely do the trick". That is so true. The walls are cracking, there are no outlets to charge phones or ipods, there´s a shared bathroom that is gross, it looks like a whorehouse and it´s dirty, but it´s $4 a night so what can you say) and his phone wasn´t charged so around 9:30am this morning Megan and I went to his hotel to wake him up. Then we went on a search to find the $1.50 per person taxi to Vilcabamba. It took awhile so we didn´t get there til noon. We were planning on going horseback riding or hiking but we are cheap and the trail rides cost $20. We wanted food before we went hiking and by the time we finished, it was pouring so we decided to walk around for awhile and are going to return next weekend to do something. Anyways, I´m back in Loja now and am going to head home to relax until tonight and I think we are going dancing woot woot. Tomorrow I´m going running with Veronica (I don´t know if she actually normally runs or not... i´m thinking not so we shall see how that goes) and then to check out more of Loja. I love this city btw! It´s clean, small enough that I can go places without being scared, and there are still things to do. YAY! I´m commuting an hour to Catamayo every day next week but I definitely think it´s worth it. I´m counting down the days til Galapagos and then til I go to Denver. MISS YOU ALL! Madz