Oh man, I failed at blogging about Ecuador. Except for that drunk blog post. Drunk blogs are the most fun. You should do it sometime. I still haven’t gone back and re-read it though, so maybe it’s terrible and that was a fail too? Didn’t Hemingway say: “Write drunk, edit sober”? Well I say write drunk, never edit. Because, YOLO (jk about that YOLO thing.. kind of)! Anyway, all of our days in Ecuador were packed full of so many things and it took so long to blog about just one day while I was there and I wanted to tell you everything and eventually I got used to not being on my computer every day and so I just stopped writing. But it was vacation, so YOLO for the second time in one paragraph.
Anyway, let me tell you about the rest of my magical Cuenca trip.
The rest of our days in Ecuador were great. We woke up really early on day 5 and went to a Saturday Market of sorts. Katie and I ate cheesy corn pancake things for breakfast while we were still 1/2 asleep and attempted to drink coffee that was so sweet it tasted like simple syrup with a little coffee in it. Everything there was SO sweet. It was weird. And did I already tell you that after a meal, instead of giving you mints or candies, they give you cough drops? No joke. Every. Single. Restaurant. Mind blown. Anyway, on Day 5, after we went home and showered and were more awake, we had a girls’ [shopping] day with Barb and her friend Kris during which we bought all the things (Christmas presents) from street vendors and little shops. We then had lunch at a very fancy restaurant next to George Stephanopolous (yes, he is short in real life) and his wife, Ali Wentworth, and their children, and their friends. Celeb sightings in Cuenca, who would have thought? That evening we had dinner with Mike and Barb at La Herradura which is a really delicious Argentinean steak house. We then went home and drank wine and played cards against humanity.
^^one of Cuenca’s many churches, see during shopping day^^
^^Myself, Barb, Katie and Mike at La Herradura for dinner^^
Day 6 was Sunday. Barb took us to the grocery store so we could buy some Ecuadorian chocolate and some Zhumir (for gifts and for ourselves) which is a Cuencan liquor made of sugar cane. However, after loading everything into our cart, we realized that Ecuador doesn’t sell liquor on Sundays, so we were SOL. We then went home and then back out to unsuccessfully went on a quest to find a place for Katie to watch the Seahawks game. Fail #2 of the day. On our outing, though, we did find a sketchy little restaurant where we were able to try Cuy (guinea pig) which is one of the famous, traditional dish of the Ecuadorian highlands. I thought the Cuy was good, it tasted like super flavorful brown meat chicken, though there wasn’t much meat on the animal and a lot of bones. And it was a little weird to be eating something we consider a pet in the US. I was most afraid I was going to get food poisoning here out of all of the places we ate in Ecuador, as I had no idea how long the Cuy had been hanging out, on roasters, by the side of the road, in the sun… Thankfully though everyone survived without getting at all sick. I spent the rest of the day convincing a man who owned a market a few houses down to sell Katie and I giant $1 beers, and then drinking said beers while watching football/drunk blogging at the house. Good times.
^^This is the restaurant where we had Cuy. I also tried a piece of torched skin from that pig hanging out in front of the restaurant. It was actually kind of delicious^^
^^Cuy on the street^^
^^Chopped up Cuy feat. the head (ewww)^^
Day 7 Katie and I woke up early and attempted to go to a Zumba class in a park near Mike and Barb’s house. I was SO excited to do Zumba in Ecuador, however, Katie and I were the only ones who showed up. Bummer. While we waited we stretched and did some exercises on these weird exercise machines that were in the park that actually didn’t work anything out (you basically just swung back and forth on most of them). They were v confusing. Then we went on a walk because we thought that would be better than no exercise. It’s probably actually a good thing that Zumba didn’t happen because the air is so thin there at 8,000ft that even walking up stairs was a struggle. Plus I hadn’t exercised in about a week and a half at that point and would have been super embarrassed if I couldn’t make it through the class or passed out in the park or something ha. After our exercise fail, Mike took Katie and I to a magical spa called Piedra de Agua where we spent almost the whole day sitting in baths and saunas and covering ourselves in mud and then slathering on SPF 50 and still getting burned because I am a ginger princess, and then going into caves where there were more baths and meeting people from America who also had parents in Ecuador who knew Mike and Barb (small world). Then Katie and I got massages and facials in caves in the side of the mountains (our entire day was under $100 because Ecuador is hella cheap, it was amazing). We finished spa day with complimentary fruit and chocolate and champagne and then went down the street to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we had empanadas filled with air (????!) and meats and juice and $1 beers and it was perfect. That night we had pizza at a restaurant owned by gringos and went to bed early.
^^Katie and I covered in mud at the spa^^
Day 8 was our last day in Ecuador. We tried to go shopping for a few last minute things but Katie wasn’t feeling great so we came home shortly after leaving. Later in the afternoon, though, when she was feeling better we did manage to make it out to buy our Zuhmir. While we were out we also ate “monkey sandwiches” for lunch with Mike (they call the coastal people of Ecuador Monkeys, IDK if that’s meant to be derogatory (I hope not, considering how freely they use the term), but these were coastal-style sandwiches) which were so simple but one of my very favorite things we ate in Ecuador. They were a bun filled with delicious, tender, flavorful meat (I had pork). We also put Aji Sauce on them for a little added flavor and spice. They were seriously magical. After lunch we also ate gelato courtesy of Mike. We then went back to the house, packed, and played with Stella who I seriously bonded with during the trip. She has the best personality. When we were leaving Stella FREAKED out. She was so sad to see us go, it broke my heart. Poor baby Stella.
^^Stella^^
Day 8/9 were the days of travel hell. So much travel. It started with a seriously terrifying 4.5 hour drive down the Andes Mountains. Havierre picked us up at 6pm and by the time we started descending the mountains it was dark and rainy and really foggy. It was a two lane road and Havierre was seriously passing semis blindly on corners. It was the most terrifying car ride of my life. I am so happy to be alive. When we finally made it to the airport we ordered some juice and waited for the most terrible flight of my life. We were on a huge plane with the smallest seats I’ve ever experienced. My knees were hitting the seat in front of me (how would a normal person even fit in that?!). To top things off there was a baby who cried for like 3 hours straight behind us. It was miserable. We flew into Miami where we went through customs and bought water and a blueberry donut before boarding a flight to Charlotte. I slept like a baby on that flight with no one in the seat between Katie and I. We then went straight from that flight to our next flight to Seattle. That flight was also miserable. It was 6.5 hrs long and there was a child named Maddy sitting behind me who kicked my seat (despite me asking her to stop) and squealed the entire time. She was a terror. When we finally made it back to Seattle I was SO HAPPY TO BE HOME. Yay for America, yay for people speaking English, yay for my things and my apartment and my fancy car!! Katie’s husband Josh gave me a ride back to my apartment since Dustin was headed to the airport himself to go to LA for the Rose Bowl and cabs are a bummer, also best-friend-in-law duties! By the time I finally made it home I had been traveling for 22 hours and I had just a few hours to relax before New Year’s Eve with the ladies.
Before dinner at Bastille, I chugged some coffee and put on all black (mourning the death of 2014) and Uber’d to Ballard. NYE ended up being more of a couples’ retreat + Brittan and I (esp. post dinner – dinner we were just cliquey and Natalie, Brittan, Danielle and I only talked to each other). Both Brittan and I were exhausted and less than thrilled at how the night was shaping up (everyone coupled but us and a ton of friends of friends of friends who were also couples, but stranger couples), so we ran away from the Gerald and found another bar (Percy’s which we love) where we ran into our old friend (maybe acquaintance is a better word? though he and Brittan are FB Friends…) Shane who use to work at Piecora’s when we were in law school. We took shots at Percy’s and then headed back to the Gerald where our friends were still hanging. We drank some champagne and rang in the new year there. At approximately 12:02am I ran outside, got an Uber and went home. I was jetlagged so I woke up at about 6am and proceeded to watch Gilmore Girls all day on January 1st until Brittan finally lured me from my house that evening so we could have dinner at Greenlake Bar and Grill (which is like 2 blocks from my house:). Thanks friend!
^^Pre-Going-Out-Selfie (for Dustin since he was in LA, BOO)^^
^^Natalie, Russ, Brittan and I at the Gerald before midnight^^
^^Brittan and I with some SWAG we stole from friends of friends^^
^^NYE KISS, SRY BOYZ^^
So, there you have it. The rest of Ecuador + BONUS: my NYE and NY day. Like a million days later. But later is better than never, right? Right.
KthxbyeFRIENDS!
