So the bus ride from Quito was interesting. I felt REALLY out of place. I just stick out like a sore thumb here. I was THE only extranjera in el autobús, and it felt weird. It was also sad to leave Marissa, because we have become fase friends. She is not just someone who I was hanging out with out of convenience, nay, but actually someone I could jive with. But I want to go visit her at her volcano and she simply must come visit me at the cloud forest. So we´ll see.

I got to Nanegal and I met the woman I´ve been emailing with, Carolyn. That´s whose house I´m at. I just ate dinner with her family and her wee baby. Earlier today I went on a walk around the village to a waterfall. It felt rather odd because EVERYBODY was STARING at me walking down the street. Even the doggies were staring, and I almost got loved to death by one. I guess that´s what happens when you´re the only gringa in a tiny town. All I have to say is thank god I´m not blond.

As I was walking along, I heard some kids giggling behind me, and I was like, hrm, are they making fun of me or what? But I turned around though and smiled at them and I think they were just curious. They walked with me all the way to the waterfall, and then took me up and down all these random hills and valleys where you can find papayas, mandarins, lemons, platains, and avocados growing wild, among all shorts of other things that I have never seen before. The girls gave me this thing they called ¨guava¨ to eat, but it´s not guava like in English. I have no IDEA what it is. It´s like a gigantic pea pod with hard like, nuts or peas inside that are covered with this sweet sort of white fur stuff. Anyway you eat the outside fur stuff and it´s supposed to be delicious, but eh, I thought it was alright. But one of the girls did give me this fantastic avocado she picked up off the ground and we just ate it for dinner. Yum.

But tomorrow I go up the lodge, which I´m looking forward to. I´m not sure what exactly will happen there but we´ll see. I will be happy to get out of this town though because I REALLY don´t fit in, and there is not a whole lot to do besides play ecuavole or watch telenovelas on the TV.

I don´t know when I´ll get a chance to write again now, probably not for a while. I wish I could answer everybody but I already feel sort of bad for using this computer. Also if there are any weird typos it´s because I´m writing this in Word and the language is set to Spanish, so it keeps auto-correcting to random things. For example it changad ¨put a¨to ¨puta¨. If you don´t know what ¨puta¨ jeans, ask your neighbor.