Saludos from Ecuador!

We started our day off bright and early at 6:30 AM and had some wonderful breakfast in La Primavera including some scrumptious sandwiches and very delicious juice. Soon after we had our food, we layered up and headed out on our way to Mount Chimborazo, which means “brave” and “snow” in Quichua and is a dormant volcano that hasn’t erupted in over 2000 to 3000 years. We were also accompanied by some lovely guests, Javier, Alex, Alfredo, and Eddie. Alfredo and Eddie were our guides and spoke about the many beautiful different plants and animals native to Chimborazo such as vicuñas, and we were even able to see some during the drive there from our bus! Once we made it there, it was very windy and cold but we were all prepared for it and continued our way up to the first checkpoint! The view there was breathtaking, we were able to see Mount Chimborazo very up close and were also able to get some awesome pictures. Following that, some of us went on a hike down the mountain and got an up close and personal look at llamas, vicuna nests and poop (which they use for fertilizer to help them grow more plants for them to eat), and native plants.

We continued our way back to La Primavera and had some amazing lunch, then prepared our CAP (community action projects) presentations for Cesar Ayol, which included our project concepts for El Molino and how we planned to execute them. Our project concepts include painting their community room, painting their soccer field, as well as planting flowers around their sign. We were very pleased to receive feedback and ideas from Cesar and look forward to continuing and finalizing our CAP projects!

We started to close out our eventful day out with dinner at La Nativa where Chef Cesar and his amazing team put together some tasty ribs, ratatouille, and french fries with some flavorful juice, which was very replenishing! They also surprised us with an amazing and very special performance, where we also joined in by dancing and playing the tambourine along with the music!

Finally, we headed back to La Primavera where we had our nightly meeting, in which we reflected on our day and acknowledged why we value having fun in our daily lives. My turn as leader was over and I was happy to be able to pass the torch to Johanna, our next leader of the day!

To my family and friends back home: I miss you guys tons and I can’t wait to tell you about everything in person, much love <3