To kick of this part of my journey I put in a few days scouting projects for the VISIONS site located in Ecuador. I was greeted back into town, by a nice costal dish prepared by the woman I met on the bus and a lovely family owned hotel. Despite the fact that our main community contact, Cedric, had to work for the first 48 hours of my stay here, he and his coworkers were great. I hung around the firefighter base talking about Ecuadorian life and keeping guard over the locked door or going with them on different fire fighting adventures. At first it surprised me how nonchalant they were about their phone calls for fires. First they would calmly receive the call, talk about the call, get in a truck to check on the fire, come back, get dressed, and THEN go fight the fire. I was thinking "Oh how Latin America of them." That is until I was able to jump in for the whole series of events. Most of the fires in this part of Ecuador are man-made and in the forest. The houses are made of blocks so that is rarely a problem. The older generations will burn the shrubbery with hopes of bringing rain over the night. An old myth that is easily embraced by a community of farmers. Regardless. the way the firefighters had to go about it was to see where the fire was (if it was reachable by Patate or another base), the size of it, and if they could bring in a truck or had to pack supersized camopacks in to put out the fire. The day I joined them to put out the fire they packed in water to extinguish a fire burning more than a hector (not a typo...I hate that our system makes it so I can never understand the actual size of things... I digresss...) in a beautiful part of the valley. I really loved seeing how this job functions here in comparison to the states, plus the local girls that hung out with me in the truck were adorable and made my day.
Beyond the firefighter base we ventured into the community on 4 wheeler to visit a school in need of renovation with a pretty epic view of the local volcano and by truck to another community wanting to build an old-folks home. Again, great people and palpable gratitude. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I was trying to do this all before the biggest weekend of the year in Patate. Thousands of people fill the quiet little town to see a HUGE parade (again, not a typo), fireworks, bull riding, and other religious celebrations. The community was busy covering every inch of their respecitve float with flowers and fruits, while we were trying to get them all on board to make some decisions on their structure. They were excited about our opportunity, but distracted by the coming festivities. I can't blame them, it is one of the biggest parties of the year in the entire country. Needless to say, they should be having a real meeting now with all the info we gave them AND their float turned out pretty epic. Grinding choclo woman and all. I delayed my departure to tour the festivities a bit. I am fairly certain I was the only foreigner there (that is saying a lot for the amounts of people that flooded the quiet little town.) It was worth the chaos to see the finished products and the little girl who I hung out with on the farm perform her dance. Yet, I blame my father for my aversion of crowds so I didn't stay for more than a day of the festivites. 
I quickly left Patate (in the front seat of the first bus I could get) to get more of my Volcano fix. I set off to do an uphill trek to the blue laguna known as Quilotoa. Again, my timing was a bit off and it turns out Sunday transport is a bit harder to organize to the small towns surrounding Quilotoa. I ended up cutting my hike a day to keep a peace of mind for my upcoming decent to Peru and to not be entering a town in the dark by foot. A mix of buses and hitching a ride with a paper delivery man and his family landed me in the closest town to the crater, Chugchilan.
I was excited to meet a group of girls for the hike the next day. Along the hike one of the girls and I got to chatting and we realized our lives were on parallel circuits. So much so that we barely missed each other (by no more than a few days) in Thailand and BEES with the Elephants. For such a small organization we were both equally shocked and made sure to let our mutual friends know we had found each other. Despite the great company, ipon reaching the crystal blue crater on that uphill slope I love so much I decided to part ways with the girls and go the long way around the crater. This was abosolutely beautiful and the challenge that I craved. We couldn't have a had a better day for hiking. Often it gets foggy and nasty in the afternoon at Quilotoa, but when we got there the crater was glistening in the sun. It allowed me to get the whole experience in one day and not feel the need to make a day out of the crater hike itself.
My timing couldn't have been better either, as I came into the pueblo of Quilota the girls picked me me in a taxi heading to the next town with frequent busses passing. We made our way to the hub and parted ways so I could get an overnight bus to the coast.
My trip to the coast ended up aligning my schedule with a past VISIONS employee I met in the office when I was home in December. Until this point we had been missing each other my a day or two each way. We took advantage of the crew we gathered (a friend from Baños pulled in that day too) and went out for Peruvian food and some delicious cocktails that the party town of Mantañita is known for. The hospitality of out hostel wasn't enough to make us stick with the vibe of this town, so we moved to a more relaxing beach towards said island for some good old rest and relaxation. Ayampe was a super chill town with delicious food stops started by the Latin American backpackers who stopped there and couldn't leave. Day 3 we went to see the beautiful blue feet. I have to say that these animals are as cool as the seem. To avoid them getting too anxious you can't get too close, but I was still quite happy to see them manouver their too-big-for-their-body blue feet. According to our guide they get their blue feet from the fish the feed on. Something I still need to research.... The tour included less than amazing snorkeling and a nice view of sea turtles. Content and another item checked off my list we headed back to Ayampe where I spent the following day killing time for a bus writing in the sand with the blue rocks that had washed ashore.
Turns out my killing time was a blessing. The guy who picked me up quickly helped me to realize that my plan I had made at 5am when I first arrived in the coast was bit off geographically. When I took the local'sadvice I didn't take note that I would go four hours north to only go south eight to make up the difference and make it to where I was headed now. That making no sense I changed my plans to visit my only city in Ecuador- Cuenca.
This last minute change of plans was a perfect few days. Cuenca is a cobble stone streets city, similar to Antigua and Granada in design, only just more city like. Here I was able to see the colonial area and meet up with a friend I had met in Chugchilan to enjoy their not-so-delicious craft brews and the foam spraying and water dumping festivities of Carnival.
After an overnight bus ride I found myself on the coast with new friends indulging in Ceviche, checking out the center of Lima, and meeting up with my old friend, Eric, from my TEFL course and my first go at Machu Picchu (flashback 4 years.) Being in a firmiliar place, with firmiliar people is a great awakening to see how much a have grown since college even my first outing to Peru.
More than anything else the comfort I feel as myself in such "strange" places.
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