Mindo

This is one of the first Mindo peaks we saw when first arriving, and you can see why it's called a raincloud forrest.

This is some of us starting out on one of the Mindo trails to see some waterfalls.

This is all of us heading out to see more of the Mindo Raincloud Forrest.

This is a group shot before we got on the cart to the other side.

This is one of the many bridges we had to cross.

Another shot of the trail we hiked.

This is a trail that climbs up a smaller waterfall to lead to a bigger waterfall.

This is me with one of the smaller water falls we saw.

This is the biggest water in Mindo, and this is what the previous picture led too.

This is a few pictures that I took on our trip to the Mindo Raincloud Forrest. Mindo's rain forrest is the best hiking that I have ever done. I went with eight other student teachers from our Kennesaw group, and I think we were all equally in awe at the amazing scenery around Mindo. A few of us already decided that we are definitely making a second trip back because there is just so much to see there.
The first day we arrived the rain forrest held to its name, and rained the entire day. Which was not as bad as it sounds because once we all were wet, we really did not care anymore. Not to mention that it made the 13 ziplines MUCH faster than usual. I wish I had pictures from the ziplining day, but I was afraid that I'd ruin my camera.
Mindo was an amazing town and hopefully I have some more adventures that will come close to topping it.

Pichincha 1 - Jake 0

I got up early this morning and went to attempt to climb one of Quito's volcanos, Pichincha. It was easily the hardest climb I have ever tried, three hours later I'm still down. I rode a ski-lift type of thing 4,000ft to the base of the trail, and wow the altitude change was pretty dramatic. The house that I stay in in Quito is at about 9,500ft above sea level, the base of this trail was at about 14,000ft above sea level. I had no idea that was going to be such a big difference, breathing was noticably harder. I saw about five planes fly by while I was up there and all of them were below us, ha. I was pretty sure I'd climb to the top of Pichincha without much of a problem, but 2.5 hours into the hike I was spent. I was sitting there looking at the last ascent knowing that I didn't have it in me, so I turned around and hopefully I can give it another try before I leave. It was an amazing view up there I could see everything, even the clouds were below us once we got as far as we did. I was thinking later that I had climbed to the same altitude that I sky dived from this last summer, pretty amazing.

This is at the beginning of the trail. You can see horses in the background, a lot of people use them to climb Pichincha.

This is one of the really cool views on our climb, the picture doesn't give it justice.

This is one of the neighboring peaks.

This shows Quito below and Cotapaxi in the background, the tallest peak in the world when measured from the center of the Earth.

School

I didn't get a chance today to take too many pictures at the school, but here are a few. The campus is four acres and everything on the four acres either has incredible landscape or incredible architecture. The big palm trees in the front are seen all over campus, they're around 4-5 feet in diameter in the trunks, they are pretty amazing to see in person. And all the hallways are open to the outdoors, see the picture below to see what I mean.

This is the front of the school.

This is one of the hallways in the school, almost all of the hallways are something like this.

This is where we eat lunch everyday. Really amazing view, I could easily get use to this.

I plan on hiking one of Ecuador's volcanos this Saturday. It's called Pichincha and it's peak elevation is 15,696 ft. So it would be about a 5,000 ft climb to the top.. which kinda dwarfs my Kennesaw Mtn. climbs. I definitely look forward to that and I'm sure I'll have plenty of cool pictures to post after that day. My next adventure after this Saturday is going to the Mindo raincloud forest. It's what I have heard about more than anything else since I have been here. It's supposed to be full of many different micro-ecosystems which are full of all kinds of different wildlife. I really look forward to that trip. I'll post more soon.

Day 2

I went to visit the class I'll be teaching today and the class and teacher seem great. It's a class with 20 5th graders who are all bilingual. They are only allowed to speak English during class though. But still I really want to learn more Spanish because outside the classroom everyone conversates in Spanish. A girl at the school today offered to teach us conversational Spanish twice a week for $5 a lesson, so I'll definitely be taking her up on that. I'll try and take pictures tomorrow of the school, the school facilities are really impressive, far more impressive than any school I've ever seen. Here's a few random photos until then.

This is the view outside my room at night. Pretty amazing.

This is a partial group photo before we left Atlanta.

This is a cool park trail I found nearby.

Arriving in Ecuador

After a year of anticipation I finally arrived in Ecuador late last night. I met the family I'm living with while I'm here in Ecuador also, and they are very welcoming people I feel comfortable in their house already. It's a really nice place too the view from the top of the house is incredible, I feel like I can see all of Quito(picture). I had a chance to explore around today and found a pretty cool park and a cheap place to get lunch ($2!). The altitude difference is something to get used too, the first night I was here I had to stop and take a deep breath every 30 seconds or so even while I was sleeping, I'm just now getting used to it.(The elevation is 10x here what it is at home.) Quito seems great thus far; the locals are really nice and patient with my Spanish, which I can already tell I'm going to learn a lot, because I am definitely immersed in it. I also visited the school today, and wow what an impressive looking school, the staff there are also extremely welcoming and knew exactly who we were. Tomorrow is the first day I meet my 5^th grade class, which I definitely look forward too.