OuR sAtUrDaY iN qUiTo!

Yesterday Mike and I took the trolleybus to a cute little market in Quito called El Mercado Artesanal. The market is near two nice parks, where you can rent bikes and paddleboat as well. They were selling artwork at the bigger park, and a lot of food stands were available, sort of like a fair. We will be heading back I'm sure! It being a Saturday, there were a lot of people out enjoying the day with their families. It's a tranquil place to be in a big city. At the market we did some bargaining and got some nice warm alpaca items, including ponchos! It's been getting a bit colder here...the rainy season is beginning. It rains hard and fast here, with hardly any warning! It can be sunny and warm in the morning, and cold and rainy for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The coldest it's been getting here is in the 50's, but as soon as you get in the sun, it feels like you're on a hot beach. We're in the mountains and on the equator, so the weather is even more unpredictable than ever.

Funny story about the rain: After volunteering at the market on Thursday, Mike and I were leaving the UBECI office and it began to rain. We had a jacket, and welcomed a bit of rain to refresh us, but we ended up getting very soaked! There were huge flood-like puddles that we just couldn't avoid. It was a memorable moment when we saw all of the locals grouped together in the nearest dry spots, while they're watching Mike and I running through the puddles and laughing, on a mission to get the best banana split in town at this awesome bakery! We're getting used to people's curiosity by now...we are very much the minority around here!

After getting back from our day of shopping yesterday, Mayra and Wilson came home with Chinese food for us to enjoy. Then we played some awesome games! Wilson knows SO many different games to do with groups of people! These are games like, "There's a hole," "I'm going camping and I'm bringing..." and "Silly Sally," etc. A lot of the games were tongue twisters too! The rule with most of these games was if you lost three times, you had to do a penitencia, or some sort of embarrassing or silly consequence. For one of my consequences I had to draw the numbers 1-10 on the door with my backside, and Alice had to do a rock impression of a kids' song in Spanish! Mike had to be blindfolded for one of his, and he thought an egg got splattered on his head. Great times with our awesome host family!