2 Volcanoes in 2 Days

I talked to a man in the car for four hours straight today...

Our tour guide to Quilotoa was quite the talkative man. I sat in the front seat on the 4 hr car ride back from the volcano, Ami & Kenny passed out in the back seat, and I talked to our gregarious tour guide about everything under the sun: we talked about how erosion from the mountain drainage is the reason for the horizontal holes in the road, whether Japanese cars are better than American cars, how Ecuador has had 8 presidents in the past 11 yrs (one of which was an Ecuador-born Arab guy who studied at Harvard and then came back to serve as Ecuador's president and corrupt the economy of the nation to the best of his abilities...blew me away), about the dollarization in Ecuador (and how he thought dollarization, although ultimately not good for Ecuador, may have been the best alternative in the light of the uncertain political situation), how sheep were introduced into Ecuador by the Europeans, how the machismo culture is prevalent in the indigenous communities, how Ecuador's natives have become smarter in their business interactions, about baptism, the Bible, and the Quran, about Michael Moore's movies, about how the city of Quito is 45 miles long and only 4 miles wide in some areas, how only 10% of Ecuadorian medical students who go to public universities graduate, and so, so, so much more (4 hrs worth of so much more). Kenny bought original artwork from the woman who painted the picture herself, Ami rode a donkey back up the crater, and Kenny and I hiked back up our second volcano in two days. The crater lake is named Quilotoa because Quilo was the name of a native pricess and "toa" means "teeth." They called the crater lake Quilotoa because it was the native pricess always smiled (showing her teeth) when she went to the crater. It was a full day and we were absolutely eshausted when we got home. This weekend has been so amazing and I am so thankful for the once-in-a-lifetime opps!