Escapades

So a couple weeks ago we went to a bull fight...

 ...kind of gory and hard for me to watch..

....  but they don't kill the bulls anymore (or not in in the middle of the stadium anyways - they take them back inside and electrocute them).  The President is against the bull-fighting.  A lot of my students have told me they don't like it either because it's not even Ecuadorian, the Spaniards brought it here when they took over...

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 Last weekend I went with a few people I work with up to northern Ecuador, to a town called Tulcan...

..we rode through amazing hillsides and valleys of this plant..

...it all seemed like a desert but I think it rains a lot, but the altitude was close to 4000 m...

..we took our tour of the Ecuador-Colombia fronterra in the back of a friend's pick-up truck..

 ...and got really cold so decided to swing by an agua termalis...

...and then we were really hungry and decided we wanted to eat some sancocho..

... and then since we were in Tulcan, a place known for its gorgeous cementary, and also since we had these days off to travel for the Dia de Difuntos, we had to go and take in the fresh flowers and sculpted cypress trees at the cementary at sunset...

...and had to take a group picture of us at the cementary..

The next day we woke up early to head into Colombia again to visit La Iglesia de Las Lajas - a gorgeous church (that was built when it still belonged to Ecuador.. I think) that was built at the site of a Virgin Mary "apparition" on a mountain side alongside a rushing river.. 

...the entire walk to the church is covered in these plaques, each thanking the Virgin for another miracle...

...under the church, below the height where the bridge begins is the first church that was built at the site...

...here we are!  Brian, Lucas, our great guide Oscar, Sara, Flo, me....