After another massive game of Kings about 5 of us guys were out at the bar and were supposed to meet up with a group of American study abroad girls from the hostel. When they finally showed up we were in the street and all of a sudden a big white pickup truck with a few guys on the back playing music in stopped and invited us for a ride. We all jumped in and were driving and singing for about 20 minutes. People were playing instruments that they had never heard and we were singing songs in Spanish that we didn’t know while driving over potholes until we stopped at big gymnasium in another town.

Inside the gym about 400 people gathered for the town’s post-carnaval celebration. Our driver motioned for us to follow him as he rushed us to the back of the stage. He pushed a few of us out onto the stage and pointed at four girls standing alone on the stage while the guy on the loudspeaker spoke excitingly about something.

I was the first one pushed up on stage so I walked over to the girls and quickly realized they were not actually girls, but really drag queens.  The man on the loudspeaker was replaced with salsa music which meant each of us danced with a drag queen on stage in from of everyone. This is when I wished I had taken those salsa lessons and two men dancing together are even tougher. So I did what I do when struggling and spun him/her around with a big smirk on my face and an entire crowd laughing hysterically at, but not with us.

Second place. My drag queen came in just second place. So close.  What a pity. The first place winner was crowned and right at that moment one of the guys who was dancing with him/her spontaneously climbed on stage and posed for photos.

They had enough of us at this point and a few minutes later our host herded our group back into his truck and dropped us off back in town.

Continued from the last post…

I went to work the next day and started giving tours and doing general work. That night, I watched a movie in the hostel with some others.

The next day I worked some more and created my marketing plan that I will work on for the next 3 months. I´ll post that here later. Then at night, I hung out with and met more people in the hostel. It was pretty fun.

I did some more work the next day and went out for wine & tapas that night with people from work and from the beach trip in Canoa.

I´ll skip to yesterday now since I remember it a lot better obviously. I took a taxi to the bus station and had a great conversation with the driver. My spanish was perfect and it felt great to speak so well. However, a few minutes after I had a hard time talking with someone else.

I got into Banos later that night and went to bed after walking around the town for a bit. That brings me to this morning. I met a guy named Harry from England, and 20 minutes later we were off to rent bikes and take a 60 kilometer bike ride to Puyo. I just got back but it was incredible, and also extremely tiring. We rode through pitch black tunnels, saw an incredible waterfall that we hiked to and had lunch near.

After seeing a whole lot at a much slower place, we finnally reaches Puyo, 5 hours later. We were too tired to do anything when we got there, and our butts were extremely sore, so we got some dinner. I ordered Tilapia and got a complete fish fried. It was alright.

Then we boarded a bus back to Banos, putting our bikes on top of the bus. Here I am, back in my hostel. We are about to head out to the hot springs and maybe a club later on if i´m not too tired.

I don´t feel like this entry tells much about what I have been up to, but it gives anyone who is reading this a general idea. I know its cliche, but it´s hard to describe how incredible Ecuador is and how amazing of a time I am having. I feel much more independent, which is always a good feeling. I mean, i decided an hour before I left for Banos, that I wanted to go to Banos. The scenery here is incredible…ánd now Harry is calling my name so we can go to the hot springs.

I´m off!