Bedridden

Not me, don´t worry. We´ll get to that later.

After Justin got slightly less sick and we were all feeling up for a bit of travelling, we headed out of Vilcabamba on a mission to get to Chris´ site, which took us through Loja and then southwest through Zumbi and Paquisha. We arrived a little after 10 o´clock at night and promptly fell asleep on the concrete floors of what amounts to the living room (rented out by Chris) of Chris´ host family´s house.

The following day, we did our first real useful thing in a while, which was setting up three new computers in the local elementary school. Apparently, the computers had been sitting around for several months and required someone to build (crappy) desks to put them on. So it took us all morning and a bit of futsing to put everything together. Sadly, once the computers were on, all the kids started to play old nintendo, sega genesis, and SNES games using some game emulator that they have on all the computers. Oh well -- at least they are learning how to type ... or something.

Later that day, we were introduced to voli, which is basically a really lazy version of what the rest of the world calls volleyball. The only differences are really that you can palm the ball (a soccer ball, naturally) and hold it in your hand for a bit, plus the people on each team (3 per side) have very defined positions, which makes it far less dynamic than what I´m used to. Anyways, once you get the hang of it, it´s actually quite a bit of fun, especially playing with little kids because the adults are far too good and bet on every game they play. I also found it funny that I was usually the spiker because I was actually one of the taller people in the town. Another sport that we played on other days was indoor, basically soccer on a smaller conrete court, 5 on 5, with a smaller ball that doesn´t bounce. I was much more respectable at that sport.

Anyways, on our second, maybe third, day at the site, Chris was playing voli and hurt his back, which basically rendered him bedridden for the rest of the time that we were there. Sad, but true. From then on, the three of us spent a lot of time cooking, reading, and sleeping, plus playing the occasional voli or indoor game later in the day for exercise. We actually learned quite a bit of good cooking while we were here, including how to make granola and tortillas by scratch, turns out that it´s really easy. Chris´ host family was also extremely nice and had the four of us over for lunch and dinner on Easter, or Resurreción, as they call it here.

It was really awesome to see Chris for a little bit, even though he couldn´t move around too much -- we still managed to have a great time. Right now, Justin should be in the Galapagos or at least on the way, and Mack and I are in Loja waiting for our midnight overnight bus to Guayaquil. Good times! When back in LA, pictures will be up for sure.

Til then.