pictures

Here are some pictures from the trip so far. 

This is me at Lake Cuicocha. This was from a short hike we did last Saturday. The lake itself is a volcanic crater that is about 10,000 ft. above sea level. 

 This is another picture of Lake Cuicocha. We went down to the waterfront and ended up taking a boat ride out onto the lake. There is also a hotel and restaurant on the waterfront. The boat ride was really fun! 

The red building is the church we are staying/working at. Though I am technically staying at an apartment, I spend a lot of time here and cook meals here. The mountain in the background is the Cotacachi volcano and there is a little bit of snow at the very top. 

 This is a view from a village we spent an evening at called chiliwasi (spelling?) that is high up in the mountains. It was a very beautiful place. 

This is the town square of Cotacachi 

This is a view of Cotacachi taken from the church at dusk. The mountain in the background is the other volcano we can see called Imbabura. 

This is a view of the general countryside as we were driving to Lake Cuicocha 

This is a typical street in downtown Cotacachi and a lot of them look the same. 

A funny random thing to see. We had to stop our car in order to let over a dozen cows and goats cross the road. 

This past week, we have done a lot of painting. We painted a church in another town called Atuntaqui. On Monday, we spent time working with the families that we were assigned to. The trip is still going great so far. The more time I spend here, the more I really enjoy the people. Everyone here is so welcoming and friendly and fun. Tomorrow we are going on a hike on Cayambe which is a 19,000 ft glaciated volcano. We are leaving Cotacachi at 3am to go there! We'll probably get there around sunrise. Apparently we are hiking to a lake on the volcano. I'll post pictures of that in a few days or so!