Happy back to school!

Hello everyone who reads the blog. I hope you are all having fabulous summers and for those of you who go to school I hope you are looking forward to that transition.

A few weeks ago I left Bend and all of the wonderfully fun, motivating, and supportive people who I have been lucky enough to spend the summer with there. Right to my departing moments, as Sonya chased down a bus to Portland with me and Becker made calls for me, I was reminded of how sweet it is to have such incredible teammates. After spending a week at home where I got to hang with the family, and train with the brother, I headed off to Ecuador.

I've been in Ecuador for about a week and a half now. I am living with an awesome family in Cumbayá which is right outside of Quito. Cumbayá is at 2,450 meters so I've been adjusting a bit to the slight change in altitude from what I'm used to back in Minnesota and Massachusetts. There are lots of volcanoes around here and I'm really looking forward to hiking up some of them (quite a few of them are over 5,800 meters, so tall!). One of the nearby volcanoes Cotopaxi, started spewing and doing other active volcano things last year, so during orientation we had to go through all these safety procedures just in case it erupts while we're at school. Also because of all the plates moving around there are often trembles here, there have been two or three since I've been here but I haven't felt them.

I have also been learning how to cook Ecuadorian food which I would love to share with the team when I see you all in Quebec if I can find the ingredients. Today was my first day of classes, I got some really cool notebooks with motorcycles and cars on them, so I felt ready!


There are lots of churches in Quito. This is a view from the top of one of them.


The valley you can see in this picture is Cumbayá where I live! I took the picture from El Parque Metropolitano which is a big park right in the city with lots of trails.


This is a volcano, what you see is a crater. Even though it is a little dangerous to live in a volcano crater, a lot of people live down there as you can see.




This is another volcano crater, but this one is filled with water.

To all of those who will soon be back at Williams, have a great start to the school year!

Much love,

Elowyn