That's real smoke.

Pics...These are from my friend Tricia. The snow capped shots are of the volcano Chimborazo. I was not on that side of the bus, so her pics are better than mine. The men on horses were in Guaranda. One of them has a bottle of whisky I think. Most of the horsemen in this procession stopped to let the Gringas take pics. The Mountain with SMOKE coming out of it is a better view of the very active Tungurahua. I mentioned it already, but feel free to search it online. That is smoke and ash coming out of it's collumn.

Today is the first day that I've counted the stairs to my apartment. There are 80. That excludes steps outside the building. I thought, why not? It's been almost two months and I still can't remember what 'floor' I live on. I think I'm the 5th floor, but the 4th apartment. However, I am second guessing that.

My teacher from Wisconsin passed me while I was with Deanna. He said, "O, this must be a relative." I said no, she's a friend from OU. We also got that from the guy from Virginia that we met in Guaranda. Other than our need to smile constantly, we don't look alike.

I had a good seat on the Ecovia, but a lady was wobbling around while trying to help her 4 year old stand up, so I let her have my seat. I could not tell, though, if she was truly having a hard time, or if she was putting on a show to get a seat. Since the bus wasn't that crowded and there was a small boy with her, I like to think she was having a hard time. I got up, moved across the aisle, and leaned on the metal piece in front of some seats by the door. That place is actually more convinent for exiting the bus, but being balance-challenged, it's sometimes a difficult place to stand when the bus driver is a gun it and slam on it driver (today).
At the other metal piece across the door way, was a fellow who barely even moved when the bus was flying to a stop. He was suave. He had thick, shiny black hair that kind of fell in a part. I was in a trance with the guy, but did an alright job at not staring. He looked like he could have been one of Johnny Depp's friends from 21 Jump Street, just that cool look, but not dated. This guy had a tattoo on his right hand, something of a cross-like X design with a little heart under it. Was Lacy stalking this guy? Ya, from Jipijapa to Baca Ortiz I was, thank you for asking.
O the Ecovia. . .

On a completely different and sane note, I really admire the parent-child relationship here. Little Andean babies just glow at the sight of their parents. I don't know if it's because they don't have anyone else, or if their little hearts beam at them out of love, but I've never seen that look from American children. I've been playing with the idea of why. So far, I've concluded that Americans are spoiled--Surprise! Some families here could pay the same cost of living as in the US, but many families wouldn't be able too.
That really isn't a good arguement because my host family is well off, all 4 families living in my building (all related) are well off. Each kid, ranging from 26 to 12, has the same kind of affection to their parents, grandpa and grandma, and their siblings.
I love my family, but my sisters and I do not get along in even a similar matter. We fought constantly as children, and still occassionally do. (None of us live together anymore, so that's died down.) It's just different.
One of the cousins here will lay his head on his sisters shoulder and she pets him, but not in an 'okay-that's enough' way. It's loving. Again, love my sisters and family, but we were brought up differently. So, the long and the short of it, I'd be okay with raising a kid like the Andeans do.

That was a lot of rambling. =)