I really thought we would be able to keep an update with life as it comes, but this past month has been pretty incredible. This is a post I've been meaning to write since last month. Two friends and I packed up and headed to Latacunga for the festival "La Mama Negra." Louis was on a hike with a few friends, and so we ended up having about the most opposite experiences you can have.

Planning to leave at 8, we were a little delayed by Jay's rigorous beauty routine, and after an hour and a half long bus ride to the bus terminal we ended up in Latacunga at 1 o'clock. We were a bit nervous, as the festival started at 9. We looked around, and really, it was dead. Before panicking we asked a few people. The good news: we weren't late. The bad: we were a day early. We decided to spend the day looking around this small market town and met up with a friend who grew up in Latacunga.

The next day we walked out the hostel which opened up onto the plaza where the parade was, and I really have nothing more to say, because I still can't process it all. All I know is that there were 30 some pigs on portable alters propped on crosses with pictures of the virgin, or a flag pole holding the Ecuadorian flag coming out of their mouths.

It can only be seen. I promise. Accidently, we ended up at the "La Mama Negra" mostly for Ecuadorians, and the more well-known festival wasn't until November. It was amazing, and we were the only non-ecuadorian people I saw the entire time.

O, did I forget to mention "limpio"? Its where a shaman and his two helper angels circle you with sticks naming all the major mountains in Ecuador, and at the end, the shaman with a hollowed out cows foot full of alcohol gulps some alcohol, and then spits it all over you. I got "limpio" 4 times.