Our return home!

While I probably need to be blogging about graduation and summertime, I really need to finish this last day of my Ecuador trip.  If it has taken me this long to finish it, I think a few more days before graduation blogging is ok!

For our trip home, we left the hotel in Macas around 9:30 Sunday morning. We were all more tired for the 8 hour bus ride back to Quito than we had been for the bus ride from Quito!  This time we didn't have to learn any Spanish songs, but it also seemed longer because we had nothing to do! 

A view of a volcano!  Really neat!

Our stop today was in Banos, which is the Spanish word for bathroom, which we did use, but it was nicer than just a bathroom!  We stopped at a resort for lunch.

It was a nicely landscaped resort with cabins set around the grounds.  Lunch was a 3 course fixed menu...soup, entree, and dessert.  It was a very good last lunch in Ecuador! 

My lunch companions

I spent the time before we were called to lunch taking pictures around the grounds.

Natalie and Harrison

Nathan

Jacob

 Banos seemed like a really neat town.  It was different from Macas in that it seemed to have more of a tourism emphasis.  There were signs throughout town advertising nature tours.  And it looked like there was some type of fair near the resort.

More sites of our bus trip to Quito after we left Banos.

We arrived in Quito with time enough to eat dinner and get our bags checked in and not miss our flight!  Our flight left after 11, so we were all starting to get tired.  But as tired as I was, I did not sleep on the flight to Atlanta.  I did watch three movies!

Upon arrival in Atlanta, we had to go through customs.  Most of us had never gone through customs before, and we were nervous about having to have our bags searched and getting delayed and missing our flight!  We did have to wait a long time to get out luggage from the Ecuador flight; only to turn around and give it quickly to the people at customs for them to put it on our next plane.  It was no trouble at all.  They actually were very quick about getting the luggage from us.  

After our luggage was back in the hands of the airlines, we had a short layover before getting on the plane to Charleston.

We were all a little tired!

I was so tired at this point that I fell asleep almost immediately once on the plane.  It was a short nap, and then we arrived in Charleston at 9:30 in the morning.  It was essentially a 24 hour travel day!  And now our adventure was over!  

My welcome home from Dave!

 

Saturday evening

Saturday night was our last evening in Quito.  After we finished our hike, we went to the Gomez farm for a pig picking...not sure if they call it that in Ecuador!  It was very good food and I discovered an awesome candy called Bianchi.  It is a caramel covered chocolate!  Not too much chocolate, and lots of caramel!  Yum! 

The farmhouse is on top of a hill and from there you can see a volcano. The volcano has snow on top of it.

There are lots of fruit trees on their farm...passion fruit, bananas, plantains, lemons, dragonfruit...and coffee trees.  I even chewed on a coffee bean.  It tasted like coffee, but since I don't like coffee, it wasn't that good!

Cinnamon tree

Dragon fruit

Coffee Beans

The kind of tree used to make dart guns

We gave the ladies from the church flowers a a thank you gift. 

The church secretary

The pastor's wife

One of our favorite drivers

The first lady I met at the Macas church

The Gomez family

That yummy candy!

Our last stop of the evening was downtown Macas.  We spent some time finishing up our shopping.  In Macas that meant mainly buying snacks to take back home.  I was able to get a bag of Bianchi. 

The sweetest thing that happened for me was that night.  We met the bus at the church and Abigail was waiting for me.  I had left her an English/Spanish Bible storybook, and she had a gift for me.  She and her family gave me a necklace and bracelet.  I also got a big hug from her.  Her family seems to be involved in the church and I am happy for her about that.  She wrote me a note that said "Gracias por su amistad.  Dios bendiga su vida y familia."  (Thank you for your friendship.  God bless your life and family.)  I will always treasure that bracelet!

Family time at the hotel ended our evening before a restless night's sleep due to a karaoke party at the hotel.  We were packed and ready to get going the next day for home!

Camden hanging out with my mom in Columbia!  They had fun together!  I miss my family and was ready to see them again.