Maracuyá, is a yellow passion fruit, and very popular in Ecuador.
I’m still working on improving my Spanish by trying to initiate more conversations in Spanish with my counterparts in the office. I will also start having one-on-one tutoring sessions with someone from the Peace Corps Ecuador office. It just shows that there are some things that you must keep working on to improve yourself. It’s an ongoing process!
I’m still training for mountain climbing, even though my group was not able to summit Cotopaxi. The weeks prior to our trip, it had been raining continuously. This is bad for climbing on snow. It needs to melt and refreeze many times over to make a safe, solid surface for hiking and climbing. The snow was too soft and wet, so we turned back at 5,350 meters (17,552 feet). The peak is at 5,897 meters (19,347 feet), so we still had a good climb ahead of us. That was a disappointment, and I don’t know if I will have the opportunity to make another attempt.
Since then, I have kept training and went this weekend to climb another volcano with a friend from my climbing group. We climbed Carihuairazo, which is 5,018 meters (16,463 feet). It is near Chimborazo. The compass on my phone showed 16,470 feet, so I’ll go with that number. It was a challenging, scary, and fun experience. It is another situation where I saw an opportunity and responded. My friend had posted to the group chat on WhatsApp that he had this trip planned and asked if anyone else wanted to come along. I didn’t have any plans, so I replied. In the past I would have ignored the invitation and stayed at home feeling bored.
I’m sure you get all sorts of advice from adults.
