Birds, Buses, and Bailarinas

Long day, good day, once again. Here are the highlights:

>Up at the crack of dawn (6:00) and onto trucks and vans for a ride to the top of the same hill where we had been ziplining the day before, this time with three birding guides. I contracted them through a little office on the main street in Mindo. All were charismatic and extremely knowledgeable - I overheard one fo the kdis saying that they were so passionate about what they did for a living that it was inspiring. I hav a list of birds that we saw, but not on me at the moment - suffice it to say that there were quite a few. A flycatcher, a tanager, a hawk, a swallowtail kite, two toucans (my group), one the smallest there is and the other, a big yellow-baked one, a hawk...The whole walk was downhill, too, which made it all much easier.

But we hadn´t had breakfast, and I hadn´t thought to tell the kids to go buy food to bring along with them the day before. So we had a bunch of hungry campers on our hands when we got to the botton of the hill around 10:00. We had to wait a while for the bus, and then pay more than I thought we would, but it was no big deal; the bus took us to the Mariposario, the butterfly hatchery, where we spent a pleasant half-hour taking pictures and looking at the butterflies. And then back to Mindo, for lunch and packing.

Our guide had let me use his cell phone to call the head of the transportation company back in Quito and ask if it would be alright for our driver to take us out early. 4:00 had been the scheduled time, but we were eager to get back to Quito. He said sure, and right at 2:00 our driver pulled up in front of the hotel. (He had actually left the bus in Mindo and taken public transportation back to Quito, then come back on another bus to get us.) Another happy development was that the one ATM in Mindo (one more than there was last time), which had had a sign stuck to it over the last 2 days saying ¨There Is No Money¨, was filled when we got back from luhc. Everyone was able to get money, and we left paid up and in good spirits. Everyone piled aboard like clockwork right at 2:00.

I slept on the bus, and I think a lot of others did, too. We´re tired. We came into Quito and to the hotel thanks to some amazing maneuvers by Leonardo, our driver, which elicited spontaneous applause a couple of times. And then we had two hours before heading out to the dance performance, Jacchigua. The kids went to eat, and to buy some snacks to bring along on the hike (learned my lesson there, I did) (AND: A couple of them got film of the vice president driving past in his motorcade!!), and around 6:50 we walked to the Trolley and - somewhat miraculously - climbed immediately aboard one that was all but empty.

We arrived in time for the danc performance, 2/3 of which was spectacular, just like last year. The other 1/3 consisted of two loooong choreographies starring the director, by now in his 70s and pretty much unable to do anything dance-wise but stand there, emoting cadaverously, while female dancers swirl around him, sometimes dressed as nuns. I´ve never heard the phrase ¨Dance of the nuns¨before, I don´t think, and now I know why: It really looks silly. But: The music was in, credible, and the students appreciated that, as a whole. And the costuming in the traditional portions, as well as the choreography, in all the parts that didn´t feature a nearly-immobile, Al Davis-like lead dancer, were great. There was, though, lots of yawning.

We had to wait through five or six trolleys before one came along that ws acceptably empty, and then we came back to the hotel on the last one, and all turned in immediately.

Now I sit here at 6:35, kind of wishing we had tomorrow´s unprogrammed schedule today rather than the other way around. But the kids I´ve seen so far seem chipper enough. It´s going to be a big day, after which there will be a lot of chill time. They have definitely earned it.