A weekend in Quito

On Friday, I went to Centro Historico with Tori because all of the museums. So naturally, we spent all of our time walking around and only went to two museums. The first museum was an art museum (anyone that knows me should be very proud that I spent more than 5 minutes in the art museum...AND there was no free food! #Nashermuseum). Next we went to Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño which is more commonly known as el Museo de Cera because it has a bunch of human figures that portray different events throughout history.
Still, the architecture in the old part of town is really cool:

Afterward we took a cab up to El Panecillo, which is a giant statue of a representation of the Virgin of Quito. It's located 3,000 meters above sea level and you can see the entire city (which is saying a lot since Quito is incredible sprawled out).

We also ate lunch at Pim's, which had a beautiful view of the city, but was expensive since it was really touristy.

On Saturday morning, I left the house at 7am with my family to visit the Mojanda Lake, about 75 km away from Quito. After a bumpy ride, we arrived at the lake, which was lapping at the road.

 Next we went off-roading on a super bumpy dirt road even higher in altitude. Since we were so high up, there were no trees, only beautiful green mountains. Prepare yourself for a barrage of photos:

After leaving the lakes, we drove to a house where a bunch of my host mom's family members stay on weekends. There were a TON of adults and kids everywhere and we hung out there until nighttime. They made us a humongous lunch and we hung out and I played with kids. At night I helped make cheese empanadas and talked with a bunch of the family members.


On Sunday Pablo (my host parents' son) and his entire family came over for lunch. Pablo's kids, Martin and Ameliano are 12 and 9 years old, respectively and they both know and want to practice English. I spent the rest of the day talking with them (they would talk in English and I would respond in Spanish) about American music and clothes. It was really fun and it was great practice for me!