We drove a few minutes more to get to Cayambe, where the Hacienda Guachala is. Cayambe is famous for its bizcochos, little hard cheesy bread sticks. And they also have some awesome cuy (guinea pig)!!! It tastes like smoky bacon. Most everyone liked it once they got past the appearance! Before our meal, they put a bowl of guinea pig liver and corn on our table. The liver tasted like fish! As you can see, my portion of cuy was talented because it had the ability to high-five and wave.
We then arrived at Hacienda Guachala, which is gorrrgeous! They have so many cool stories, too... under the little chapel, which was built over an indigenous sacred site, there are 11 bodies buried. They just found this out using sonar technology. There is also a room that was used for torturing runaway/disobedient slaves. It was made into a guest room, so none of the instruments are in there anymore, but I am SO glad we didn't have to sleep in there. Creepville. As in pretty much every other building here, there was a middle courtyard with a fountain. Each room had a fireplace, which we put to good use because it was freeeeezing despite being only meters away from the equator. We had to cross into the northern hemisphere to get into town every day. (I'm trying to add a video of the hacienda here but it may not show up...) And the stars at night, OH MY GOODNESS they were gorgeous!!! Even though it was really creepy going outside at night due to the buried bodies and torturing business. On Saturday we went to the Otavalo market, the biggest market in South America! Hahaha and that is where all my money went. I feel like a bartering expert now.
I saved my tuna until Saturday afternoon when I couldn't wait any longer. AND IT WAS DIVINE. It tasted so good and it was so cheap that I couldn't help going out tonight and buying 2 more cans to stuff in my suitcase! 
It's now getting late and I'm afraid they're gonna cut off the internet before I'm done writing this, so I'll end it here! We're getting up at 5:30 tomorrow to get to the airport early, but for once I'm totally ok with getting up early because I'm ready for home! I have missed my family and friends, my dogs, my bed, being able to flush the toilet paper, and not having to wear a jacket to bed! I really do hope to come back here though... Ecuador has been the most amazing and intriguing place I've ever visited. I'll be so happy to see you all when I come back!!!
On the way down we drove ABOVE the clouds! That looked strange.
We then headed off to Salasaca, an indigenous community with very sweet and hospitable people who took us on a hike and entertained us with folk music before we went to bed. On the way to Salasaca we saw Chimborazo, the highest mountain on Earth (higher than Everest due to the equatorial bulge)! 
We went to a church service on Sunday morning, and because of the altitude I couldn't catch my breath to sing the songs! From the church we could see Tungurahua, an active volcano. They said you can see lava sometimes at night. The church was way down in that valley in the picture.
We then went up, up, up some more, all the way to 12,000 feet! Wow.. and I thought it was hard to breathe before! Oxygen please! It was snowing on some peaks we drove over. We saw some RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME peaks, and I took a video because pictures just won't do them justice, but for some reason it won't load onto this blog. Here's one pretty bad picture I took of one... it looks so small in the picture!
We went up to look at a lake... it was beautiful and really blue. From the way it was positioned I'm thinking it's in the crater of a dormant volcano. 
On the way up we passed a bunch of indigenous villages... the women wear skirts and tights and hats with feathers in them, and many of the sheepherders were little girls around 9 or 10 years old! They have alot of sheep, dogs, pigs, cows, and llamas. It looked like everyone in one of the villages had gathered around one plaza, and on closer look we realized it was a bullfight! (as of the beginning of this month it's illegal to kill the bull, but it was still sad and who knows if they actually follow that rule way up here) 
Now we're at Hosteria Papagayo, an old hacienda-turned-hotel about an hour outside of Quito. It's at about 10,000 feet so it's freezing at night but it feels great in the sun. I have to go now because we're about to go exploring and petting some llamas! I'll update you soon!! Adios!
And the mountain views. Oh my goodness. 
Cuenca was built on top of the Incan city of Tomebamba, so there are a few places around the city where you can still see Incan ruins (irrigation canal in the foreground, and stratified agriculture fields on the right)
I wanted to camp out in tents the second night, but not enough people wanted to so we didn't get to do it. :( Some other cool things we did, though, were Caiman (alligator) watching (we were only in little paddle canoes so it was kinda creepy being so close to them!), pirhana fishing (our canoe caught one!), and yes, GRUB WORM EATING! They gave us alot of traditional foods to eat and I was the only one who wanted to eat the grubs... but 3 other people tried them when I didn't die after 5 minutes! The skin tasted pretty good, but when you bit into it a bunch of chunky juice squirted out. (Katie, you KNOW I'm writing this for you, right?!) Not the most scrumptious thing ever, but I'm so glad I did it!!! I was dumb and didn't bring my camera to that activity because I didn't know we'd be doing that. But other people took pictures so I'll get those from them.
