Sorry for the delay! We made it back safely into Houghton at 6am on Wednesday after a long day of flights and driving. We covered over 3500 miles in under a day!
Our last weekend of field work was very hot and dry. To feed Gierke's true geologist self, we set up on survey on the side of a highway. A man came along while the survey was running to start watering his crops through a hand dug irrigation system. We patiently waited as the area we were using started filling up with intricate rows of flowing water.
Nick and Bri discovered the joys of wearing the cable backpacks (about 40 pounds - but Nick wore two) as they held running races and mastered the art of spinning!
Sunday proved to give a great end to the research. With Gierke gone, we blasted our hooligan music all the way to the survey site; spreading the joy and musical amazingness of west coast rap and Dave Matthews Band with everyone we passed. After a morning of surveys and Chinese food for lunch we set up our final SuperSting survey. The WADI team threw in the had a half a day early when they discovered that the D batteries they could buy in Ecuador were just a little bit smaller than those we use in the US, thus rendering the WADI inoperable. Consequently we all had to hang out while the survey ran. There was a lot of dancing as Vinny turned up the Regaton music that he has a slight addiction to. We played the balance game, ate yogurt from a street vendor, and kicked cow pies. A great way to spend any sunny afternoon with friends! After work, we all went back to the hotel for a game of futbol. This did not go with out incidence (maybe we're not very coordinated), but the Ferreterias came out with little to no injuries (except for Luke's humungo toe which matched Miriam's). The other team though was quite the hurting unit. Vinny was out from a toe injury I think, Teresa biffed her toe on Bri's foot, Miriam had a previously sustained big (literally) toe injury, and to top it off (and finish the game) Luke kicked the ball straight into Denise's face from about 15 feet away. After a minor amount of chaos when some unnamed person told Denise she was bleeding, it was discovered it was from her chin, not because her teeth fell out and Denise would in fact be alright. For dinner, Carla led us to a very very delicious (maybe we were deprived or it was really just that good) pizza place near our hotel!
On Monday we headed to Quito to spend the day being touristy. The cable car that travels up one of the mountains in Quito was out of commission when we went, so we settled for the view from the high up parking lot. A close second. We grabbed lunch at the mall and returned the rental car. The parking lot became a sad place after the destruction of one of Bri's juggling balls (a lime) met the end of its life from a car tire. We then headed down to the old town where we walked around and marveled at all of the amazingly beautiful churches and buildings!
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