Its good to have friends

And because of this we decided to have a bit of a dinner party at our hostal (rachel, amanada and I are currently over-running the same hostal - yippee) on wednesday night. You can probably guess that this wasnt my idea, but it turned out to be a lovely evening. We settled on fajitas as they seemed easy to cook in bulk, sent Amanda off to Supermaxi to buy her own body weight in peppers, and then had much fun chopping and mixing (those of you who have had the pleasure of cooking with me know that I stay firmly in charge of any chopping and away from any actual cooking if at all possible) and I have to say, I made a damn fine guacamole, all to the surprisingly loud reggaeton kicked out by my ipod. And amusingly, turns out that while we have a lot of friends here, they are all male! So at about 8ish one by one they all turned up to the horror of the other guests in the hostal (well, only 2 snotty french people so they dont count!) and we all then ate fajitas and cake (my contribution!) until we couldnt move anymore......and then we went dancing.....after doing all the washing up, which, our friends being your average latino guys, didnt help with one bit! But despite this minor set back, and despite my grumblings, it was a really fun evening and a lovely way to say goodbye to all the poor guys who we have molested into dancing with us over the last 6 weeks. the only down side was the absence of Eva, who we started to worry about when she was 2 hours late (a record even for he) but it turns out the embassador for ecuador had come to her family´s house for tea! Damn her and her great excuses for being late

And so on to yesterday which was spent with all of us skiving off whatever responsibilities we have (except the ever contientious Amanda) to visit the Hacienda of the father of one of our friends here (Ineyet) and it was fab. unfortunately the day got off to an inauspicious start with Eva being even more late than usual due to the fact that she got robbed on the way here (luckily she was ok, but she had her camera and some money stolen, which sucks, and rather ramdomly, the robber also took her lip gloss, which i actually think she is more upset about!). but then the day turned out to be fab. The Hacienda is only about 30mins away if you have a car but its round this big mountain so you feel miles away from Quito and it was in the most gorgeous countryside. It was so nice of Iniyet to invite us and his family were really welcoming so had a great time pottering around walking, riding horses and watching the milking (rather different to at home, and Dad, hope you are impressed, took lots of photos!). Also had a go at milking by hand (big sorry to the poor cow here) and it was a lot more difficult (and repulsive) than you would imagine! So after all that excitement, we were rather late leaving, but managed to hitch a lift in the back of another pickup and had the most amazing view of the sun setting over the mountains and then over Quito all lit up for the night. Ah, big sigh

Naturally as it was Thursday, we then went out salsa dancing and all had a fab time (especially Rach, who was high on cough syrup determined to be alive for her last night). Our favourite place has now started charging which is rather crap, but was definately worth the $2

And so on to today which has been spent eating and enjoying the sun and trying not to be too sad that everyine is leaving...booo. Taking rach to the aeroport tonight to wave her off and then eva on sunday. sob....really ready to leave Quito now but its going to take a while to adjust to not having my girls around me anymore...and am really going to miss all the gossip they generate and our lazy "ladies who lunch" lunches at crepes and waffles (yep, it does what it says on the tin plus has the best salads....great for those must have veggies moments)