Coast trip

We are in a bus. We are driving along the coast of Ecuador. As I write I am beginning to become more aware of how bad my English has become. We only have another two days of this trip with our organization, which is too bad, because so far everything has been great. We have been swimming, boogie boarding, body surfing, and in general just having a good time. Lots of the other kids here are very cool, and we all have a lot of fun together. Unfortunately several kids have gotten sick (perhaps from food), but things are still cool. We started the trip in Quito, where we all arrived around 7 p.m. We went out to eat at a burger place I knew called "The G Spot". Its certainly a very gross name, but it seems to be one of the local hang out spots. Taavi and I also got to talk to a Mountaineer in his shop in Quito, and he showed us pictures of his ascents of most of the peeks in Ecuador, it was quite impressive. He also had all sorts of fancy equipment for very cheap rental, including for example German crampons for just 2 dollars a day.
That first night we left Qutio for the beach at 11 p.m. The bus ride was fairly uneventful, and when we woke up the next mourning we were already near our hotel in Manta. The hotel was nice, and we all had allot of fun there. Unfortunately I got very badly sun burnt the very first day despite many heavy layers of sunscreen.
In our second hotel we all had mosquito nets in our rooms, which at first seemed sort of cool and exotic, but by now I would have much rather had a room sin mosquitoes.
Most of the time we have spent on this trip when not at the beach swimming, has probably been in our bus. The bus gets hot, and we all just sort of lie around doing nothing, although I do like writing. As I say this by the way, I notice that only my English has gotten worse, but also my typing is slower. Nora, are you reading this? Well, she seemed like she might have been reading this over my shoulder as I wrote, which made me write differently for some reason.
One thing that I have found especially strange about this trip is that more than ever in my life I have no real idea where I am. It is a weird feeling to be going around doing things while at the same time only sort of having a notion of where the hell I am. Aside from this being weird though, it's also sort of fun, and it kind of reminds me of being a little kid.
At some point now we will be driving into Guayaquil, which is the biggest city in Ecuador, and is thus massive. At some point tomorrow we will be driving into Qutio, the Capital of Ecuador. At some point the day after that, we will be driving back to Ibarra. Unfortunately I think about this stuff enough that it is hard for me to enjoy this trip very much.
I am sort of having troubles with my family. My mom especially seems to sort of dislike me, and further more not want to do things with me. She also rarely lets me go into Ibarra to see my friends, and instead wants me to hang out in San Antonio and make new friends there. This is especially frustrating because there is nothing to do in San Antonio, and furthermore no one to do it with. As it turns out I actually do have a few friends from San Antonio, but they all hang out in Ibarra.
My mom sort of seemed to act strange ever since her daughter and son in law had visited, at which time I was sleeping in my grandparents house. Everything seemed to especially boil over and get started on one particular day, when I was sick after my second ascent of Imbabura. I had gotten a minor case of pneumonia, but was never told, and so when I took a shower and got my hair wet, my mom completely freaked out and started yelling at me. The weird thing was despite how worried she seemed to be about my wet hair, she still said that I should be going to school. I thought it was kind of unreasonable of her to think I was to sick to take a shower, but yet still able to go to school, so I skipped school and took it easy that day. When I went to my house I figured I'd lie down on the couch and read some, but once I did that my mom said I had to go back to my grandmothers and rest there. At that point it felt as though she had officially kicked me out of the family, and since then I have not felt comfortable around her. We've had talks about it, but she always takes everything to the offensive, and seeing as her Spanish is obviously much better than mine, she always only adds things to the long list she has of things I'm doing wrong, rather than trying to figure out how to help our relationship. Things might be nearing the point where I consider trying to get a new family.
I am still climbing. I want to climb much more, but I have a lot of things that I have to get settled with my organization first, and that can be a big hassle. One of the things that keeps haunting me is the fact that what I'm really supposed to be doing here is learning about the family life and culture of this country, and I feel as though I am failing that. It's true that it can be pretty hard when both my parents work all day, and it is also really annoying that we never really travel anywhere, but despite all this it is still actually my responsibility to adapt to this and hopefully like it even. I have a feeling that if I am not able to do these things by the end of the year however, I might try to go of program for two weeks before leaving to just travel and climb, as although it's not supposed to be, that is what I really want to do here.
School has also started to become a slight problem for me here. This is do to the fact that we are supposed to have a grade average of at least 15 out of 20, and 5 is less than 15. If I am unable to get that 15 this semester, it is possible that I could be considered for early return, and that is something I absolutely don't want. As of late though I have been doing I think a bit better in school lately, and hopefully I will be able to ask some of my teachers to do something different from the regular course so that I might have a better chance of getting a grade.
Well, this may have been a somewhat selfish blog (sort of a long complain, which although was very nice for me to get of my shoulders, may just turn out to be boring for you), and if it is I'm sorry.
I miss you all very much, as long as I know you that is.
Ciao.