The day began quite early for Lydia and Cesar as they decided to hike up a nearby hill to watch the sunrise. Although to their sadness and frustration, all they could see were clouds.

Once they hiked back down, they chilled while everybody else woke up one by one, and then everybody enjoyed breakfast.

Then the work continued, with plastering. As the day went on, some people continued plastering, and some (mostly the younger team members) got quite bored and began doing random activities, starting with learning the basic steps of salsa dancing, then played a quick game of hide and seek.

After that, a few of the girls picked up trash off of the grounds, and then made things out of some of the trash (pieces of glass, string, feather, and a glass bottle), as well as cleaned off some shoes that had gotten very dusty in Ecuador’s volcanic terrain, and then tidied up bedrooms and washed windows. While the girls did that, the boys did some landscaping in preparation for a new clothes washing place they’re going to put in. After that, we all met up for dinner, and then had our meeting. After dinner, we were pleasantly surprised when Braulio stopped in for a surprise visit, and we had a very exciting and fun game of Spicy Uno. Then everybody went to bed, excited to climb Mount Chimborazo tomorrow.

The highlights of our day include the game of Uno and plastering, for those who enjoyed it. We’re looking forward to climbing Chimborazo tomorrow, seeing the Equator and shopping. We are incredibly thankful we have all stayed healthy all week, and we’re thankful that we have a team we can really get to know. We have become like a family.