Trip to Ecuador- Quito

As a beginning to this blog, I thought I would begin with my latest adventure, a volunteering trip to Ecuador with my sister, these are the emails that I sent home... Enjoy!

Hello all!

 

Yes,  I made it here safe and sound. The flights from Reno>Dallas>Miami (stay overnight in a hotel) Miami>San Jose, Costa Rica>Quito, Ecuador all went swimmingly. Despite the airlines in South America being far less stringent about being on time than the airlines in the US, the flights were good. I either slept or read the entire time, usually the former.

 

I am staying with my host family very close to downtown Quito, the big tourist area, right where the spanish school is. It´s less than a 5 minute walk, which is really nice as some other groups have a 25-30 minute walk. My family is really nice, the Dad is from the states, Washington, and the Mom is from Quito. They have a 5 year-old daughter who I taught how to play War and the beginnings of Egyptian Rat Screw. I was very proud of my communication skills. She kept trying to cheat, which reminded me greatly of Abigail when I taught her to play. Shows you that children are pretty much the same all across the world.

 

Both parents speak english fluently, which is convient for my other roomates, who do not speak spanish well. Our first classes were today, I got put in the advanced group, which is not saying much because more than half the group doing the spanish lessons are from Canada and have never learned spanish at all. It´s been fun though. We also had a salsa lesson. All those years of dance finally paid off, whoo hoo! I was not completely awkward.

 

The food has been good so far, a lot of bananas. We´re supposed to have banana soup tonight for dinner. And we had fried bananas for lunch with rice and a beet salad as well as fresh bananas with banana ice cream. I might have to learn to cook some of this food. And I might have to take a break from bananas when I get home. (Andrea, you should be fine food-wise here.) I have also not had any problems with the altitude or the water, we are crossing our fingers that that doesn´t change. Also, no mosquitos... yet.

 

Interesting facts for the day:

Ecuadorians play a form of golf where instead of hitting a ball, they hit off a live chicken´s head! No joke.

There are drug dealers on the corner by our apartment, but only at night, during the day it´s a cute old lady.

 

I will continue to update, I don´t miss you guys too much yet. :)

 

Adios,

 

Katie