Well the past few days have been a little calmer than the first week and I am finally getting some time to know the city. Quito is basically a long narrow flat area sourrounded by higher mountains on either side. The city used to be only the old part, but in the last 60 years it has been built up so much that the airport which used to be really far north is now literally in the middle of the city! I am living a little ways up one of the hills next to the Universidad Central de Ecuador, which I think is one of the biggest universities here. As far as universities go, it looks pretty run down, but has buildings on every possible thing you could want to study. The flat area below where I live is called el mariscal, or maybe better known as "gringolandia" because it has all kinds of new upscale restraunts, coffee shops, internet cafes, hostels etc. I have only been once, and besides from maybe going out there at night, I wouldn´t mind avoiding it!
2 nights ago I went out to a bar in a neighborhood called Guapulo with some of the people from AYUDA. Guapulo is this older neighborhood built straight into this steep hill and the bar was really cool bc it was super arsty and had a balcony literally hanging off the hill overlooking Quito. We sat out there, surrounded by clouds because we were so high up, and drank canelazo which is native to ecuador and is basically sugarcane alcohol, cinamon and maybe some kind of cidery mixture. in any case, its decent but becuase it is served hot it tastes really strong.
last night my family took me and my friend from AYUDA who lives across the street with a different family to see the centro historico of Quito. This part of the city is really old and dates back to like the 1500s. We went to the plaza grande where the main church is and where pres. correa lives. Then we walked around this street called La Ronda which has lots of live music and little bars and restraunts and art galeries. It was really cool because I havent had time to go to the old city yet and so my host family showed me kind of what is there so now i know places to go and things to do. Plus the old city looked gorgeous all lit up at night.. I can´t wait to go back.
Besides that I am beginning to adjust to all sorts differences that exist here. First of all, the air is so thin that sometimes walking up stairs makes my heart pound. I have been attempting to run through the university and also at this big park called the Carolina but it is really hard. Secondly, my family lives on a diet which consists of tons of bread! We generally eat bread and eggs or fruit for breakfast and then they dont eat dinner except for more bread and instant coffee or tea. They ask me if I want them to make me a real meal, but I dont want to be the odd one out, so I usually stick to eating another roll. I have only been home for lunch once, but the ecuadorian diet consists of usually a piece of meat, rice and a vegetable with usually a soup for an appetizer. When I don´t go home, we can go to a restraunt and get a full meal for 2 dollars!
We still havent started visiting homes yet, and I´m starting to feel like AYUDA is pretty disorganized with trying to send everyone to the different provinces. My group is supposed to recurit 40 campers for a camp which begins on sunday and we have barely started calling houses! I know that things work differently here, but it seems crazy to think we will be able to finish in the next 3 days... But i guess we´ll see...
Thats all.
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1 comment:
First of all, I was just cracking up because that place is called "gringolandia!" Hahaha!! It sounds like you are getting to see some unique things there, which is awesome. I can't imagine you finding it hard to run there, though; that means it's probably like me trying to run through a wind tunnel (a la Foody training for the marathon and not being able to finish because Jesus Christ himself was sending donwt he wind and the rain, lol). Love you!!
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