Tuesday, May 8
From EcuadorWiki
2nd Day in Ecuador
Sorry for the late post...
I didn't sleep especially well since my room overlooks the Av. 6 de Diciembre, one of the main arteries in Quito -- but I was still refreshed enough to roll out of bed sans alarm at 6:50 AM. The sun rises very early here every day. My host mother prepared us a delicious and massive meal of eggs, coffee, and toast with pineapple marmalade. We also enjoyed jugo de tomato de arbor, the juice of a native Ecuadorian fruit, the tree tomato.
Our walk to the Academia is about half an hour for the first couple of days but got shorter as we got acclimatized. I would estimate it at about 2 or 2.5 miles. The city itself is very beautiful and is surrounded on all sides by large mountains. Unfortunately, at rush hour, the smog can be pretty intense. Even early in the morning and at night, I don't feel as unsafe in the city as some online travel reviews tried to make me feel. There are armed security guards and plenty of police everywhere. Granted, in strictly residential districts, things can get a little rough.
Four hours of Spanish a day is intense -- the only thing that saved my was the 10:30 empanada break. The nice thing is that the professors at the Academia are very good and my grasp of Spanish skyrocketed in just a few days. I can actually hold multi-sentence conversations with my host family now. After our classes, we enjoyed a great lunch at a house next to the Academia.
After leaving the Academia, five of us went to the Casa de Cultura, which supposedly has five museums. At any rate, we went into one, a gallery of modern art. It was...interesting (many of the paintings, although abstract, were very sexually explicit). I must confess that I didn't get much of it, but I'm not an art person. We left the museum after only a few minutes (it wasn't very big) and walked around the Parque de Carolina. Plenty of locals were playing sports in the park and there was a small indigenous market. Since it is right next to the nice hotels, it was fairly touristy and the prices were a little high (and they didn't want to barter). I am holding out for the market in Otovalo.
We then walked around the commercial district, mostly on the Av. de Amazonas. It is about like any city in the United States, except for all the Spanish. We walked around just exploring for four hours and covered who knows how many miles. Thankfully, it is fairly easy to find your way around. Will and I got home around six and ate dinner with our host family. The meal featured soup, rice, and yucca, which in my experience are three staples in Ecuador. On a side note, I haven't eaten anything here that I didn't like (although some of it didn't like me).
Around 8:30 a group of us went out to Gringolandia or La Mariscal to a local chain called Coffee Tree. It is basically a bar but the drinks are cheap, it has outdoor seating, live music, and a predominantly local clientel. After about an hour we caught the last Ecovia bus of the night (10:10) and went to sleep. So endeth my second day in Ecuador. Pics are forthcoming.
