A weekend in Quito

Hello everyone!

I would like to fully apologize for not writing a post for a while. Combined with lots of traveling, starting programs and unreliable internet access, updating the events of my life has been somewhat difficult. So I am going to do this in a couple of posts. One of last weekend (which took place in Quito...for the most part), then a post about the past week or so, specifically about programs, and then after this weekend, of course another post will ensue. I can´t believe a week has already passed by....it seems like just yesterday I got here.

Last Saturday we woke up abruptly to an 8am spanish placement test. It was about 70 plus questions and quite brutal for that hour of the day. However, luckily for us, the PDs (program directors) then made us a delicious brunch consisting of home made pancakes and a fruit salad..side note, the fruit here is INCREDIBLE. fresh pinaple, oranges, mangos, papaya, pears, bananas, apples and more weird ones to come. after brunch we all packed up and headed out to quito, which is about an hour long bus ride. I will always remember the ride into the city. We live in conocoto, which is in a valley outside of quito, which is at a much higher elevation. Thus, the bus ride in consists of beautiful green hills and blue sky. As the bus descends into the city brightly colored concrete square houses start populating the mountain sides, looking as if they are stacked on top of one another. it is so beautiful. Also, right before getting off the bus, the highway lines a gorge with a river below. There is an old house at the bottom....its just all so picturesque!

We get off of the bus at La Marin bus stop, and then normally take Quito´s public transporation, the ¨Echo Via¨(i dont know if that is the correct spelling in spanish!) On saturday we then rode this jam packed bus one or two stops...then we got off near a park (which i do not know the name of). However, this park is pretty awesome just by the sole fact that it has....a MOAT! yes....it looks like a lazy river in a public park in which people can rent canoes or paddle boats and such and just ride around. Pretty awesome. We then walked up a giant hill (I am learning that ecuador is full of those...) to a beautiful old church called The Basillica. It was the perfect moment to break out my new camera and take a bagillion pictures. The church is built in the gothic style, thus it has lots of arches, stained glass and statues. after spending some time trying to capture the colors of the stained glass light on the concrete stones (yes...this beautiful church is somehow made out of what looks like cinder blocks), we then started the REAL adventure. Little did I know that the reason to come to the Basicllica was not to look as those pretty gothic arches, but rather to look at the spectuacular views from the top of the church!! So, we all started the ascent. First, we climbed up to the top of one of the spires. This consisted first of lots of stairs. we then crossed over the roof of the church (dont worry mom, this is all indoors..) and climbed up a ladder to the first outer level of the spire. (sorry if this is confusing, its hard to describe). We then proceeded to climb up ladders, however they were built on the outside parts of the church, so its like you are climbing up the side of the building. The view from the top was worth it....a 360 view of quito from high up. My favorite sites? Laundry lines on the top of buildings, the clouds moving in on the mountains surrounding the city, and lastly, this incredibly large statue of an angel on top of a hill....something that I had never seen until that day but now, only a week later, seems to symbolize Quito for me. The city also is soooo long! It has mountains surrounding it on the east and west so the only place it has to grow is north and south, making a very rectangular metropolis. After the even more frightning descent, we then proceeded to climb up another part of the church, one of the Two Bell Towers. The climb was all indoors and in fact took us higher up, to an even better view of the city. It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. What i have come to realize, is that Quito, and even almost everywhere in Ecuador so far, is so close to the clouds. They seem to hover above cities and mountains until they get lonley and move in on whatever is nearest. It is such a unique thing to observe.

We then went to the centro historico and saw the main political plaza of Quito. Surrounding this plaza are the buildings in which the city is run from and then the president´s house. Pretty neat. We then went to the San Fransisco Church, which unlike the Basillica, was built in the Baroque style, which means overly ornate. Thus the entire ceiling was coated in gold and the alter was surrounding by lots of statues and stuffs which I can´t really remember or describe. It was like a mini vatican...very pretty. We then stopped for dinner and had Empanadas and fresh juice. yes, all of the juice here is freshly made. It is so delicious!

After a full day we all retreated back to Conocoto and prepared for a VERY busy sunday. Sunday we left the house bright and early (around 8 am) and once again rode the bus into Quito. We then all rented some bikes and participated in a weekely event in Quito, the Ciclo Paseo (again, I have no idea how to spell this). Every sunday this large street in Quito is blocked off from traffic and is used instead for recreational purposes, mainly biking but some runners as well. The street runs from the historical center until past the airport. We had such a fun time just leisurely biking for about two hours through the city! The best part was a pit stop we made in el parque de Carolina, a huge park in the city. On our journey into the park we managed to stop by about 100 ecuadorians doing arobics to Lady Ga Ga - yes, in the middle of the park! About 5 of us immediately ran into the crowd and started doing arobics with them. It so hilarious and fun at the same time. After both aerobics and biking we then walked to a chinese food restaraunt (yes...in ecuador) and ate a well deserved lunch.

After lunch was the long trip to Sangloqui, the largest city in our valley. To give you a mental picture, it is the city directly across from conocoto. It took about an hour and a half to get there from quito and so I napped very well. The reason for this trip to Sangloqui was to see the market, which is the largest one in that area. It was quite the cultural experience. The market consists of booths of fruit, vegetables, meat, shoes, pants, dvds, live animals, etc, that are in the street, which creates a walking mall sorta thing. As you enter the market you are surrounded by people all shouting out in peircing voices their product and price. I saw (and tried!) fruit I had never seen before in my life. To name three - this small red spikey fruit you tear open with your hands. Inside is a singular clear piece of fruit with one seed inside. How do you eat this contraption? You suck on the fruit and spit out the seed...It was not my most favorite thing. The other fruit we tried was called Granadia, and was a hard orange circle. The best thing to describe the surprise inside is ¨frog eggs¨. The fruit are these little seeds surrouding by a pulpy layer. You just slurp down the seeds...and it was suprsingly refreshing. The last fruit was green and misshapen. Inside were large white fleshy leaves with seeds in the middle...and it tasted like a cross between an apple and pear and other sorts of things. The next edible shocker in the market- the massive amounts of raw meat just sitting out in the open. Men walk around with platters of whole fish, there are stacks of crabs still moving on tables, cut up cow legs, tripe and intenstines sitting in tins...all waiting for you to take home and hopefully refridgerate! The best and final part of the market was the live animal section. They had ducks, chickens, roosters, turkeys and goats to name a few. Then the cute animals came...they had little chicks and then...PUPPIES!!! AND KITTENS!!! i just wanted to take all of them home...I guess I still want to take home all of the adorable stray dogs i see in ecuador anyways....but these were especially cute.

After that exhausting day we finally traveled back home and ordered in some empanadas. They were delicious. That night we then had a program ¨round robin¨in which each PD described the programs they were working on and after we ranked which ones we wanted to be involved in. It was really exciting to hear what Manna is really and actually doing in our community, and even more, what I can do for the community as well. In the end I officially am signed up to help with the Library, Painting a nearby school, the preventitive health center, agriment (sustainible agriculture projects), Adult english, womens exercise and cooking class. More information on specifics to come.

Before passing out from such a jam packed weekend I was pleasantly suprised to find that my chest, shoulders and back were covered in the bright pink hue of a fresh sunburn. Awesome....I guess spf 50 acutally needs to be reapplied every 50 minutes when you are this close to the sun. Trust me...ive learned my lesson, and gained some tanlines.

until next time,

Jenni