Mitch plunges head first in Ecuador

Mitch is the Antipodeans blogger for his GapBreak Ecuador group. Our Ecuador Gappers arrived in Quito on the 24th of March.

Hola!

For everyone viewing this blog (mostly parents), I would like to warmly welcome you to this fortnightly slab of literature.

We finally arrived in Quito after a 33-hour journey travelling via New Zealand and Chile. We arrived late at night so we were unable to see the much anticipated view which we were promised on the descent into the marvelous city that is Quito. It was extremely strange and unfamiliar exiting the airport in a compleltey foreign and unknown country. It wasn´t anything like leaving the terminal at either Melbourne or Sydney airports. We exited the international customs and were met with staring Ecuadorian eyes all the way up the path to our smiling new families for the next 3 months. After being greeted by Marcelo and Anita, Asta and I went to our new home with Anita, while Kate, Mich, and Sam left to theirs with Marcelo. I´m not sure about the others, but our first car trip home was the first of many eye openers - we drove home through many abandoned streets, children playing on the footpaths at 10 o´clock at night, stray dogs roaming the dark alley ways, and seedy looking bus stops.

The next few days were used to adapt to the altitude (we all succeeded apart from Sam) and recover from jet lag, as well as explore the city. The five of us ventured into the highly acclaimed ´old town´ on Sunday to have a wander. Our first stop was the Basilica Church - now, not being a religious man myself, i can admit i was not as excited as the others. However, upon viewing the architectural gem that is the Basilica, and especially after learning we could go up to the top of it, my mind was changed (because of the fact we could go up the top of it, not because i had some new found religious belief of any kind). After climbing several, extremely questionable sets of ladders, to say the view was spectacular would be an understatement. The way the city of Quito was laid out in front and around us was unbelievable.

In the absence of high sky rises and shiny buildings, it felt like you could see the whole city. After descending down the ladders, and taking some celebrity shots with some school girls on a field trip, we made our way to a nice park which i unfortunately cannot remember the name of. Like a moth to a flame, we rented what you could only call them as dodgem cars with wheels, after previously seeing kids in them scooting around the park. For 20 cents for 20 minutes, we roamed the park in our little cars (powered by pedals) looking like absolute fools. But we realised that is the beauty of being in a foreign city - you can really do whatever you want (be/look as stupid as you want), because NO ONE knows who you are.

Following the weekend we began our first batch of Spanish classes which ran from Tuesday through till Friday, which were a struggle to say the least. So yeah...

Anyways, after Spanish class on Friday we spontaneously decided to spend the weekend in the nearby town of Otavalo - a peaceful little town 2 hours out of Quito by bus, home to the most heralded and sought after indigenous markets of South America.

Saturday morning we awoke at 8:30am, walked out of our hostel and were met with thousands (you´d think i´m exaggerating but i do not lie, there were thousands) of stalls selling all sorts of handicrafts and whatnot. We spent all day wandering the little Quechuan stalls (Quechua are native Ecuadorians), and like typical youths, were sucked in by the cunning persuasive skills of the Quechuan´s, thus spending pretty much all the money we brought with us. After reading that last sentence, you parentals are probably shaking your heads and exhaling due to the fact that i said we spent all the money we brought with us. Well, we did. But don´t be so disappointed with us - "you need to be saaaaving", "be responsible with your money"! - we actually spent most of the day looking for presents for you guys because you´re so bloody hard to buy for! Yeah, here come the smiles....

The next day we caught a cab (what lonely planet claimed to be 4km but i am going to write to inform them it was actually 7km) up to a viewpoint know as "El Lechera". El Lechera, as it is locally know as, is a so called magic tree. We took many lefts and rights up the hill which made us think the taxi driver was taking us somewhere we didn´t want to go, but we finally came to what we were searching for. Situated on top of a grassy mound, was sitting an old, wavy curvy looking kinda tree. I think a better way to explain it would be a freaky possessed old lady´s demented hand as she is pointing at you casting some sort of enchantment over you. Nevertheless, it did look "magical".

And there ended our trip to Otavalo. And i would just like to say that my description of the tree is most likely incorrect as i do not have a picture of it handy.

Monday indicated the start of the real reason why we, your beloved children, are in Ecuador - volunteering. At 7am Kate, Mich and Sam took two buses to there placement, while me and Asta went to our placement, Escuaela de Union Sovieteca. I haven´t mentioned the name of the other´s school as i was notified they would be here with me when i wrote this but they are unfortunately not.

Anyways..

Our first week of teaching at our schools was, a mixture of things. From speaking with everyone, plus my own experience, the general jist can be described with these words - fun, scary, frustrating, rewarding, new, eye-opening, tiring, surprising, anger, challenging, and finally, laughter. Pretty big variety, yeah? Of course with little to none experience of teaching English in a foreign country, we are going to experience all these things, which we are of course not opposed to. Frustrating and anger aside, the kids are great. They always want to play with you (tiring, fun) and the words that come out of their mouths put a smile on your face (rewarding, surprising, laughter).

Finishing our volunteer duties for the week on Thursday, being terribly homesick missing our coastal lives back home we took a 10hour bus ride that night to a place on the coast called Manta, en route to our final destination of Canoa. We arrived in Manta at around 7am Friday, jumped into a cab, and drove almost 2 hours to the sweet as chilled out beach town of Canoa. Having missed the Australian sun and ocean immensely the past two weeks, we checked in to our hotel named "Hotel Bambu", and quickly ducked down to the beach. When i say to the beach, the hotel is on the beach. So yeah it was awesome. The water was 25 degrees, which Kate, Asta and i welcomed very much being from the chilly waters of Victoria. We spent the day chilling out, and pretty the much the whole weekend. That night however, i ate a bad bowl of spag bol, subsequently emptying out my stomach for a bit late at night. But you know, in the words of Forrest Gump - i´m not really sure the boundaries on language for this blog, so i won´t say but i´m quite confident you all know the two words, the last being "happens", that i was going to say....

sorry if that last sentence doesnt really make sense.

On Sunday morning, Kate, Asta and I took a 30 minute drive out of Canoa to the Rio Muchacho Organic Farm. The farm is run by a friendly New Zealand women and her Ecuadorian husband. We were met by a friendly American girl from Montana named Emma. Whilst waiting for two more people to begin the tour of the farm, Emma showed us how to make chocolate from scratch, which was really cool. We were then taken around the farm being taught about their aim and everything they do.

We returned to Canoa to meet Sam and Mich lying in the hammocks next to the hammock which Mich had broken the day before childishly swinging vigorously on it. We then jumped on a bus to a nearby town called Bahia, got into a bit of a tussle with an Ecuadorian couple regarding taxi rights, drove 2 hours back to Manta, and waited 5 hours for our 9pm bus back to Quito.

So that has been our first two weeks here in our new home of Quito. Please excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes as i´m in an internet cafe and i´ve gotta be quick due to the rapidly increasing internet cost.

So for now, from all of us,

Adios!

Mitch Downey