Fun filled day - Sunday November 8

Today we started with breakfast and then a meeting over mochas at a coffee shop in the Mariscal District of Quito, not far from our hostal. Around 9:30, the GVI driver (having difficulties with names) picked us and our luggage up from the hostal and we headed to La Mitad del Mundo – the Ecuador. There is a small outdoor museum which we toured with a guide and we tried walking a straight line on the Ecuador line with our eyes closed and arms out and tried to balance an egg. I did pretty good with the walking, but was not successful with the egg! I wasn’t the only one though, and when I met some of the other volunteers who were already here, one guy said he went a second time and finally got it! Of course they showed us the water vortex going in opposite directions and straight down when the drain was right over the equator line. One thing I really liked was this sign:

We stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant where I had trout, a wee bit of veggies and a delicious smoothie made with blackberries – or mora – which was really good.

The landscape on the way to Otavalo was quite dramatic. We were quite high up and looked down over multiple hills and valleys. Otavalo is actually a couple hundred meters lower than Quito, but my village is higher than Quito by about 200 meters.

My family is: Pilar, Alfredo, JorgeLuis (11) and Mabel (9) and then Maria who helps around the house and her little daughter Maria. It is an easy 20 minute walk into the center of town – Plaza de Ponchos – although I must cross the Pan Americana highway. I shared a bag of tropical fruit jelly belly’s with the kids and they helped me say the color names and they identified the fruits. Jorge studies English in school, but I am sure it is not many hours a week, although he has helped me a bit to figure things out.

This first week I will have Spanish lessons from 8:30 to 12:30 and from 2:00 – 4:00. Don’t ask me how I will remember anything after 6 hours! I am looking forward to it though.


Observations:

People wear coats and vests and warm hats, even when it is 80+ outside!

The buses put out horrible noxious fumes and black smoke. Instead of moving out of the way so you don’t get splashed with water, you move out of the way so you don’t have to breath too many of the fumes.

I love it here that the STOP signs are red and octagonal, but say PARE instead of STOP like they did in Hungary!

They love fried chicken here – it is served quite often and is available at every other shop!

You can’t put toilet paper – any – in the toilet as the water pressure and system is too weak to handle it.

They use American dollars and coins, although they also mint their own coins and they have Ecuadorian historical figures and much larger print of the denomination. You literally can’t use or change anything higher than a $20. Even in a bank. ATM’s give out 20’s, 10’s and some 5’s.50cent pieces are quite common.

They are in the middle of the worst drought in over 50 years, so electricity (of which 70% is hydro and comes from one dam near Cuenca) is expensive. And they are not able to produce enough. So there are daily power outages in the middle of the afternoon in Quito and I am not sure yet about Otavalo.

There are internet café’s everywhere in Otavalo and reasonably priced.

Eighty percent of the population of Otavalo is Mormon! The second highest religious population is the Jehovah Witnesses!!

Hasta Luego