Akros Hotel - Quito

Tuesday 3rd November 2009<br><br><br>I hit Ecuador for exactly one week and one day ago - but it feels like a life time since I left Dee and Charlie in New York after a fab mini break with them. By the time I landed at Quito airport I had made my first Ecuadorian friend, we conversed all the way from Houston to Quito despite the fact that I could speak no Spanish and he spoke no English (possible that the conversation ...

... ourselves a hostel, the conundrum we faced was whether to locate ourselves in the old town where all the historic buildings and churches are, or the new town where all the restaurants and bars are - problem solved we found ourselves a hostel right bang in the middle of the 2. We spent the late afternoon wandering around the old town and it is beautiful with all the colonial buildings surrounding the area, but for those of you that have been following our ...

... Jody and Niamh shared one. It was 4pm already. We returned to the Secret Garden briefly to call Carolina, the lady we had met on Galapagos, using our Skype account. We only had her mobile number and couldn&#8217;t phone from our apartment. We made plans to visit them on Friday.<br><br>We returned to our apartment where we did some Spanish Revision. Jody and Niamh did a few hours of their Australian school work.

... informants and respondents. Though I haven&#8217;t had any of what Russel calls unstructured interviews, I&#8217;ve had a lot of what he calls informal interviewing, being what I would describe as everyday conversations with the locals and the volunteers. And so, beside the knowledge gained from participant observation and introspection, I had to settle on what I got based on these conversations, as Emily, the person I&#8217;ve interviewed, left for the states today Monday the ...

... is a snow covered volcano peak.<br>At the moment it&#8217;s still dry season here or what is called summer. The green rainy season, or winter, is supposed to begin here in September but the latest years the climate has not been as expected. For example, last year the summer never came and so many of the crops drowned due to a long lasting rainy season. Basically it is chilly in the morning, very hot during mid day and quite cold at night.<br>The people of Lumbisi are very nice and friendly ...

... the walls from mud and stone<br><br>The highlight of the road trip is the volcano, Quilotoa, that last erupted in 1796 and now has a lake in its crater, although Chasqui said that the volcano itself was still active.<br><br>The rim was only 3,800m and the lake 3,500m. We walked down to the lake via a small goat trail off the main tourist route. It is narrow and hard work. You cannot trust that the stone you place a foot on is not loose leading to an alarming slip toward the edge of ...

... lost and/or overwhelmed gringo to go to their destination. When said gringo names an alternative destination, the conductors motions towards the correct conductor, who excitedly grabs the bags for said gringo and runs after a bus that has usually &#8216;just left the station&#8217;, manages to get the bags into the hold of the bus and help the by now confused gringo take a running jump onto the moving bus. This system works perfectly - no need to read bus ...

... s trying to rip us off, w*s like get outt* here to the dude *nd then the guy w*lked *w*y. geez. chris used *ll five of the words he knew though (none of them swe*rs unfortun*tely) but it w*s good pr*ctice.<br><br>i´m kind of tired of everybody trying to rip us off (seriously h*ve never been *nywhere like this before) *nd *m looking forw*rd to moving on to peru.<br><br>*nd MJ died tod*y? wow... <br>

... zu reissen.<br>Der Bus nach Otavalo war auch leicht zu finden und<br>meine erste Busfahrt von nur zwei Stunden war recht schnell vorueber.<br>Der Eindruck nach wie vor, dass alles sehr gruen ist. Viel Verkehr,<br>teils recht chaotisch. <br>Der Bus faehrt fast leer los und innerhalb<br>von wenigen Stopps (keine offiziellen, diese per Handzeichen) ist der<br>Bus voll, aber nicht ueberfuellt ...

I awoke in Quito feeling fresh as a dasiy and ready to enjoy the day. After a great breakfast at the hotel and a nice pedi with mom, we hailed a taxi to head to the bus, but the taxi driver offered us a good enough price for a ride the whole way, so we bit. Unfortunately, we only made it about halfway, and then the radiator hose broke. After a few more transfers we arrived safely at my parents´house, which is just off the Panamerican highway, a little past the town of ...