Casa Aliso Quito

... been having a helluva day trying to get my head around it. But as Caroline said, "we´re lucky we haven´t been stabbed, or kidnapped, or in a bus accident, or who knows what else is possible here". I just lost stuff that was important to me. If it was important, I should have taken better care of it. Now that we´ve experienced 24 hours in Quito, Ecuador, this experience has left a sour taste in my mouth for this country and ...

... naar 4500m gereden en hebben vanaf daar een tocht van 2km afgelegd naar de hoogte van 4800m. Het stijlste stuk was 45%. Door de hoogte was het enorm lastig om de afstand te overwinnen. Na enkele passen voelden we ons hart al in ons keel kloppen en werden we kortademig. Door traag te stappen en veel te pauzeren is het uiteindelijk toch gelukt om naar de refugio te stappen. Daar wachtte een lekkere, warme chocolademelk op ons. De rest van de groep ...

... hasn’t kicked in yet so watering two times daily is still necessary. Laura, Abby and Ruth have mainly been working in the FEVI child care center for 2-5 year olds and also Robinson and I have been participating here. Everyone has also helped out in the dining hall for the elderly of Lumbisi as well as with the English teaching.

Shortly after the four new volunteers had arrived we all sat down and had an organizing meeting where we planned our work schedules. We ...

... reason, and then play peek-a-boo. I managed to have a short conversation with her between her giggles which I thought was quite fitting as my Spanish is probably the level of a three-year old!

We had arranged for a taxi to take us straight to our hostel from Quito airport, as by the time we disembarked and got through customs it was nearly 1am. We finally tumbled into bed after 2:30am Toronto time, shattered from the stressful week of selling the car and obtaining visas and the ...

... mini-night´s sleep we finally landed in Santiago, where I had to disembark for my next flight through to Quito. From Santiago after 3 hours waiting I took another flight on a lousy Qantas domestic-type plane, except we didn´t even get headsets. One poor guy didn´t even seem to have a seat!! That flight took about 7 hours with, you guessed it, another stop, this time in Guayaquil, thought this time we didn´t have to disembark ...

... uncomfortable particularly at the dinner table where my conversation skills are limited to please pass the bread, this is good, I´m finished etc. Lorena also has a son - Isaac who is three but doesn´t appear to live with her. Isaac was so excited to meet me he insisted on ´carrying´ my bag in when I arrived, by this I mean dragged, although i was still quite impressed as it was a pretty good effort for a 3 year old. Isaac also ...

... we needed a taxi booking, and unfortunately the usual woman who speaks a fair bit of English wasn´t there, instead usurped by a rather tedious man who spoke none (let´s call him Pedro). With my patchy Spanish I got him to book the taxi for 6.45pm, which he did. He then thoroughly confused us by banging on about, from what I understood, the fact that apparently the bus terminal has moved (blatantly hadn´t) and a whole load of oher stuff that was simply irelevant and served only to ...

... it to a charity as that is another thing he does in Ecuador. Happiness all round!
So I was up early and it was a full group. Driving out of Quito you realise how high you are and how much open spaces there are for such a little country. Lots of mountains and valleys, really beautiful. We went first to a quieter part of the equator (so I wont bother to go to the more ostentatious one where a few people got their bags slashed bussing it) and it was low key but quite cool. There are all ...

After Banos our next stop was the capital of Ecuador - Quito! As it looks like we will be back and forth to Quito over the next 3 weeks we decided to spend just 24 hours here on our first visit. Quito is a big sprawling city surrounded by lush green mountains and dormant volcanoes. It's also overlooked by a little known monument - a huge statue of an Angel - very similar to the statue of Christ in Rio ...

... it the second highest capital city in the world. I thought it was more beautiful than Lima and is the gateway for many other destinatons in Ecuador. The city has a population of 1,3 million people where the Ecuadorean locals generally seemed more taller, bigger and lighter than the average Peruvian. They are either of European descent, mestizos (mixture of indigenous and Spanish) or indigenas (the local indigenous population). Either Spanish or ...