Managed to get up and out of bed in good time despite the cold. Amazingly the broken bed had held - I think we all have a new calling in life! Despite the good start we got stuck in a nearby cafe having breakfast so we didn´t actually make it to the site until 11.am. Managed to wangle our way inside for half price thanks to our lovely international student cards! (Honestly, because $6 is far too much to pay for anything - don´t know how I´m going to cope with English prices once I get home!) We went to the museum first and them onto the site where a guide did try to attach herself to us. No point having one really as the museum pretty much said no-one really knows what Ingapirca is ... read more

First day of work today and Louisa and I actually managed to walk there without a) getting totally lost or b) being incredibly late. A pretty good start if I do say so myself! We´re working at Adinea, a school for disabled kids, in the mornings and at an orphanage in the afternoons. School´s ok but can get a little boring as there is already a university student, Maro, on work experience there so there isn´t a whole lot to do. Me and Louisa are in different classes, I´m with Greta who is incredibly vague. At break the teachers just wander around the playground talking to each other while we are left to break up the very frequent and really quite brutal fights. The kids are gorgeous but so physical whether it´s hugging you or hitting ... read more

We woke up bright and early for another visit to the Embassy this morning. This time, it turned out we were going to the GAP offices in Quito for various stuff. Unfortunately Rossy only speaks Spanish so a lot of it went over my head and the stuff I did get seemed to be aimed at those staying in Quito. Never mind. We had to give in more documents including our passports which are going to be posted (!) down to Cuenca in five days time. Really not happy about that especially after hearing how terrible the postal system is here. Still, after that I managed to find a book shop were I bought a phrase book and some of the others bought Harry Potter in Spanish. I´m yet to find a real English book shop ... read more

Well, we have a free day today before we have to start running round the Embassy tomorrow. The plan to go to Mindo fell through as some had to be at the airport to meet Georgia and Ben, the last two GAPpers who weren´t doing the Spanish course. We decided instead to go to Quito zoo which, just to confuse us is not in Quito but is situated Guallybamba, about an hours drive away. First, however, we had to stop off at the Hilton to pick up Sophie´s travel pillow which had been brought halfway across the world by a kindly neighbour who was heading out to Ecuador after she left it behind. Really quite random. We set off on the instructions of a policeman which turned out to be the wrong way. Next some woman ... read more

Quite predictably I was not awake for school today. However we managed to be reasonably on time (meaning that my teacher was even later so I could pretend I´d been there for ages!) Did the past tense finally - kind of need it to have a conversation - and then went out to a fruit market in order to ´practise my Spanish´. I got some interesting fruit anyway - basically bought anything I didn´t recognise and Carlos couldn´t translate! In all seriousness I did manage a conversation about the English school system and differences between countries. Actually just turned into me complaining about England! Seems weird that I´ve already been here two weeks and very scary that all my Spanish lessons are over! Hopefully it will seriously improve with practise. Had lunch then met up with ... read more