Being made part of the family in Ecuador.....

My first experience of life in Quito is looking straight into the living rooms of its inhabitants from the window of my plane as it comes into land. It´s quite alarming when you´re so close you can see the glow of a television set, never mind that for them they have to put up with Boeing 747s coming into land just yards away from their homes.

Slightly unnerving landing over I´m taken to meet the family I will be staying with for the next 5 weeks. All I can say is it´s a relief. After the accomodation in Guatemala (they were a lovely family but the living was basic) I had, if I´m honest, been mentally preparing myself. But my room is bright, airy, tastefully decorated and I even have a wardrobe (it´s amazing what pleases me nowadays)! Furthermore, with the exception of the bathroom (see photo and caption) this could easily be a flat like any in England. My sense of relief is quite sadly, huge.

My host is an extremely sweet Ecuadorian lady called Ana Maria. She´s in her seventies and lives on her own, but as I find out pretty quickly she has an extremely large extended family. On Sunday morning almost half of them come round for lunch; she has five children, ten grand-children and at least a few great-grandchildren. They invite me to have lunch with them and there are so many people we have to eat in two sittings.

After that Ana Maria, Roberto (one of her sons) and his teenage daughter, Danni, take me to El Panecillo (literally The Little Bread Loaf), a hill to the south of Quito. Sitting on top of the hill is a very large statue of La Virgen de Quito and from here I get to see just how immense Quito is as it sprawls way, way into the distance.

Monday is my first day at language school. Like the school I went to in Guatemala I spend four hours every morning learning Spanish, except that this time it´s on a one-to-one basis which is much more intense. I´m pleasantly surprised at how much I seem to have picked up in two months of travelling and my teacher spends the week making me learn new and ever more confusing variations of the past tense, even getting onto the very complicated subjunctive by the end of the week. I now know a fair amount in theory (Yolande´s a great and very patient teacher) but am yet to use most of it in reality. It´s all a bit much to take in that quickly.

Unlike the school in Guatemala however, this one is much, much smaller. For my first two days the only other student I see is a British girl called Anna, who introduces me to the delights of "Gringoland", an area of new Quito which abounds with internet cafes, English book shops, restuarants and cool bars. By Thursday I´ve only met one other student, Marielle, an ex-teacher from Britain who like me is taking 6 months out to figure out what she wants to do with her life.

In the afternoons my family keep me occupied almost every day. On Tuesday Roberto, Danni, and Roberto´s sister Titania, take me to the Museo Guayasamin, the home of Ecuador´s most famous indigenous painter. After that we go back to Titainia´s house where we´re joined by Andrea (Roberto´s other teenage daughter), Nicolas (Titania´s son) and his mate. It turns out this is one serious card playing family and we spend the evening round the table where I think I learn about 7 new games. They´re a great famly and the two teenage girls are espcecially good at explaining things to me simply and clearly. But it´s still one seriously steep learning curve and despite it being fun, by the end of the evening I am completely mentally exhausted. Listening to and then attempting to talk all the time in a new language takes a huge amount of concentration!

On Wednesday afternoon Roberto, Danni and Andrea take me to Volcan Pichincha, a dormant volcano which sits to the west of the city. Quito sits high in a valley in the Andes at a height of 2,800 metres above sea level. To get near the summit of the volcano we take a cable car, getting out at 4,100 metres. It´s incredibly cold and windy but it´s worth it for the views of Quito and the volcanoes which surround it.

By Friday, despite having a very good week, I´m pretty exhausted and ready for a break, mainly from speaking Spanish! I´m looking forward to the weekend away I´ve planned with Anna and Marielle.

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