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How chilled my work is...
My colleagues watching a world cup match! Hey guys,
Sorry it´s been a while since my last entry. The good news is that you get to hear more in just one blog!
Thanks again for all the messages - it´s lovely to know that people are following me 😊 I can´t believe that I've been here 4 weeks!
Results As many of you know already, I received my results a couple of weeks ago. I got a 2:1 which I'm highly chuffed about! I now have 'MEng Civil Engineering with Industrial Experience' on my CV - still seems very surreal! I've been told by my coursemates that I received the highest in my year for my dissertation on my placement (78%!)(MISSING). A first time for everything I suppose! I can only thank the experts at Atkins for all their help 😊
So what´s happened since we were on the zip wires in Mindo? Well during the weekdays it´s just work work work with ocassional trips to the cinema, bar or restaurant in the evenings. When we stay in and cook for ourselves we watch the cheap DVDs that we've started to collect whilst being here! It´s difficult to do a lot else as it
gets dark really early (about 6.30pm).
Work Work´s a little better since I last wrote. I´ve had to input LOADS of data into spreadsheets from questionnaires that were given to Ecuadorians on the coast. Although it´s not really been engineering, it´s been really interesting to see some of the answers (and obviously helps improve my spanish vocab). The aims of the questions are to establish how much people are prepared to pay for water supply and drainage services and to find out their social backgrounds (e.g. this is important for sanitation issues). I´ve come across some interesting families so far. For example, a man who became a father at the age of nearly 70! And a girl who became a mother at the age of 12! (And no this wasn´t relating to the same child!) The incomes seem to vary tremendously as well with some hardly receiving enough to live on and others getting a lot more.
I´m actually off to the coast this weekend (leaving tonight!) so I guess I may see all this for myself. I´m going with a group of 14 to Montañita, which is about a 10 hour drive from Quito! More IAESTE students
arrived this week so I´m looking forward to meeting them.
Sat 19th - Sun 20th June So two weekends have passed since my last blog. The first one (Sat 19th) was spent in
Otavalo at the fabulous indiginous market. Otavaleños are famous for weaving textiles, usually made of wool. Although all the scarves, jumpers etc were tempting to buy, they seemed like they would itch a lot and so I stuck to buying the smaller souvenirs that would fit in my suitcase easier.
After grabbing lunch in a touristy restaurant, we caught a bus to a nearby waterfall. It was here where I received a call from my parents and had a strop on the mountain (for which I still apologise for)! Unfortunately just before leaving home, my bank cancelled my card and so my parents have had to forward me my new one (which obviously takes quite a while to receive). To top it all, there are very few places in Quito that accept travellers cheques (which the bulk of my money has been in)! You can imagine how frought I was at the time not knowing when I was going to be able to have money!
I managed to find somewhere last week that exchanged my cheques (after my colleague and I were sent on a wild goose chase from bank to bank) and so I now have enough money until I receive my bank card - panic over!
After returning from Otavalo, Markus, Stephan, Nadia and I went out in Mariscal. There´s a new law here in Ecuador that means everywhere has to stop serving alcohol at 2am on a Saturday night and NOWHERE (including stores) is allowed to sell alcohol on a Sunday! So yeah, because we were running pretty late, we didn´t make it to a club and so only experienced the city´s bars. Was quite frustrating as we were all up for a big night out but were thrown out!
The day after our trip to Otovalo was the most laziest day we've had. All we did was stock up on food and watch DVDs!
Fri 25th - Sun 27th June Last weekend was a tiring one. A large group of us went out on Friday night in Mariscal. Again we didn't make it to a club though! This was because the entrance fee to the one the majority
wanted to go to was $15. Instead we stayed in one of the small bars which played all sorts of music from salsa to 'Hammer Time'!
A late rise was hence necessary on Saturday but when we did get up, we went to la Casa de la Cultura which houses El Museo del Banco Central, a museum with exhibits including gold artifacts, colonial paintings and sculptures from the diverse ranges of Ecuadorian cultures. We then headed to a cheap shopping centre in search of warm clothes. None of us fancied any of them and it was more of a centre for electronics and games. Needless to say, more DVDs purchased!!! We grabbed food in Mariscal Foch before heading back to watch Shrek 3!
Sunday was the big day... we climbed Pichincha, a volcano which overlooks Quito (obviously after England's final world cup match which I won't mention further). We caught the TeleferiQo, a new gondola lift taking us from Quito at 2950 metres (8850 ft) up the east side of Pichincha to 4100 metres (13,400 ft). From here we climbed in an attempt to reach the Rucu ("old person") peak lying at (4,698 metres (15,413 ft)). I think
you can all guess what I mean by saying 'in an attempt to'! Our large group was split into two and obviously I was in the slower group. Because of the time, the increasing altitude, the lowering temperature and the lowering clouds, before Nadia, Laetitia and I got anywhere near the top, we were advised not to carry on! When we met the others on the way back down from the peak, we were told that we were the last ones on the mountains. After about 4 hours of hiking, we made a quick descent back down to the TeleferiQo and finally Quito. Although I didn't make it to the top, I still feel we got quite far up and beyond the clouds there was no view to admire anyway! I think my group had it best haha.
So it's now Thursday evening (6pm) and I'm just about to leave work. We're meant to be setting off on our 10-hour road trip at 9pm but I'm not so sure as that's 9pm Ecuadorian time! With any luck, we should be in Montañita at 7am tomorrow and drinking Mojitos on the beach this time tomorrow night!
More updates on
our trip to the coast next week!
Hope you're all well.
Cathy xxx
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Pam
non-member comment
Hello
I have just read your last entry, looks as though you are still having fun. Not long left now so make the most of the experience.