Studying Spanish in Quito

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I have now been in Quito for two and a half weeks and I'm half way through my Spanish lessons, so it's about time to update everybody about how things are going here!

17th Oct - 2nd November - Quito, Ecuador

I'm staying with a host family - a mother, daughter and a dog (a very lovely poodle (although he has bitten the fingers of two of the other students who have been staying here)). (Poodles appear to be the dog to have, in this part of Quito at any rate.) They have all been very kind and welcoming. I don't see much of the daughter because she has her own life. She is working on the construction of the new metro system that they are introducing in Quito. Gloria, our host mother, provides us with breakfast and supper every day and also provides an opportunity to practise a bit of Spanish. When I first arrived there were three other students here, but for most of the time it has just been me and a boy from Germany, Joshua. Joshua is young and quiet, but lovely. I think if Joshua and I were talking in Spanish to each other our conversations would be very limited so we cheat and speak English. English is also the main language of communication between the students I've met at the school (no surprise there), despite the large number of Germans studying there.

I have a room with a desk, an ensuite bathroom and a tv (although I don't know if the tv works as I've been watching films and programmes in English on my iPad instead!) It's a large, comfortable house with four floors. Upstairs there is a roof patio with fantastic views of the mountains. All in all, staying with a host family is a much better option that staying in a hostel or a hotel for 5 weeks although the house is a bit further from the school than most of the other students and there is less opportunity to go out in the evening because it's generally considered to be unsafe after dark away from the main tourist bits. I'm not entireply convinced that it's that much more dangerous than London or Manchester, and I miss walking around the city at night, but it's better to be safe than sorry so I've been taking taxis.

It's amazing how quickly you can establish a routine. I have lessons in the morning from 8:30 until 12:30. In the first week I also had an extra two hours of "culture" in the afternoon which I'll explain more about in a bit. The school arranges activities at 5pm most days and I've been to salsa lessons for the last two Tuesdays. (The first week 6 hours of classes a day plus homework was enough!) On Wednesdays I have been going to bible study. Fortunately there is a bilingual Vineyard church about 15 minute walk from where I'm staying which I found on the Internet before I arrived. The Wednesday bible study is in English (more cheating!) and it's been very healthy to have the opportunity to set aside some time for reading the bible with others again. The majority of the rest of the people who attend are American and work in an International school here. It is hosted by an American couple who have four children and moved here 10 years ago.

I spend a lot of my lesson time talking, which is good because that's what I need to practise but sometimes I just want to do some grammar exercises because it gets tiring. I have studied quite a lot of grammar and done some reading too. The discussions we have are usually quite interesting. Some of the topics we have covered are: why Brexit is such a bad thing from Britain, what the difference is between England, Great Britain and the UK, who Leeds United and Leicester City are, why on earth Trump even stands a chance in the election next week (neither of us can explain that one), the troubles in Venezuela and the nature of teaching in England. Today we talked about the systems of Government and election in Britain, Ecuador and the US. In Ecuador voting is compulsory. Voting takes place on a Sunday and you are not allowed to drink alcohol outside of your house from the Thursday before until 12pm on the Monday after! They have extra police and the military out on the streets in the main cities to enforce this law and if you are caught drinking you can expect to spend a night in prison!!

My life in Quito is definitely much slower than the rest of my travels have been so far. I'm using the time to catch up on my blog and trying to plan out future travels a bit more because I think the rest of the year is going to be busy. However I've also just been watching quite a lot of TV. It's nice to have the time to do so, and studying is quite tiring, but it's probably not always the best use of my time. It's only for a couple more weeks though.

I'm gradually getting to know my way around the centre of Quito where I am based. It's actually quite easy because the mountains make it long and narrow and you can orienate yourself quite quickly by looking up at them too. The road network is basically a grid so that helps too. There are two main tourist areas; the Old Town, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, and the area where the school is which is full of bars, restaurants, hostels and hotels. It is more developed than I was expecting - I thought there would be pockets of poor housing around. I know that in the south of the city there is a lot more poverty, but I haven't seen the same sort of poverty that I experienced in Peru yet. A bit further north from here there are some very posh houses, and apparently there is a lot of money to be found in the suburbs too. Transport is cheap and food is reasonable but clothes are expensive. When the sun is out it can be very hot, but quite often it clouds over in the afternoon and we have had some proper stormy weather on occasions. You usually need a jumper in the evening but it doesn't get really cold. My biggest complaint would be how slowly people walk - and they take up the whole pavement so it's hard to overtake. Joshua pointed it out last week and now I notice it all the time! However, over all it's an easy city to live in.There have been two American couples and an English man at the school who have decided to move here following their retirement! One of the couples are not planning to stay here indefinitely though - they want to live in different countries all over the world - very inspiring. I met another couple today who are from Holland and have just moved here from Sierra Leone to work as doctors here for the foreseeable future.

Obviously not very day follows the same routine so here are some of the other things I've been up to:

Light Show

The first week I was here coincided with the UN conference on Urban Development - Habitat III. I think many of the people on my flight over had come for the Conference. I actually got to go to a bit of it one morning during my lessons which was great. It was amazing to see so many countries working together to make cities a better place to live (although I met an Austrian guy who had attended the Conference at the weekend who said that it hadn't been very well organised to facilitate discussions.) I also met another student who is here from the Philippines. We compared the state of different countries and the craziness of their leaders but she won! We learnt a bit about other parts of Ecuador, got to try food from around Ecuador and Cameroon, and had an interesting chat with the representative from Palestine. We also sat in on part of a discussion about how street vendors can be used to help with things like safety in cities. They had a street vendor from the US and from Lima on the panel. I would have liked to have stayed longer but unfortunately I had to get back to the school for my afternoon lesson.

As well as the Conference, there was a light show in Quito the first week I was here. It was in the Old Town and it reminded me a bit of the random lights in London at the beginning of the year but on a smaller scale. Neither of the students I was staying with at the time wanted to go but fortunately Gloria and her friend said that they would go. Unfortunately I don't have any photos because my teacher advised me not to take a camera because it might get stolen (and then asked me if I had taken any photos the next day!) Getting into town was an experience in itself. It was soooo busy. We had to wait a while for a trolley bus and all the time more and more people were coming on to the platform. When a trolley with some space on it finally turned up, there was literally a scrum to get on, which was especially dangerous because there was quite a big gap between the bus and the platform. One poor lady was pushed to the floor. The bus then took more than an hour to get to our destination. (Normally it's 15 mins max.)

The city was packed and by the floodlit churches it was almost impossible to move. There were a few places with static lights displayed which were nice, but the main attractions were the three churches with animations projected on to them with accompanying music. The first one showed some of the culture of Ecuador but my favourite was the one with star systems and planets. It was a good introduction to the old town too. Other students went on other nights but it sounds like they were all equally busy. We stopped for a snack at about 9:30 in a really nice cafe which is in a covered square just off the main square. It's a lovely place full of restaurants and worthy of further exploration.

Culture Lessons

As I mentioned before, in the first week that I was here I had culture lessons in the afternoon. The first afternoon was particularly hot and my teacher was not happy walking around. She recommended a couple of ATMs (that turned out not to work particularly well - it turns out that ATMs can be a bit temperamental about whether or not they want to give you money here) and pointed out a supermarket. We then had a look round an artisan market where I bought some local chocolate. We spent the last half an hour at school because my teacher had had enough of the heat.

On the second day we went to a food market which is actually very close to where I'm staying. The usual advice is not to eat food in the markets but my teacher recommended some places and I tried a local dish. It was nice but filling - pork and mashed potatoes. One of the places served something that seemed to be a very close resemblance to fish and chips - traditional food from the coast of Ecuador! After I had eaten, we spent some time looking around the rest of the market with my teacher trying to teach me the names of various vegetables, fruits and flowers. (I don't remember any of them!) We also tried a sweet dish that they had which looks like ice cream, and even comes in a cone, but is more like soft meringue. My morning teacher told me that diabities is the biggest killer in Ecuador and I'm sure their preference for large amounts of sugar in everything ia contributing factor.

On Wednesday we went into the Old Town and to the Basilica. It gas two towers that you can climb that give great views of the city but have very steep ladders in places - not for those who don't like heights. This was my favourite afternoon but wasn't much use for improving my Spanish because my teacher didn't come in with me.

On Thursday we went into the Old Town again, this time to walk around a bit more and visit one of the churches. Ecuador being a Catholic country, the churches are very ornate and golden. I need to go back and visit more but I'm trying to pace myself as I still have two more weeks and a couple of days to explore. We only went in to one church. I've included a picture of the virgin of Banos in this entry because I think she looks like a Barbie Doll.

On the last day we visited a museum with information about the different tribes and customs from various parts of the country. It was very interesting.

Quilotoa

On Saturday 22nd October I went to Quilotoa on a day trip organised by the school. It was an early start (7am)! There were about 7 students, one of the teachers, a guide (who did nothing) and his son and the driver. Quilotoa is south of Quito and has a lake created by a volcano that fell in on itself. It takes a while to get there and we had several stops on the way. The first stop was just outside Quito at a place where you get great views over the city, particularly of the southern part. We then saw a mountain top where the indigenous tribes used to make sacrifices to the sun god. Next we stopped at the largest town in the region that has a big market on Saturdays. I was surprised to see so many people in traditional dress mixed in with those wearing jeans and a sweater. We tried some red bananas and wandered around for a bit, pleased to be able to stretch our legs. Our final stop was a look out over a canyon close to the town with the market.

Finally we arrived at our destination. Unfortunately we managed to lose one of our group during a trip to the bathroom. It turned out that he had taken himself off to start the descent to the lake. Fortunately Quilotoa's a small place so we found him in the end.The top of the volcano is 3800m. It was quite cold and you could feel the altitude, especially on the walk back up from the lake. Unfortunately it was a pretty cloudy day so the lake didn't look quite as "emerald green" as had been promised. It was quite impressive nonetheless. To get to the lake you have to make your way down a sandy path that is quite steep in places. Walking down it reminded me of skiing; we were slowly inching our way down when suddenly we would be passed by local children running down without any difficulties or fear. You would also be passed regularly by a mule or two. (That part was very different from my skiing experiences.) The miles were available to hire, mainly for the journey back up the path.

I did make it down in the end. There was one part with a swing out over the lake which I didn't go on. From here you could see steam coming up from the water in places, although the volcano is no longer active. However when I tried to get closer I found the path too difficult to navigate. I stuck my hand in the water to see how cold it was. It wasn't too bad but I wouldn't have wanted to go for a swim. Unless you wanted to hire a kayak, there wasn't much to do at the bottom so it was soon for the climb back up. This was hard, hard work due to the altitude. Other members of the group did hire a mule, but I wanted to walk up, knowing that it was going to be slow progress. I made my way up with a German girl. On our way we passed a tv crew who asked if they could interview my companion. Her spoken Spanish was good so she gave it a go, but she found it hard to understand the questions so I was standing out of camera shot translating into English. Then they asked to interview me too. Mainly they wanted to know what we liked about the place and if we would recommend it to other people. My spoken Spanish is still a mixture of Spanish and Italian so I don't know if they ever used the bits that they filmed. I think I'll tell people I was on tv in Ecuador anyway.

When we did finally make it to the top, about an hour later, we had a late lunch (3pm), in a local restaurant. I was very excited to discover they had Inca Cola. The others in the group were less impressed when they tasted it. By the time we left the restaurant, the clouds had completely come down and you could hardly see anything in front of you. The journey back to Quito was largely uneventful and we arrived back at about 7pm.

Oktoberfest

As I mentioned, there are a large number of German students at the school so last week the school decided to have its own version of Oktoberfest. It was a well attended event and quite a few people who have finished studying and are now volunteering came too. It started with a bar-b-que with beer followed by a cocktail making session. The first cocktail was basically rum and coke with lime. Mine had almost no rum and far too much lime. I think my second cocktail - a mojito - was more successful. The event finished with a night trip around town on a party bus. My teacher assures me it's a very Quito thing to do, especially when Quito celebrates its birthday at the beginning of December. It felt like an odd thing to do on random Thursday evening. As I said to Joshua afterwards, it's the sort of thing I would actively avoid in London but you do all sorts of things you wouldn't normally do when you're travelling. By the time everything had finished it felt like it was really late but, because we had started at 3:30pm, it was actually only about 9:30pm. Joshua and I decided to call it a night, but quite a few of the others went out for more drinks. It was a quieter Friday at school the next day.

Last weekend

The weekend just gone I spent in Quito. On Saturday I went up the chairlift that can be seen from the house where I'm staying and my classroom. This week I found myself at an altitude of over 4000m and then climbed higher. Walking at altitude is tough but I'm sure it must be good for you. I was fortunate to have a clear day on which to go up and when I first reached the top you could see Cotopaxi and another snow capped mountain. I was very pleased about this until my teacher told me on Monday that on a really clear day you can see three snowy peaks. It didn't take long for the two that I could see to disappear behind the clouds too. At the top there is a small chapel and a path you can take which ultimately leads to the top of the mountain. I walked quite a lot of the path but turned back after a bit because the cloud was starting to come down and my guide book had said that there had been some rapes and burglaries at gunpoint on the path so it was best not to walk it alone. It was quite busy at the start but it had started to get quieter the further I walked. I think turning back when I did was a good decision, but when I looked at the map I was less impressed with how far I had walked. For most of the walk back I was joined by a guy from India who was in Quito for work and who had left his manager waiting for him by the chairlift a couple of hours earlier.

When we got back nearer to the start, I decided to stop and soak in the view for a bit so we parted ways. I finally made my way back down when the clouds had come in so much that you couldn't really see any of the view. At the bottom, the Austrian guy who had been to the Conference asked if I wanted to share a taxi into town, which was lucky because I had been thinking to walk to save some money and this would have proved to be quite difficult. We took the taxi to the Old Town which gave me the opportunity to wander around here again for the first time that week before I finally made my way back to the house.

Sunday was hot! When I got the bus in the afternoon, it said that it was 33 degrees C. I went to the 8:30 service at church for the first time. The other two Sundays I went to the service at 10:10 which is in Spanish. The earlier service is in English. I went to this one this week because I wanted to hear Beth, who leads the bible study on Wednesday, preach and I was planning to go to Mitad del Mundo - which I eventually did. I had much more clarity on the notices this week! After church I walked up to a park that is nearby and is home to the botanical gardens. This is my new favourite place in Quito. I was torn between just hanging out there and doing the trip that I had planned. In the end the trip won because I'm not sure when else I would go. However I will definitely be spending more time in Carolina park.

My trip to the middle of the world was my first experience of getting a bus on my own. I got a bit worried at the beginning when the bus appeared to be going in completely the wrong direction (i.e. south instead of north), but it all worked out well. The man who ended up sitting next to me asked for English lessons but I declined and tried to direct him to one of the other English speaking churches here that has free lessons, but I couldn't remember the name of the church.

The Mitad del Mundo is where the equator is. There is a large tourist attraction there with a monument, museums, shops and restaurants. There is a red line on the gr to represent the equatorial line. However this is not the equator. It's actually a few hundred yards further on. Both my teachers and people on Trip Advisor had told me this before I went so I knew to go to the museum around the corner when I had finished visiting the monument. I also chose not to go into the museum inside the monument because apparently it's not great. However I was luck enough to stumble across a dance and music festival in the square by the monument.

The second museum was definitely worth a visit, as everyone had said, especially as you actually get to the equator there. It's very small and you have to have a guide. I joined a group of Canadians and Americans (who said they might be moving to Canada after next Tuesday) who were on an organised tour around Ecuador (or possibly mainly the Galápagos Island). In the museum you get to stand on the line and witness or try all of the experiments that you would expect to do at the equator. We saw the water go down the drain in different directions and our guide successfully balanced an egg on the head of a nail. I tried the latter but am blaming the wind for my failure.

Writing about the Galápagos Islands reminded me of my task of booking my trip for the end of this month. My teacher had initially recommended staying on one of the islands and booking day trips as a cheaper option, but when we went to one of the many agencies in one of my lessons, it turned out that they still had some good offers for the dates I wanted and I have been able to book a nice cruise at a much reduced price. However booking it turned out to take a while. The agent was lovely but made some fundamental mistakes. I was able to catch the first one when she was booking our return flight from the wrong island, but unfortunately the flights out that we booked at first landed after the boat is due to leave. She tried to tell me that it was a boat companies fault because they hadn't told her that this particular trip leaves earlier than the one she usually books, but I think she should have checked first. Fortunately we were able to change the flights without an additional cost and I think everything is now arranged. The only outstanding issue is that the payment disappeared from my credit card statement today. I have most of the rest of the month to sort it out so hopefully a successful trip to the islands will be part of a future blog.

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