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Published: January 12th 2010
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Car Ride From Airport
Teeny car, lots of luggage, lots of people! Our New Life In Quito, Ecuador Journal entry - January 12, 2010
After a rental car drive to Portland, OR (in a brand new Hyundai Santa Fe “Mom, can we get one of these”, asked Marleigh), a night’s stay at the Ramada Inn (I guess you could call it a “night’s stay”….if getting up at 3:15 am counts), two plane flights later (first to the ahmmm…the G.W. Bush International airport in Houston, TX….then a 4-hour wait….dum-de-dum-de-dum….then finally we take a close to 5-hr flight to Quito, Ecuador.
We landed at about 10:30 pm EST, went through the customs, grabbed our 200 lbs of gear and as we came out to the front area, we looked for our pick-up in and amongst the throngs of people carrying signs and yelling “taxi”, “taxi”, “taxi”. We found Marianna and her daughter, Marie Jose, waiting for us with a sign and balloon. Marianna and Marie Jose immediately noticed our height….Marianna, who is my age, stands maybe 2-3 inches taller than Marleigh…and Marie Jose, age 15, is about the same.
Marianna told us the car would be here shortly…when it arrived…no lie…it wasn’t any bigger than a Ford Fiesta or Geo Metro. Can you
upstairs
our living quarters imagine all of our 200 lbs of gear and heavy day-packs and the four of us and Marianna and Maria Jose and the driver all fitting in? Well, we have the pictures to prove it!
We arrived to nuestro casa nueva after about 30-minutes of driving. Marianna’s husband, Fran, hoisted each of our 50 lb bags on his shoulder, climbed up the steep steps to our living area…and then did that four more times…
While we had hoped to sleep in our first night, the equatorial morning sun came streaming into our window at 6:30 am. We both woke up groggy and with slight headaches…I guess one should expect that as Quito is situated at over 9,500 feet in elevation. And - here we are, settling in nicely to a new family routine. On Sunday, we unpacked, chatted with the host family (solamente en Espanol…as there is a house rule that when we are downstairs with the family…NO INGLES) and walked around the area. After lunch, Marianna wanted to take us to a big grocery store so she could get some food that Marleigh would eat (pasta, cheese), so we walked through the barrio, purchased a pod of
quito view
view of quito fresh guava, walked up to “Puente 3” where we had our first (of many to come) Ecuadorian bus ride into downtown Quito. We went to this ‘Maxi-mall’ - apparently the second largest mall in all of South American where I purchased un tarjeta de SIM for the cell phone.
( We have a new number while we are here, but it costs 45 cents/min to call the U.S.A. If any of you feel you must have it…please send us an email…and we’ll get it to you.) Then Marleigh wanted helado and then we purchased some food at this place that is sort of like a Wal-Mart, without the Wal-Mart prices. We are quickly noticing that locally produced veg is very, very cheap, the bus ride is cheap (20 cents), but most everything else here costs just as much as the U.S., if not more. Meanwhile, the salaries in Ecuador are considerably less than U.S. salaries. We finished our shopping and caught the bus back. Once again, all the seats were taken and we were standing in the aisle, trying not to fall as the bus jerked all over the place. A word of advice when on a bus -
barrio near house
local neighborhood near where we are staying give up your sense of personal space, people are more or less touching and breathing on each other and getting on and off the bus is a push and shove match. I will say that as Marleigh was situated very close to the doors, a young Ecuadorian man put his foot up the railing to prevent her from falling out of the bus. Que Bueno!
Spanish lessons started yesterday. The girls have the same teacher, Rosario. She comes to the house each day and works with them. Andy and I have Marianna. Yesterday, Marianna began to tell us some of the history of Ecuador and what happened to the country when the Presidente changed the currency from the Sucre to the Dollar. It is a sad and tragic story and reminds us of all of our good fortunes in the U.S. After our lessons and almuerzo, we took another bus and went to the historic district of Quito. While I am not a religious person, the Iglesias (churches) are absolutely holy places to enter. Marianna took us to the presidential square and told us of some of the history of Quito as we walked around. We walked down Calle
view from house
our view from the house Rondo, which made me feel as though I was instantly in Spain (even though I’ve never been). The narrow cobbled street, white washed buildings and perros peeking out the window balcony…. If you can believe, the bus ride back out was even more insane than the day before (what is insane to us is normal to Ecuadorians). Marleigh thinks the bus rides are “AWESOME”. To close, I have to say that Ansley and Marleigh are adjusting well and seem to be enjoying themselves. They are re-remember that the toilet paper goes into the bucket not into the toilet (although yesterday Marleigh screams from the bathroom “Mom, I accidently put the toilet paper in the toilet…how do I get it out?”), and that we don’t drink or brush with tap water. Susan, thanks for the tip about using candles in the bathroom…una Buena idea…
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Barb Eager
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estoy con ustedes en mi corazon y el cerebro...adelante...Barb