Sunday, 12th August, 2007
Sunday i got a taxi first thing in the morning to the Family´s house that i was staying at.. There was a Mum and a son and two daughters staying there.. The Son was called Erwin and was 25 and the two daughters were Stephanie and Monica (18 and 27) and i´ve forgotten the mothers name :-/ (although to my credit it was a different name and difficult to remember).. None of them spoke english so it was an interesting afternoon with Erwin showing me photos and taking me to the internet cafe.. That was about all for Sunday as i had spanish school in the morning so wanted to get an early night - a routine that i would struggle to keep!! hehe..
Monday, 13th August, 2007
Today was my first day of Spanish school and like the first day of Primary school where you don´t have a clue where you are going my Ecuadorian mum walked me to school... awww.. The school was about a 10min bus ride and then another 10min walk from the bus station.. The school was awesome as the people there were very friendly and everyone there was pretty much in the same situation, wanting to learn spanish to travel through South America.. The lessons were 1 on 1 with a spanish tutor and 4 hours a day (...well when you don´t rock up an hour and a half late after staying out til 3am the night before), my tutor was Pablo and he was a great tutor.. The first day was very cool as i met one of my Spanish school friends, Tanis, who was from England and who i got along with really well.. After Spanish school i pretty much went back to the house and then went for a bit of a walk around the local area.. I stumbled into a DVD shop where DVDs are 1.50 each and immediately i was addicted to buying movies!!! I picked up Spanglish as i hadn´t seen it and figured it would possibly be relevant and went back to the house and watched it.. After that i had another early night..
Tuesday, 14th August, 2007
Tuesday was quite a quiet day.. I went to Spanish school and for the second half of the lesson Pablo showed me around some of Quito... However there is one aspect of Tuesday the 14th of August 2007 that is very important.. Today i was introuced to the Charango in a small music shop! A charango is an intrument much like a guitar but a lot smaller and with 10 strings.. It is a instrument that has been used in the South Amercian Andes for many years.. The next day i would go back and purchase it and now i have one! One problem though, at this stage i am unsure how to tune it as the strings are tuned different to guitar but im not exactly sure how!!.. Hopefully i can work it out when i have some time!! I had another quiet night on tuesday night and went to bed early!
Wednesday, 15th August, 2007
Wednesday was super cool! After spanish school in the morning me and some of the people from the spanish school who would soon become my friends for the next 5 or so days went to Mount Pichincha.. There was a huge chairlift which took us to the top (well almost the top anyway at about 4,100m) once we got to the top you could really feel the affect of the high altitude.. it was pretty crazy, i had a headache, felt dizzy and after about 10 meters of walking was out of breath.. After Mount Pichincha i went and purchased my Charango and went to ´papaya.net´ which was the local meeting point for people in the spanish school..
I had been invited out that night with the spanish school gang (to now be reffered to as TSSG) but didn´t really feel up to it so was about to head home from the internet cafe when some of the guys that were heading out came in and talked me into coming out.. So armed with my Charango we headed to the ´Fire place place´ which was another bar that would become quite popular.. Then we went to a club type thingo that had free drinks for girls and no-free drinks for guys (logic that i guess is a world wide phenomenon!) and pretty much stayed there til closing at about 3am..
Thursday, 16th August, 2007
Thursday i rocked up at spanish school at 10:00am, 1 and a half hours late! The second half of the lesson conisisted of us all doing presentations in spanish (basically reading what Pablo had prepared for me while waiting for me to arrive!) on a specific fruit that we gathered from the markets the day before.. This was actually quite fun and after the speeches we all did these dances and stuff, which everyone found quite funny, although we may still have all been drunk from the night before!
So after heading home after spanish school for a nap for the afternoon i met up with TSSG again at ´Papaya.net´ and we all went out for Andrews last night in Quito.. We went to another club type place and i even got out my dancing shoes (Something usually restricted to weddings when forced to dance).. Once again some of us stayed out til closing at 3am again and then i headed home looking forward to my 3 hours sleep!
Friday, 17th August, 2007
Friday was pretty much a repeat of Thursday! I had my last day of spanish school in the morning and in the second half of the lesson we had a field trip to Quito´s old town.. This was really good as we got to see some old churches and we also took a taxi up to virgin statue in the middle of quito.. It is up on a hill where you have 360 degree views of the city.. It was really amazing as i didn´t realise Quito was such a big place.. It stretches out for miles..
So after spanish school i went home again for a nap and then at 6pm i had to go and meet the people that i am travelling on the Kumuka tour from Quito to Lima with.. The tour was due to start on the following day and they were travelling up to otavalo but Sarah the tour leader gave me the option of either coming to Otavalo or staying in town with TSSG, and since TSSG were plannning a weekend away to Mindo (a town on the outskirts of the Amazon) i decided that i would go with them..
After the meeting i met up with TSSG and we went out again for another big night.. We went to about 4 places all up and ended up staying out til 3am again..
Saturday, 18th August, 2007
After 3 nights of 3 hours sleep Saturday morning wasn´t too fun... I packed up all my stuff from my homestay home and said goodbye to the family, caught a taxi to the hotel the Kumuka group was staying at and then went to meet up with Konrad, Tanis, Sineade and James who were also going to Mindo.. And had to do all this before 8am which was the time that we were meeting at!
So we caught the bus to mindo which was a lovely little (very little) town and checked into a hostel which was basically one big attic with four matresses in it.. and a toilet and a shower which had no water.. It sounds pretty dodgy but it was very fun to stay in a place like that..
We spent the afternoon doing a walk to some waterfalls where you could swim, jump off of stuff and go down a little waterslide.. Followed by doing some canopying, where we crossed some valleys on big flying foxes.. It was great fun..
We then got pizza for dinner (the first of 3 pizzas in 2 days for me!) and were all pretty much exhausted and went to bed at about 10pm..
Sunday, 19th August, 2007
Sunday the 19th of August marked exactly 1 month until Sophie arrives to meet me in Cusco, Peru, yay!!! :)
Our second day at Mindo was also very fun.. We went on some big rubber tyres down a river and then went to a butterfly farm..
After catching the bus back to Quito we all went back to our repective places and then caught up again at ´papaya.net´ and then went out for dinner.. As it was both mine and Tanis´ last night in Quito it was kinda a going away thing for us which we had all planned to have another big night out but we all ended up in bed by about 10pm again as we were all completely buggered!
Monday, 20th August, 2007
After sadly saying goodbye to TSSG the night before, i met up with the Kumuka group (to be now reffered to as TKG from now on) and we caught the bus for about 5 hours to Tena and then caught a boat to our first Hostel for the tour called Anaconda Hostal deeper in the Amazon Jungle.. We arrived there at about 4pm and pretty much just relaxed for the evening drinking 1.50 longnecks, preparing ourselves for some Amazon trecking the next day!
