Ecuador - part 1

After a 26 hour flight, I finally arrived in Quito, Ecuador. At 2,800m it took a couple of days before I finally caught my breath. The city of Quito is like most big cities, only it is surrounded by mountains and from the centre of the city you can see the paddocks on the hills. After 2 nights at a hostel, I moved to another hostel and met the GVI project manager and some of the other volunteers. The next day we all jumped in the mini van and went to a tourist hotspot, the equator. After some egg balancing the guide pulled out a human head that had been boiled to shrink. Apparently they are super expensive on the black market being that they are no longer legal! 

After a stop for a bite to eat, we finally reached Otavalo, my home for the next 6 weeks. My homestay parents Eryka and Darwin live on the Panamericano and myself and two other volunteers live out the back in the granny flat. Such a perfect set up, we share a bathroom and a lounge, have all our meals cooked and our washing done! Amazing. Our house is about a 15 minute walk right into the centre of the town, to Plaza de Ponchos where there are markets which date to pre-inca times. The first week was pretty intense, having 4 or 6 hours of one-on-one lessons. Being that my Ecuadorian parents dont speak english, I really needed the lessons (and definatly still need them!). The town of Otavalo is really nice, there are some serious mountains around and a few volcano´s. On the first weekend we went for a walk to a waterfall just out of Otavalo. There was a little cave which we crawled through and came out at the river which feeds the waterfall. There was a hill that we decided to walk up, but it was super steep and couldnt get back down so we had an hour long hike to get back to the base of the waterfall, fail! But there were some incredible views. 

The first week of teaching was interesting, teaching only in spanish to  second graders. I generally have no clue what they are talking about, not just because of my lack of spanish, but spanish isnt their first language. Getting up at 5.30am every morning is getting easier which is lovely, then I have a 10 minute walk to the bus which goes up into the mountains. We get off at the last stop after about 20 minutes then have a 30 minute walk up into the community of Larcacunga. The walk is tough but so beautiful. We pass cows, chickens, pigs and puppies and are at school by 7.40ish. After making a poridge type breakfast for the kiddies, we start class at 8.30 and then lunch is at 10.30, which we do all the shopping for and carry the food up. The kids are super cute, a bit wild, but cute.