Latacunga with Suzal!

Hey there! I didn´t get a chance to write about my adventures yesterday so I´m going to try and catch up today. I don´t know how much more I´ll be able to write in the next few days because I´m going to the school today so I probably won´t have unlimited computer access as I have had at the hostals. Anyways...so I left you on Wednesday night as I waited for Suzal to arrive in Quito. I tried to stay up but by 9:30 I was too tired and cold to keep my eyes open, so I went to bed and hoped she would be there in the morning. Fortunately my sleeping bag is wonderful and my little travel pillow isn´t too bad, so I haven´t had any comfort issues while sleeping. However that night I was a bit stressed about trying to find Suzal the next day because I didn´t even know if she had flown in as scheduled. Also I´ve found myself thinking up sentences in Spanish as I lay in bed, either before going to sleep or as I wake up--maybe it is a kind of rehearsal for when I may actually need to say something in Spanish. Nevertheless I slept that night a nice long sleep, about 10 hours or so (I´ve been needing a lot of sleep here I´ve noticed) and in the morning as I went downstairs for breakfast I ran into this blonde-haired woman who asked ¨is that you?¨to which I responded ¨Yes!¨ so I met Suzal right there at breakfast. We had a nice meal talking to this German university student who had spent the last month of his summer vacation in the Galapagos building showers there. He told us about this couple who retired, bought a boat and had been sailing around the world for the past few years, pretty crazy what people do! After breakfast Suzal and I packed our bags, checked out of the hostal and grabbed a taxi to the bus station. As inexperienced travelers often do, we had to learn through our mistakes, one of which was getting the first taxi that passed by us, which just happened to be more of a bus-taxi. This meant that our almost 1 hour taxi ride cost each of us $15! Yeah that is a very pricey taxi ride here, but I chalked it up to a learning experience. Plus the driver was super nice and told us about certain things in Quito as we drove through the city. I got to practice my Spanish and even felt like a bit of an expert/translator because Suzal knows very little Spanish. I learned about how the city is broken into three parts and that Ecuador is broken into provinces that are named after the volcanos in that area. There is a huge volcano, Cotopaxi, that goes off with such a huge explosion that it can run into Quito at times. All sorts of Trivia was shared with us as we looked out the windows and made our way to this huge bus terminal in the southern region of Quito. This bus terminal was the nicest terminal I have ever seen for busses, not that I´ve really seen all that many bus terminals anyways! The bus was a 2 hour trip that cost each of us $1.50! See how that compares with the pricey taxi ride? I was super lucky to meet such a wonderful travel partner as Suzal because she is so excited to see everything around Ecuador and to talk and keep me entertained on the bus ride and throughout our travels. So we drove on the bus for two hours and looked at the countryside. When we go to Latacunga we took another taxi to the next hostal we had reservations at, Hostal Tiana. We got our room, put our luggage away and then we tried to get to this big outdoor market in the town nextdoor, about 20 miles away. But since we got to Latacunga at 11:30, we were too late to make it to the market because most of the vendors would have already packed up their things. I asked the employee at the front desk about activities to do around Latacunga and she gave me a packet that had a walking tour of the city outlined. Suzal, easy going as always, took it in stride and was ready to start the walking tour. It took us to this church we tried to get into, but couldn´t and ended up walking around the rooms I think the fathers live in, so we were asked to leave haha. Then we went through the main shopping center that had a lot of little stores selling things that were probably fake (like not ¨real¨ brands), but we weren´t in for shopping at that time anyways. After walking a few streets through the shopping town, we went into this marvelous graveyard. Because of how religious Ecuadorians are, mostly Roman Catholic, their cemeteries are extremely intricate and elaborate. Huge plots of land were taken for families with empty spots still waiting and others full of flowers and pictures. We walked around there for a bit, it was a very beautiful experience and we took a few pictures. There were lots of palm trees lining the walk way with birds chirping, which was cool considering how right outside the doors of the cemetery was a busy and buzzing street. We continued our tour on the streets to this museum that had some furniture and pieces of machines that used to make clothes before a volcano erupted and covered most of the factory. We jumped into a tour, in Spanish, of a room of paintings, which was kind of cool considering how my Spanish is still a work in progress. I grabbed bits and pieces of what the man described and tried to translate and share it with Suzal. We continued on to this outdoor market that is in town I think everyday with lots of fruits and veggies and also some stalls of meals (meat, soup, etc). We were thinking of getting some food there but were concerned that it might upset our stomaches so we decided to try to find a restaurant instead. Suzal is such a generous and giving person, she gave a dollar or two to a few different women wondering the streets who looked like they could use some food. After a bit of restaurant-shopping, we decided on this clean-looking restaurant and then had to decipher the menu. Once again I went with the almuerzo, or lunch, that includes soup, beans, rice, a piece of meat/chicken and juice. It was fabulous as was the lunch in Quito, with a different well-seasoned soup and some wonderfully grilled chicken (yes, I´m eating meat here which is kinda weird but if I didn´t I would have had a pretty small lunch). It also came with some really tasty lime-aide that I was scared to drink but wanted to so badly that I had about 1/2 the cup. Suzal ordered arroz con camarones, rice with shrimp, which was a huge dish of shrimp, rice and 2 plantains, which I ate some of course because I love plantains. We sat and talked and ate for quite awhile and then we had them pack up her leftovers and continued our journey. We made our way to la casa de cultura, house of culture, that was right next to a river and used to be where a mill was located before something ruined it, maybe a volcano I can´t remember. It was like a little outside garden with pieces of the mill lying around and then inside there were masks, paintings and other pieces of art we could look at. The museum was fun to explore and a good get away from the hussle and bussle of the busy street. I was starting to get tired but we still had more to explore! We found our way to the central square of Latacunga which included a beautiful park and then their city hall, a jail and a big bank. The city hall was open to the public and we walked inside to take a peek; it was like a square of outdoor garden surrounded by buildings around the garden, which made it a very pretty city hall. After our time there we decided to find this one street that would give us a great view of the city. As we made our way there, I learned that my map reading skills are pretty poor, but we eventually got our way to the street we were looking for. On our way we also used a few public restrooms that I was surprised to see around the city. Suzal was even allowed to use a restroom in a hotel for free, which is a pretty big no-no in American hotels at times. So after our bathroom stops and turn-arounds due to my mis-reading of the map, we found our way up Calle Oriente, a street that goes steeply up hill and gives you a beautiful look at Latacunga. The sky was gorgeous with some huge clouds above the mountains and colorful houses. Luckily the way home was much quicker and we got to the hostal in time to get some wine :) Oh let me tell you a bit about the streets we walked on: lots of quick moving cars and taxis that seem to honk at pedestrians as a warning like ¨I´m coming, don´t walk into the street right now¨or at least that is how Suzal and I started to understand all the tooting. Second, the side walks are very narrow, a tight squeeze for 2 people when passing each other, so the majority of the time Suzal and I walked single-file. Also, around the beginnig of our journey, around 11:30/12 there were a LOT of school kids walking around, arm-in-arm, wearing matching school uniforms which was a bit surprising since it was so early in the day...OK so back to the hostal. The hostal we´re staying in has a cafe attached to it, so we were able to order some wine and food. Suzal wanted a bottle of wine, which ended up being brought in this glass pitcher full of red wine, and then also a little something to eat. We decided on ¨tostis¨which I don´t think are an Ecuadorian food because it was pretty much a sandwich on wheat bread with cheese and ham and then it was like grilled together with a sandwich press of somesort. Even if it wasn´t Ecuadorian, it was good! So we sat and chatted for awhile before it started to get cold (I think the nights and mornings can get pretty chilly even though the day itself was sunny and nice and I had to keep rolling up my sleeves). We went back to our room where we talked for several hours. I think this woman is changing my life! She lives in Boulder, Colorado so we´ve already discussed how once I get to Colorado she is going to show me around Boulder. She eats a raw diet meaning she doesn´t use flour or sugar, doesn´t use a microwave, makes her own juices and dried fruit, etc. She taught high school art for several years but is planning on retiring in the next few months. I love her outlook on life and her desire for learning. She told me how she didn´t get her masters because she wasn´t enjoying art education (or whatever her planned masters was in) but instead took several classes in biology and spent years exploring cadavers when she wasn´t even enrolled in those classes! So needless to say, I did a lot of listening last night and loved every moment of it. I knew that this trip would introduce me to new and exciting people, but I didn´t realize how that would happen, yet here I was having a wonderful experience with a fellow American who I never would have met if I hadn´t traveled to Ecuador. And besides her enthusiastic character, Suzal helped open my eyes to things I probably wouldn´t have found all that exciting without her, such as cool old steps or a dirty river with lush flowers growing besides it. Also, even without knowing Spanish, she seems so comfortable here as if she belongs, which definitely helped me feel more comfortable when my natural tendency is to feel like a massive outsider. So yeah that was our day yesterday. This morning I woke up, got dressed and had some breakfast here at the hostal: hot tea and a biscuit (which was like an unsweetened croissant, served with butter and jam), which I had two of...how healthy, right?! We then decided to go get a nice warm jacket sort of thing because we were both surprised at how chilly it was last night and we expect the mountains and school to be even colder. I bought one for $18, and Suzal bought the same one so we are matching! We also drew money out of the ATM so we could just pay the school when we arrive, rather than worrying about finding an ATM up in the mountains or something (so I´m expecting to have to pay about $300 for the month at this school, meaning I have a LOT of cash on me and can´t wait to give it to someone!). We packed our room and are now ready to leave. The director of the school, Pam, is sending someone to pick us up from the hostal between 11:30 and noon to take us to the restaurant where she´ll be so we can have lunch together before heading up to the school. I´m excited to get settled at the school, start to get to know other people and speak more Spanish (I haven´t spoken too much since arriving here so far), but I´m also a bit nervous. Suzal is only staying a week so after that I may be on my own at the school and I´m really going to miss having her as a travel partner. Hopefully others will come along as well, I´ll just have to wait and see!