La Basilica, El Parque La Carolina, y El Pichincha

Lets see, what have I done since last time I posted? I have found a running buddy who is super cool. Lately, my friend, Meghan and I have been corriendo (running) through El Parque La Carolina which is a huge park in the middle of the city which is also right next to ACLAS (my school). I am not entirely sure how far the run is but I think it’s in the neighborhood of 2.3-2.8 miles around once. So far we’ve only been going around one time because la altura (altitude) really gets to your lungs. I was breathing fairly hard after only a few minutes until my second wind came. The park is quite pretty but apparently is very dangerous after 6ish at night. It has a BIG skatepark and large dirt jumps which always remind me of Chris. It also has many basketball courts, super high volleyball nets, and several dirt and cement soccer courts (less than half the length of a normal field).

ACLAS, a little bit smaller than UW

I started classes el miércoles (Wednesday) and I have them every lunes-jueves (Monday through Thursday) from 1:30-4:50. The first term, we are only taking our talking/grammar course (Spanish 301) and the first two hours are with una profesora que se llama Pamela (a teacher named Pamela). The class is entirely in Spanish and basically in these two hours we basically just talk about stories we read in our text book and give our opinions on them. This teacher reminds me EXACTLY of a Latina version of Ms. Jones, my English teacher from high school. So naturally, I think she’s awesome. She dresses, talks, sort of  looks, and even sits on her chair the same way as Ms. Jones. Then we have another teacher after that for an hour named Ana Lucía and with her, we focus on grammar and writing type stuff.

El Viernes (On Friday) we had a free day and about half of the group went to Mindo, a nearby town that has a lot of outdoor activities, for the weekend and the rest of us stayed in Quito. We went back to el centro historico and took a 25 cent trole (trolley) there. We first went to La Basilica, a HUGE stone church that apparently has been paid for entirely with donations since the late 1800s. There are two sides of the church that have large towers and we got to go up both for a fee of $2 because we are extranjeros (foreigners) as opposed to $1 if we were local. There was an elevator but we all opted to take the stairs instead. On the way up there was a gift shop and very nice looking restaurant. We got to the top and got an AWESOME view of Quito and I could actually see my house from it. A cool thing about this church is that the gargoyles are all animals from Ecuador and the Galapagos. We went up the first side which has two clock towers then walked over a sketchy wooden bridge above the ceiling over the pews to the other tower on the opposite side. There were some very steep stairs and ladders that we climbed but it was definitely worth it.

Yo and nuevas amigas

The gargoyles are all indiginous animals like tortoises in this one

View of one tower from the tower on the other side

El Panecillo from La Basilica. Sorta looks like a little bread roll right?

Mis amigas climbing up the tower

Inside el reloj

Walking over the ceiling over the pews to the other tower

You can kind of see how the ceiling is shaped here

After La Basilica, we went back to la Plaza de Independencia and went inside the church I took a picture of last time but didn’t know the name of. It was called El Sagrario and was pretty similar La Compañía de Jesús but not quite as pristine. It still had extremely impressive walls and painted domed ceilings. The floor was SUPER creaky so everybody in the whole church knew if you were walking around. Then we went back to La Iglesia de San Francisco again and got to go inside for a little bit this time. The church was pretty huge but definitely less decorated than the others. A lot of the walls were merely left blank as opposed to El Sagrario and La Compañía de Jesús. After that we went to a restaurant on top of a building, called Vista Hermosa which had a nice view of el centro historico. Six of us shared unajarra de canelazo (jar of canelazo), which is a drink that has cinnamon, jugo de naranjilla, and a little bit of liquor in it. It tasted sort of like the drink “Tang” that I used to have when I was younger. My friend, Meghan, thought it tasted like Theraflu. Despite that, it still tasted pretty good.

On Saturday, I went to El Parque La Carolina with my friend, Zang and played some pick up soccer for a bit. I really felt the altitude after a few runs but it was pretty fun. It was more like futsal than normal soccer because of the shorter cement “court” and firm ball we played with. After that Zang and I explored the park and found a lake type thing in the middle and paid three bucks to rent a fun little paddle boat a for a half hour which was fun but surely a leg workout. I didn’t have my camera with me that day so I don’t have any pictures of the park unfortunately L. I will definitely go to the park again soon probably and take some pictures to post.

On Sunday, six of us met at Quicentro at 8:30 and took a cab to the bottom of El Pichincha, a mountain overlooking Quito to take El Teleferiqo, a gondola, up to 4,100 meters. From there we hiked farther up the mountain, almost to the top. We took MANY breaks along the way because the altitude was so high and it was very easy to become short of breath. We hiked probably a mile or two out and got some great views of Quito and the valleys of the mountain. It was about 60ish degrees most of the time except when it got later in the day and the sun wasn’t obscured by clouds. It felt a little warmer then. I wore sunscreen and a hat but still got extremely burnt in the face and didn’t realize it until later. It was wird to think that I got so burnt in 60 degree weather but it definitely makes sense since the sun is shining directly down on us here. On the way down, one girl in our group struggled with the altitude (and lack of water probably) and we had to descend pretty slow but it all turned out alright when we got to the bottom. We then went to a restaurant called Las Palmeras and I tried ceviche for the first time which is basically a cold, soupy, watery salsa with shrimp in it. It was SO tasty. Gonna have to try the type with fish in it next time.

View of Quito and some mountains

We hiked to the first little rocky bluff on the right side

Warning: 4,100 meters of altitude. Go slowly-Don´t run.

Quito behind us

Escalando

Reminds me of Hawaii

Mi amiga, Zang, y yo

Caballos for rent

We took many breaks along the way

We ALMOST got to the top. Several of us plan to return to complete the hike

There maaaay or may not have been an enormous cliff right on the otherside of us. No big deal :) Don´t worry, Mom. I was being safe.

That pretty much encompasses what I’ve done lately as well as a little homework (the really exciting stuff) here and there. This weekend, we have a group trip to Otavalo, a town a couple hours away that has one of the most famous Saturday markets in South America. I expect to do some regalito (little gift) shopping with a lot of bartering to bring back home. Wish me luck! I’ll post again after that unless something extremely exciting happens before then that I feel compelled to share.