Back to school

At midnight last night it was our one week anniversary in Quito - yeaah, congrats to us and to you Quito, and we haven't even been mugged yet! :)

Being a couple can make travel really relaxing and easy-going. It can however mean it's harder to meet other people. We are staying in the Old Town, full of impressive colonial churches and steep cobbled streets. It is about an hour away from La Mariscal Sucre (dubbed 'gringolandia' by locals) - the main tourist centre of bars and hostels.

We have however met some lovely people at our Spanish school. Swiss, Swedish, British and American so far. There's a young American couple living here and planning to adopt a baby. The Swiss guy was here for the climbing - he told us altitude-induced horror stories that made us all want to get down and kiss the safe ground we were on.

Our best friend, by far though, here in Quito is Pedro. He hovers over the bushes and flowers outside our window every morning as we eat breakfast. It's pretty much a solid friendship. He usually turns up just as we are having our first sip of (weak and rubbish) breakfast tea. He is a tiny electric blue and green hummingbird.

Pedro looks just like this violet-bellied hummingbird. Thank you to Paul Pratt who I borrowed the image from and who has many other beautiful images of the Hummingbirds of Ecuador on his site:

http://www.netcore.ca/prairie/Pauls_Web_pages/Hummingbirds_of_Ecuador.html

Trying new fruit is also fun, and all the 'exotic' stuff you'd fork out a few quid for in Britain is obviously the cheap way to eat here, as it is native. The discovery of 'maracuyas' is my favourite find so far. They are giant passionfruits.

Breakfast fruit - bananas, pineapple, maracuyas and dulce tomates ('sweet tomatoes' that taste a bit like papaya). 

In India, Carla and I got addicted to eating fresh green-fleshed passionfruits that you could buy from street vendors. They were hacked in half and you could suck out the insides. They were much tastier fresh, than the purple-skinned passionfruits we get at home in Britain. Over shipping time, they grow old wrinkly skins and extortionate price tags. So the discovery of these fresh GIANT passionfruits that cost 50 cents for two, was pretty exciting.

We found a great Spanish school (Guayasamin Spanish School) directed by an Ecuadorian guy with a moustache called Luis. We are doing four hours intensive Spanish Monday-Friday with our teacher Kenia. It is fun but intense. We also get about an hour of 'la tarea' each night, aka homework. So it's pretty much like being back at school. Except with more of an urge to learn.

All ready for our first day of school. The 'Experto' bit turned out not to be true, but we're working on it.

Some pictures of our walk to school, through the Old Town to La Mariscal:

                                                                On our road

                                                Basilica del Voto Nacional

                                                    Most days we walk through El Ejido Park

                                                         Quito's Boris-bike equivalent

Walking back home again. If we ever get lost, all we do is look for the Virgin Mary. Literally, not spiritually. El Panecillo is the hill that stands behind us with the Virgin Mary on top.