Covering ground.

6-11-11

Again, this morning started off with blue skies and intense sun.  Being a Saturday, I thought I would sleep in an hour later than usual—this just doesn’t seem to happen since the sun rises early and my family wakes at the break of dawn.  However, it doesn’t seem to bother me much.  Breakfast comprised of hot chocolate, bread (pansito), and scrambled eggs.  Hopefully I am getting enough exercise to burn off all of this bread-intake. I swear I eat it for every meal.   The exercise certainly happened today since we toured different parts of Quito, covering some, or a lot, of ground (and air for that matter).  A volunteer from Japan arrived last night, so all three of us went to the Teleférico and la Basílica as well as other places that I can’t remember the names of.  The Teleférico is a mountain in Quito that has a cable car (kind of like a ski lift) that brings people to the top to then take many pictures of all of Quito and beyond.  Just to note: Quito is about 9,000 feet above sea level; Teleférico is about 13,000 feet above sea level.  So, you could say the air is quite thin and people (including me) easily lose their breath.  The sight was unbelievable and also breathtaking.  Quito is a valley between two (and more) big mountains, so the city is longer than it is wide.  It was fun finding different areas to take pictures of different views.  At one of these views, we met a family from the United States (not uncommon since this is a huge tourist location) who are going to be in Quito for a few weeks and are interested in the work we are doing in Lumbisí.  The teenagers of the family want to volunteer with us for a week or so, and the parents wanted to talk to us more about FEVI, so they invited us to their home for lunch (at around 3 PM).  We had a few more places to tour before lunch, which included the Basílica, so we told them we would meet up with them later.  The Basílica is a giant church/cathedral where people can climb up the three towers to get cool views of the city.  It also serves as a place to host the pope if he were to come to Ecuador.  The church was giant and beautiful, not to mention an adventure because as we climbed up the towers, the stairs were outside and extremely steep.  The hardest part was coming down because you had to look quite a ways down in order to find your footing of the coming step.  My camera battery died at the top of Teleférico, so I was not able to obtain pictures of my own for this adventure.  Hopefully I will be able to steal pictures from someone else. 

After getting over my slight fear of heights, we headed to the family’s house that we met on the top of Teleférico.  The house, or condo-like building was beautiful as it was located in the historic district of Quito.  It reminded me of “La Ronda” that we toured last weekend, with the Italy-styled porches on the houses.  There was a long table set with dishes and soon-to-be amazing food in the upper-room where about two families joined us to eat lunch.  I’m not even sure what the Ecuadorian food is called that we ate, but it was great!  Lunch was filled with much conversation about FEVI and all that we do in Lumbisi, so that the parents could get a good idea of where they were sending their kids for a week.  It was decided that they would volunteer with us, and both the parents and kids were going to visit us this week for a few days. Dessert was followed (yogurt with strawberries and blackberries and some sort of cookie on top) as was freshly brewed coffee.  What a great hospitable family!  We said our good-byes and headed back to Lumbisí. For about three hours, I conversed with my host mom and dad.  I really enjoy time like this because I get to know them a little more and vice versa.  It also definitely improves my Spanish-speaking skills.  Pictures to follow when I have reliable internet! 

Yukie, Me and Zack on the top of the Teleferico.