A Quito A Quito A Quito

Today we start getting our traveling school tshirts dirty for real...

(we wear them every time we travel..and today marks the beginning of traveling with full packs every 5 days or so!)

We left the little mountain city of Otavalo this morning and arrived in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. The contrast is striking - otavaleños dress in traditional indigenous attire, women in frilly white blouses embroidered with little flowers, and long black skirts. Quito is in contrast a hodgepodge of amazing restaurants and good coffee. We´re in Mariscal - the ultra-gringa tourist-y section in a hostel here.

Our homestays finished up amazingly well. Cuy (guinea pig) ended up being central to the experience - I sat in the dirt-floored kitchen peeling potatoes while my mamita and youngest son chased the biggest cuy around the kitchen. I did however run out when she turned to me to ask for the knife...We ate fried cuy on our last night with our family - whole, flattened, and deep-fried. I still havent gotten up the nerve to crunch on the feet or eat the head - both of which are fine with the Ecuadorans since the kids love those pieces best. We were also given a basket of fried cuy, boiled whole chicken and boiled potatoes during our despedida the next day with the community - quite an honor, but an awful lot of deep-fried rodent for occasionally squeamish teenage girls. Many comments on how distanced we are from meat processing in the United States ensued.

Other highlights include Carnival with the people of Agualongo - a bunch of gringas loaded in to the back of a pick up track...sitting ducks for the giant water fight that takes over all of the streets. In general Otavaleños are fairly kind...minus the chicha (Ecuadoran moonshine) that smelled like vomit.

We´ve also had 5:55am workouts in some of the most beautiful and random locations that I´ve ever seen. This morning, in fact, we were invited to participate in an aerobics class with a bunch of people in Otavalo who saw us working out one morning. So at 5:30am we met them on a cement soccer field and (quite literally) shook our booties for an hour. My favorite move was the grab-the-ankles-and-swivvle-your-hips.

Upcoming includes this time in Quito with museums and a little bit of freedom and city life for the girls. After that to the Black Sheep Inn - an eco-lodge with composting toilets and an all vegetarian menu and amazing hiking...finally to Cuenca for homestays again for the girls...(and midterms...)

Love and miss you all,

Heather