January 5

Slept a little longer than originally planned, but it worked out fine. Breakfast was good. Scrambled eggs that weren’t sitting over a sterno flame. Once again some amazing bread (Ecuadorian bakers are possibly underrated). Hot chocolate as well (although more like “warm” chocolate). They are a little lacking in temperature differentials here. Like, the weather doesn’t change, so nothing else really changes. Stuff is rarely cold to drink (we tend to exhaust their cold beer supply within two rounds. We’ve even called ahead to places before to tell them to ice stuff down). Even our shower water doesn’t always make it to hot. I’m not necessarily complaining, just observing. I have had cold beverages and hot showers, just not in the abundance I’m used to.

A couple shots of our hotel




Anyway, walked around the open market. Its pretty awesome. The market has tons of locals, selling stuff, and also buying stuff since there’s a sizeable vegetable and meat market. Not as much haggling is necessary like in China. People start their prices pretty low to begin with. And as long as it’s an amount I consider worth paying I have no problem taking the first price. I bought a really cool ring, some necklaces, a purse, a sweater, a whistley flute thing, a scarf, and maybe other stuff…I forget.







got this cool ring




































bobbleheads!






Charango…a 10 string guitar made out of an armadillo


they still make some out of armadillos, but some just out of wood






one section is a fruit and vegetable market, where mostly locals go grocery shopping






I wanted a small purse to carry, with a long strap. I picked out this pink one. It wasn’t too “ethnic” but still not exactly American.

I sorta wish I’d bought a little more, simply because I don’t think we’re going to another open market while we’re here. But I was very conscious that things were cheap, and that usually leads to me purchasing a ton of stuff I don’t need. So I tried some self control. I just may have used too much.

I think people are shorter here than in China. In China people weren’t tall, but they were around average, about my height (5’5”). Here, I am at least a head, sometimes more than a head taller than people. Grown women are the size of children. It’s bizarre.





and can anyone explain to me what Barney is doing in Ecuador? Do we sell our old cartoon character costumes?

I gave him a dollar for the picture, and he gave me some little box of something…which I then handed to a little girl on the street. After a “gracias” she ran to show her friend what the white devil had handed her.

Lunch was back at the hotel, and not bad. Starter soup that was made from some kind of grain that’s grown around here.


Then a pork chop and French fries. We even got ahold of some ketchup (a little sweeter than in the states).


Dessert was a tree tomato in syrup. I actually didn’t try it because I’d somehow lost my dessert spoon and wasn’t so interested in finding another one. People said it was hard (I guess in comparison to most fruits) and had seeds. Smelled a bit citrusy, and sitting in syrup it was not unlike fruit cocktail.


this is what you want to drink. if you don’t say the “sin gas” part, you might get carbonated water, which is disgusting.


Then we loaded up the bus and drove about 20 minutes to an area that has good leather markets. They let us out on the street, and we walked up and down, visiting different shops full of leather goods. A few guys got leather briefcases/laptop bags, and most of the girls got purses. Someone got a jacket, and there were also belts and wallets to be had. While I’ve no doubt the prices were great for the quality, I’ve never been one to really care. So I of course found the $10 and $15 dollar bins, and took a purse from each. Also picked up an ethnic looking shirt, because a few people had bought them at the market that morning, and were wearing them to dinner, and I like to conform. It probably makes me look pregnant with twins. But maybe one day I’ll be pregnant with twins, so it won’t be a useless buy.

Then it was a nice two hour drive back to our hotel in Quito. Most people took naps, but I only got in about 20 minutes. I had my laptop so I edited some pictures and typed up some more about my day. When we got “home”, we had over 2 hours until dinner (they tend to eat really late here).

We went to a really nice restaurant, called Mediterraneum.




We had picked our entrees earlier and called ahead so they’d have enough. Our options were sea bass with seafood sauce, pepper steak with mushroom risotto and parmesan, a tuna steak, a pork chop, and perhaps something else.
The starter was a salad, with calamari


For the main course I of course got steak.


But I tried some of the sea bass


I also tried a bite of the pork. Dessert was a chocolate birthday cake, because it was the birthday of a girl on the trip.




After dinner we were scheduled to go to the discotechque. Unfortunately, we also had to be up at 6:00am, to leave in time for white water rafting. While I love a good dance club, I also like my sleep, and I really didn’t want to be miserable for rafting. I should also add that I’m sore from, oh let’s see, probably the mountain biking, hiking, and salsa dancing for hours on the previous days. For some reason I have a ridiculous pain in my right calf. Anyway, I opted out of a late night at the discotechque (as did about five other people, so I didn’t feel too lame) and got in a shower and a decent night’s sleep.