First Thoughts From Ecuador

Michele and I have been in Ecuador for just under three weeks and we are having an excellent time. Wow, what a lovely place. We are having lots of fun, food is good and the weather is hot and steamy on the coast and cool and mild in the highlands which is just over 9000 feet. We were first in Guayaquil which is the lowlands on the equator very near the ocean on a river inlet. The place we stayed was a very nice friendly hostel. We were in the port city of Guayaquil for 3 days, and then moved up into the Andes in a small town called Guaranda. We found a Spanish instructor and took three days of Spanish lessons.The ride up into the mountains was spectacular, about 5 hours on the bus. We moved from a coastal plain to a jungle like setting with bananas etc, and then up to high country. The people are mixed with different looks. Some are native Andeans just like you see in the books --pretty amazing. So far we are able to communicate pretty well with everyone we meet -- but we have along way to go... The talk is pretty basic. We are staying at hostels everywhere we go with average nightly rates of around $20 -- all of the places we have stayed have been simple but clean and nice. We were in Guaranda for six days and then moved on to Ambato,Ecuador´s 4th largest city.We were only in Ambato for two nights. The people of Ecuador couldn´t be more friendly, no one speaks English which can be a problem at times, but that forces us to learn our Spanish more quickly.We have met so many friendly Ecuadorians so far. People come up to us on the street and start talking to us. By the time we left Guaranda we knew quite a number of people just by saying hi to them. We would just walk around town and run into the same people every day and we would have a 10 minute conversation in Spanish-English...We met our Spanish teacher this way, someone recommended her, and she turned out to be fantastic. Food is excellent ! But simple, the markets are incredible -- if we had our own kitchen we would have enough fresh food -- all from the local markets --vegetables in the markets are unbelievable. These people are living and doing the same stuff they did 100 years ago -- the local native indigenous people that is... Old women carrying 50 pound sacks of food on their backs -- its really quite incredible to see. Its all about survival for them -- real basic -- food and shelter and thats it... Traveling around on the buses is interesting to say the least, the buses cost one dollar per hour of driving...I have never in my life been so blown away but what I am seeing -- so this is quite the dream -- and I am really thankful to have gotten the opportunityto experience this in my life...Quito is an unbelievably gorgeos city. Reminds me of New York City orSan Francisco. Quick story, the cab driver took us to our hotel, but he couldn´t find it, so he dropped us off nearby and we walked to it, but he had the address, just didn´t know where it was...15 minutes later -- he showed up at our hotel -- with my coat that I had forgotten in the cab...Can you believe it ? I gave him a hug and a tip...More as things develop in the capital of Ecuador, the second highest capital in the world at over 9200 feet, only La Paz in Bolivia is higher at over 11,200feet... This is the Andes for you, huge big volcanoes with green valleys that extend as far as the eye can see. Its Saturday afternoon in Quito and we went for a nice walk today in the park. We then had lunch at an Indian restaurant, and because the restaurant was full we sat at the same table with a really nice girl who was an English teacher at a university here in Quito. Her mom, who is from Venezuela but moved to Ecuador many years ago also had lunch with us... She gave us tons of good information about Quito and Ecuador, it was a really nice meal. All of the Ecuadorians are so friendly, in fact at the end of the meal she gave us her phone number and email and said to call her any time that we have any questions or problems while we are in Quito. It was a nice experience for both of us, as the young woman got to practice herEnglish and I got to practice my Spanish... People here like to speak in English to you if they know it, and it gives me an opportunity to speak in Spanish. She lived in Oregon for 4 years and studied English there.I will continue to update things as we progress on this lovely journey.