Loco Willie

     We have arrived in Quito safe and sound. This is the first city in our tour of the mainland of Ecuador. When we arrived we were introduced to our tour guide, William and our bus driver, Rueben. William was hilarious as he says to call him Loco Willie. Our driver Rueben is a sweetheart but only speaks spanish so it is a lot of holas and gracias to him. Speaking of speaking spanish, I have been trying, roughly, to practice my spanish and pick up on what the locals say. As many places we visit are tourist locations so we can ususally get by but when it comes to ordering food or shopping at a market it becomes difficult. We often just point or I use my friend Jenna to help translate. But all in all it's good and hopefully I will continue to pick up and learn Spanish while I am here. 

     So yesterday was our first trip in looking at Quito. We had a pretty light day as Quito is the highest captial in the world. It stands at about 10,000 feet. We are adjusting well to the hight altitude we are facing and overall it hasn't been too bad. In our tour, we began it at one of the best places to view the city. They have a statue of the Virgin Mary with angel wings which overlooks the city as Ecuador is roughly 95% Catholic. Then we continued the tour by walking two hours throughout the city seeing many churches, important government buildings, and neighborhoods. One thing I found interesting was that on Sunday the city shuts down major roads. This is done to encourage biking by the natives of Quito to help control the diabetes  problem they are now facing. Most of our group really liked this idea and I think it would be interesting to see it implement in the United States. 

     Today was our real adventure. William and Reuben picked us up at 9:30 for our hike up the local volcanos next to Quito. One is inactive or sleeping and one is active with the last "eruption" occuring in October of 1999. This I believe was just a release of gases and didn't effect the city immensely. However, William had told us that in the many volcanos found in Ecuador often only one could destroy the country if it had a major eruption. The altitude we were about to face was about 14,000 feet so we had to prepare ourselves for what was ahead. We stopped frequently to allow ourselves to catch a break as it is common to get exhausted faster. After riding in a cable car, like a ski lift, up to the volcano we were able to view the city of Quito. It was amazing to be within the clouds and look at a city that stretches 35 miles North to South. The views were fanatastic but I feel like the pictures don't even begin to do it justice. 

     So after this we continued our hike up to the volcano. The first day Willie had told us that Quito can often experience 4 seasons in one day. We listened but kind of shrugged it off knowing the seasons we've faced in Minnesota, or Iowa. As we have reached a pretty high altitude and we were all beginning to get a little tired Willie told us we were going to walk about another mile. With a little hesitance we said okay and were ready to go. About a quarter mile after this had started a light sprinkle had began so the raincoats were put on. Then a little after it picked up and a little long we were in a hail storm with lightening striking all around us. We booked it back to the indoor place we had been when we arrived but let me tell you it was not close. There is no faster way to bond 28 people then put them in a life threatening situation. Although we were scared but more like just second nature to get to safety all of us reached a wet placed soaked and freezing. Whoever said anything about global warming I would have to quesiton with -40+ degrees back home and a hailstorm here I don't know. We now know to never doubt Willie. 

     We then reached back to our hotel had lunch and class and continued to get warm. A group of us then when out to dinner and hung out and watched the national championship for football. It was an exciting day of adventures to say the least but more to come. Tomorrow we leave Quito to head to the Cloud Forest. We will stop on our way at the equatorial line and get our passports stamped and tour the muesem there. We are all looking forward to this but not sure if I will be able to post blogs but I will when we return to a wifi location! Stay warm!!!