We are Finally Here...(sigh of relief)

We spent our time at Reagan waiting for our delayed plane playing various games like Uno, thumper, and Kemps. Before getting on the air plane, we loaded up on food and magazines. However, most of us never got to read the magazines because we all got knocked out on our way to Miami.

We came to Quito expecting 50 degree weather and rain like it said on Weather.com but we were pleasantly surprised by the 75 degree sunny weather and Wonderful breakfast which included scrambled eggs and delicious tomato juice (Taste better than it sounds!). Shortly after, a large blue bus awaited us outside Las Posadas hostel, where we were taking group pictures. We were greeted by our lovely tour guide, Gabby, as we drove around Quito. Though we were tired, we managed to take many pictures on our way to el Mitad del Mundo (the Equator!). When we finally arrived, the sun unexpectedly emerged from the clouds and proceeded to tan (and even burn) our skin. Right away, we saw a large monument, where we took pictures with our feet in two different hemispheres. To our pleasant surprise we went to an outdoor museum called El Camino del Sol, an interactive experience where we conducted science experiments like walking on the equator line to test magnetic force, balancing an egg on a nail, and testing the Coriolis wind effect on both hemispheres. We will post videos of this shortly. 

By noon we finished with our tour and went back on the bus to venture into the old town of Quito. This is busy section filled with historic churches, street vendors, and artisan shops. What left all of us in awe was the street artist who created masterpieces simply using spraypaint--and proceeded to sell for only 12 dollars! A good amount of walking on hilly cobblestone terrain left us very hungry, which is why we were so excited when we finally arrived at the restaurant. Here, we ate grilled chicken, green salad, and cheese and potato tortillas. MMMM!!! Needless to say we were silent as we stuffed our faces with deliciousness. Afterwards our desert of the aforementioned tomato fruit with a slice of cheese came along, which was also surprisingly delicious. Without a doubt, the group discovered a new favorite fruit.

Following lunch we went to a church, called Iglesia de la Campagna de Jesus. Built in the 17th-18th centuries, this baroque style monument was filled with religious paintings and a blinding amount of gold. As a group, we were mezmerized to see how a place could be so intricate. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures to document this. After the church visit, we were all so tired we could not think of doing anything else besides wanting to get back on the bus and riding to the airport so we could get checked in and ready for our 45min flight to Cuenca. However, there was one more place we had to go to and that was the statue on the Virgin mary crushing the head of the snake. We rode the bus  from  2,850m elevation up to about 3,500 where the statue was. After we were all amazed at this and the view of the city that was offered from being so high up, we were finally ready to leave and go to the airport. 

After a tiring but exciting day, we finally made it to Cuenca. Seeing the faces of the host families were priceless and this whole week will be priceless. A pricetag can not be put on the experience we are going to have in the next 10 days. The families are welcoming and all smiles and eager to communicate with us despite the language barrier. We try our best and smile back, they laugh at our SPANGLISH haha and help us with how to say little words and phrases and they look to us to better their English and we help them with what we know in correspondence to what we understand from the questions that they ask in Spanish. The welcoming dinner was Awesome and after a few of us from our group met up at Aj, Tashnia, and Tim's host house to sort out our books and school supplies and decide how we were going to distribute them. Its been a great night and tiring weekend.

We have to be up tomorrow morning for our Welcoming breakfast at 8am and presentation/ history of indigenous people and the community we are going to in Shina (which is an hour away from Cuenca). Then we ride off to the school that we will be working at all week, to a group of children that have been waiting for a whole year. The looks on their faces will be priceless when they see us, the effect on our heart will last a life time.

AJ (trip leader) Kristen and Rachel.