Mi Vida

I have a little more time today, so I will attempt to fill in gaps of the last couple of posts. Some of you might be wondering what is is that I am doing these days. I havent really had the time to explain that yet. So here it is.

Back in July I came upon a website that was for the hostel, The Secret Garden, in Quito, Ecuador. The description and pictures really interested me. I noticed a section that they had about volunteering at the hostel and I thought that it might be a good way for me to transition into living in Ecuador. I wrote the managers at the hostel, told them a little about myself and why I wanted to volunteer there. Long story short--they had a job for me. So for my first month here (now the next three weeks), I am working as a volunteer six days a week, eight hours a day. Its a lot of hours, but its a great experience. During my shift I do everything from checking guests in and out, serving food on the fifth floor terrace restaurant and answer phone calls (there are many other little things that I do also). In exchange for my work I get a free place to stay, freen breakfast and dinner and free spanish lessons. The rest of the foreign staff is made of two other volunteers and two managers plus the couple who owns it (the wife is actually Ecuadorian though). Also, there are several local staff members which is great for practicing my Spanish. I can tell that it is improving so much already.


So that is where a lot of my time is spent. Its a lot of hours, but the work is not hard. Its also a lot of fun meeting all the travelers that come through and hearing their stories. So far England and Austrailia win for having the largest number of people traveling. Its normal for people in other countries to have 6 week holidays. When I tell them that many Americans only get one or two weeks vacation a year, they dont believe me.

Besides work I have been spending my time walking around the old colonial part of Quito. The architecture is beautiful and there are so many people outside walking around. The other day I also had the opportunity to get out of the city. The hostel organizes a few trips to the jungle and on treks up some mountains. I was able to go on a trek up the (still active) volcano called Guagua (Wawa) Pichincha. The owner of the hostel was our guide and he took seven of us to the base of the mountain in his land rover. He even let four of us (including me) sit on the roof while he drove on the curvy dirt roads. It was loads of fun (Im sure all you parents out there are cringing). The altitude really hit all of us and we had to take it pretty slow up to the top. The top was at about 14,000 ft.

Yesterday during my time off, two other people and I went to a Turkish bath. It was definitely needed after the day of mountain climbing. The three of us had the whole place to ourselves. For six dollars we got three hours of a jacuzzi, sauna, turkish bath and pool. Then we went to lunch and had a three course meal for $1.30.

As you can tell Im having a lot of fun. I think that working at the Secret Garden is a great way for me to start my journey because Im saving money, meeting people and getting to know the city. It is, however, very different from how I imagine the rest of my time here. I am planning on finding a job teaching English and living with an Ecuadorian family, or Ecuadorian roommates so that I can really immerse myself in the language and culture. Also, I am currently researching more volunteer opportunities that work with orphans or homeless people.

Thank you all for your comments and for reading, I hope that this post serves to catch you up on what my life here is like so far. It was an overview of what Im doing and in the future I will write more about details of life in Ecuador. It is very different from the U.S.

I have more pictures that I want to post, but for some reason the computer Im on wont let me download them. Ill have more later.

Until next time...Ciao!