The Hills are Alive...

This past weekend, I couldn't help but sing tunes from The Sound of Music to myself while traveling through different mountains and volcanoes around Quito. The views from our various locales were amazing, from the páramo near Papallacta, to the Otavolo Indian market, to Cotocachi, Cuicachi, and Cotopaxi. Even from parts of Quito you can see for miles, and there's always a different landscape to admire.

The view from Parque Condor in Otovalo

really brought out the Von Trapp in me.

Waaaaaaay up in the páramo

Loving the sunlight on those hills

During our trip to the páramo on Friday we visited the polylepis forest, also known as the "Elfin forest." The trees there are really gnarly and have very flaky bark, and can be hundreds of years old. The polylepis forest is really moist, so we also saw a lot of interesting looking moss and lichen on the trees.

Gnarly.

Who knew moss and lichen could be so lovely?

My personal favorite, due to its resemblance to a cow

This weekend we have a three day adventure into the cloud forest of La Hesperia, where we'll do a lot of hiking and looking at plants. So far our educational trips have involved walking a few meters, talk about a plant, walk a couple more meters, talk about another plant, and so on. Our professor, Kelly, gives us a lot of good background information during lecture at the university, and I'm quickly learning a lot of different plant families. Soon we'll finish studying tropical montane ecology, and then we'll be off to the coast!

¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

Unfortunately, "¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!" isn't the sound I usually hear while playing fútbol during breaks at the university. Since the only organized sport I've played since eighth grade is Quidditch, I would say my hand-eye, or rather foot-eye, coordination is severely lacking. Regardless of the fact that the last time I played on an actual soccer team I was más o menos six years old, I've had a lot of fun playing fútbol for nearly three hours a day, four days a week.

During a typical day at USFQ, our break from noon to three typically consists of one part lunch, two parts soccer. The physical exercise is great, and it's also been a fun way to get to know other people on campus. Since I only have two classes a day with the same group of people, it's been a bit of a challenge meeting other people at the university, even the other gringos that are studying here. Each day, we have a different group of people that come to play, from exchange students from Wisconsin, to local Ecuadorean construction workers and painters working at the school, to other Ecuadorean students from Quito. We even scrimmaged with one of USFQ's women's teams, which was pretty tough. I'm pretty terrible at soccer, but I have a lot of fun so I don't mind making a fool out of myself once in awhile. Well, maybe a bit more often than once in awhile.

I usually miss the ball when

I try to kick like that.

Hopefully my soccer skills will improve at least slightly, so I can go back to America and actually show that I did South American things for some amount of time. I even had my first header during one of our games! (Although I mistakenly referred to the move as a "headbutt," which prompted some laughs from my team. Oops.)

Hot 'n' Cold

My life has become alarmingly like the infamous Katy Perry song, "Hot 'n' Cold." Not that I particularly enjoy associating random pop songs with various areas in my life, but I can't help think how the song relates to life in Quito. No matter which shower I use in the morning (one runs on a hot water tank, the other on electricity), I wind up stuck in some cycle of freezing, cool, lukewarm, and scalding water. I've gotten somewhat used to the timing of the electric shower, and I attempt to coincide my hair rinsing with the lukewarm time slot. I must say this can be quite the challenge at 7 o'clock in the morning.

Cotopaxi's glacier was a bit more cold than hot.

I think there's a good chance Katy Perry had Quito's climate in mind when writing her hit. In the mornings I'm sure to throw a sweatshirt or rain jacket on to walk to the bus stop, shed some layers on the stifling bus, put a sweatshirt back on for the frigid classroom in Cumbayá, and revert back to short sleeves to walk to lunch in the hot midday sun. Then I load up on sunscreen and athletic clothes so I don't get scorched while playing fútbol for two hours every day, followed by running into the classroom around 3 o'clock to avoid the daily afternoon downpour. The evening is a little less predictable, and can either be cool and overcast or torrential downpour, prompting me once again to throw on my rain gear for the long trek home (or sneak in a little more fútbol first if I can). Nights are pretty chilly, and I'm usually thankful for the three heavy blankets my host mom supplied with my bed. Then the next morning, the cycle commences once again.

Just in case the song just got stuck in your head...

Foreign Fun

Living in Ecuador, I should probably be speaking Spanish, reading Spanish, and eating Spanish foods. Yes, yes, I do get my fair share of empanadas, so the third category is probably covered (minus the shawarma I had for lunch and the pasta my host mom made for dinner, of course). My two hour Spanish class that I have four days a week, combined with the challenge of communicating with my host mom, definitely helps me brush up on my vocab and verb skills. Believe me, within the first few days I was already an expert on Spanish words regarding showering, brushing my teeth, and other household necessities, such as "Can you ask your dog to stop yapping at me every time I walk in the door?!?!" That last bit may have been a slight exaggeration, but the feeling isn't too far off.

The one part of the aforementioned list I haven't really covered yet is reading Spanish. Reading a language may be more important when you're just working for a decent grade in a 4-credit class at school, but living in Ecuador shuffles my priorities a bit, and puts a lot more weight on the speaking part of Spanish. Anyway, that's my excuse for reading books in English I enjoy instead of attempting selections from the local biblioteca.

I knew living alone in a homestay would give me

much more free time than living in a dorm, so I came equipped with the best: an Amazon Kindle. Besides my teddy bear and my alarm clock, it's probably the most useful thing I managed to squeeze into my suitcase. After finishing the one physical book I brought along (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), I eagerly downloaded Vaclav & Lena, a book I started during the summer and never got the chance to finish. I finished it in about two days, with the help of a couple long bus rides into different parts of Ecuador. It's a story of two Russian immigrant children growing up in Brooklyn, and their lives both together and apart, until the time they are seventeen. The boy's ambition to be a magician makes it fun, and the ties they have to each other, to Russia, and to America, makes it especially appealing.

Maybe it was my college essay entitled "A Date with Dostoevsky," or maybe it was reading Chekhov in high school AP English, but for some reason I can't get away from Russian literature. Vaclav & Lena may have taken place in Brooklyn, but it definitely contained it's fair share of borscht and memories of Moscow. My next inescapable venture into Russia is Anna Karenina, the most recent download on my Kindle. If I'm really going to make this a year of adventure, why not invite Tolstoy along for the ride? The incredibly slowly moving "percent completed" on the Kindle may be intimidating, but I think the long bus rides and hours in the rainforest will give me the time and interest needed to power through.

Besides reading foreign books, I also can't seem to help listening to foreign music. I don't just mean the usual Beatles and Kooks songs that are always on my iPod, but the one song I haven't be able to avoid lately: "Ai Se Eu Te Pego" by Michel Teló.

Don't be fooled by this track's #1 placement on Ecuador's current top 40 - this winner is 100% Brazilian. I suppose it's still South American, but the Portuguese lyrics are less than simple to understand. However, the translation assures me that Michel Teló isn't exactly attempting any deeper meaning to the catchy tune. From the bus to the bar to the cell phone of a random person walking down the street, "Ai Se Eu Te Pego" is always playing somewhere, and therefore always stuck in my head. Next step: the dance.

La Vida en Quito

Quito is a pretty hectic place. Everyone is constantly running, pushing, driving, shopping, eating, working, and speaking Spanish (duh, I know). Looking out the double windows from my corner room in my home stay apartment, I can watch pedestrians miraculously avoid getting hit by cars and buses, time and time again; I can hear the street performer play "La Cucaracha" and the Pink Panther theme on his trombone; I can struggle to see the lights of all the cars going through "optional" red stoplights through the incredibly thick fog. Getting on the bus is a nightmare, and I've missed my stop more than once attempting to push through the crowds of people in the doors. Small change is hard to come by, which can be a challenge when each bus ride is only 25¢. Safety is always a priority, and I've have a list tacked in my brain of which side of the street to walk on, who to ask for directions, what to always carry with me, when to take a taxi, when to take the bus, and a thousand other helpful tips.

Just imagine how much traffic is

weaving through all those streets.

Quito is also a beautiful place. The way the lights shine through the fog at night is scary, but peaceful, and the view of the mountains from nearly every street is breathtaking. La Parque Carolina is two blocks from my house, and is a hotspot for fútbol, volleyball, skateboarding, biking, running, and with the help of us gringos, Frisbee! The amount of delicious tropical fruits here are astounding, and I don't think I've ever been so excited to try so many different juices (my current favorite is guanábana juice).

Centro Quito screams the influence of the Spanish conquistadors, and the churches offer an artful display of the dominance of Catholicism here. La Ronda is home to "Old Quito," with narrow cobblestone streets, nightly street performances, and tons of restaurants offering empanadas, fresas con chocolate (sticks of chocolate covered strawberries, only $1!), and multiple variations of my new favorite beverage, canelazo.

Wrought-iron and pastel beauty.

I definitely miss Boston, but I'm loving the life in Quito.

Intro.

The latitude of the Equator is 0°. The latitude of Quito, Ecuador is 0°15S. That's pretty damn close to 0. I've been in Quito for two weeks, and I'm here in Ecuador for about seventeen more.

My token typical touristy photo of Centro Quito

I'm hoping to document my escapades around Earth's Equator for the next four months, followed by more adventures both abroad and at home (whether in Boston or Bridgeport). Here in Ecuador I will be traveling from my apartment in Quito, to the university in Cumbayá, to mountains and volcanoes, to the tropical coast, to the Galapagos Islands, and to the heart of the Amazon rainforest. I have no doubt in my mind that it will be an amazing time, and that I'll have plenty to share about nature, culture, and whatever I'm reading at the time.

¡Salud!