Quito!

It is great to be back in Quito; I was kind of missing it!

Tara and I spent most of Saturday with our host brother Tato. We drove around running errands all morning and in the afternoon the entire family went to the Teleferico. This is a gondola ride up one of the hills surrounding Quito. It was really pretty; and cold!

Sunday we drove an hour to our family’s farm. I really had no idea what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised. The farm is a little gated community where strawberries, avocados, tree tomatoes, figs, limes and a few other fruits are grown. Our family has a little cottage/cabin there where they basically go to relax. We met our other two brothers and their families there. We spent most of the day playing soccer, snoozing, and walking about the strawberry field. There was also a BBQ! I had finished stuffing my face with steak, potatoes, salad, corn on the cob, empanadas, grilled bananas and I thought I could not possibly eat anymore when my host mother walked out with a cake singing ‘Feliz Cumpliaños’ or ‘Happy Birthday’. I had been in the Galapagos during my birthday, so I guess this was my celebration with my family. Everyone was singing, they also have this song that basically translates as ‘you keep getting older’. The cake was set in front of me—chocolate and whipped cream with “Feliz Cumpliaños Kaleen”—I blew out the candle and everyone started chanting, “¡¿Que muerte el pastel?!” aka “What killed the cake?!”. Apparently, it is at this time that the birthday person bites the cake. As I took a bite of the cake my head was pushed into it!! (I had talked to one of the guides in the Galapagos about their birthday traditions and I totally knew what was coming…). Haha! It was funny. I wasn’t too covered in cake, mostly my nose.

Before we left I picked some avocados (because I’m tall) and we had the best guacamole EVER when we got home. I didn’t think I would eat anything since we had so much earlier, but it was just too good!

We had our final day of class on Monday; gracias a Dios! We had to give final presentations over our research papers. We all wanted to find an adventure for the afternoon, but we ended up splitting up and wandering around until dark. We were going to try to visit some of the old churches we didn’t get to see, but everything just takes so long here that we ran out of time.

Today a majority of the group went on another field trip to Bellavista, a cloud forest reserve and orchid garden. It sounded like a really beautiful trip, but Tara and I couldn’t bring ourselves to spend another day with the group on a bus. Instead, we are planning on spending the day with Tato again, going to museums and whatnot around the city.