May 29th blog

Today is a travel day, as we leave the beautiful city of Quito and head to Loja.
Once there, we will be met by our host families and begin our second phase of our Ecuador exchange. We will be living with our host families for the weekend and experiencing authentic Ecuadorian culture and lifestyle. Thus, the next blog will be Monday, June 2nd as we begin our activites with the students and faculty at the Colegio Iberoameicano in Loja.
In the meantime, here are some more pics from over the past few days.
Have a nice weekend!!!

May 29th blog

Today started out bright and not so awake at 5:30 A.M, all of us waiting to get on a bus at 6:30 A.M for a three hour trip to the town of Ibarra. Breakfast consisted of fruit and other various foods, coffee, hot chocolate, coffee, fruit juices, coffee… From Ibarra we took a “train”, meaning a trolley cart being pulled by what looked like half of a truck… into the mountains for some beautiful scenery of the crevices to tunnels to some really tall bridges, which the conductor felt necessary to stop in the middle of them (this is a problem for people with a fear of heights…). Anyways, after a long and very scenic trip through the mountains, we arrived at an African American – Ecuadorian town, where we were greeted by some young kids playing their style of music. The guides to this town were part of a social project, and we ate a delicious lunch of soup, a main course and a delicious papaya dessert at their restaurant. After filling our bellies with some very cultural dishes, we stopped at another town to visit their crafts market, where some of us bargained for better prices, and others just paid full price. After our fill of bargaining and looking even more like tourists with our hats and colorful scarves, and jade knives, we got back on the bus for two more hours of driving. Back at the hotel at six, we had some free time to go eat and then we met back at the hotel for some pool fun. Overall, it was a great day, and all of us are looking forward to sleeping in, seeing as we all got about two hours of sleep last night… (it made for very interesting breakfast conversations and bus rides...). Tomorrow we head off of Loja for some more fun. Yay!

Padres, cuidansen mucho. Los amamos.
For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, that means: parents (wow, how formal..) take care and we love you…

-- Christine (and Aneesh.. who sat here…)

P.S. Aneesh ate his veggies! (and he wrote this part!)

May 28th Blog

The group had a fun day today! We got on the bus at 830 am and began our tour of Quito. First, we went to La Basilica Vato Nacional, which had a beautiful gothic exterior. From there we traveled to La Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús. We weren´t allowed to take any pictures inside there because of its gold leafing. The church was made and designed by Jesuits. Then we went to the Franciscan monastery. It was being remodeled. Then we went to see the Winged Virgin statue on top of El Panacillo. After returning to the hotel, we explored Quito on foot, in groups. We got lunch and some people went to the mall. Then we went to dinner at a very nice restaurant before returning to the hotel once again and now we´re writing this blog at 11.

--Emily Bissett and Brandon Wilson

We are in Quito, Ecuador !!!

Hi everyone.

We have arrived safely in Quito, Ecuador.

We will have more blog entries posted by our world travelers following this initial one.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures for you to enjoy from today's long journey from N.C. to Quito.

Thanks.
Sr. Alvelo