Week One - WOW

My father kept asking, “Why are you doing this?” He could simply not understand why we would give up good incomes, a beautiful lake-front home and all the creature comforts we enjoyed in Canada to move to Quito, Ecuador, South America. And he wasn’t even thinking about all of the work it took to pack up our home, and sell our vehicles.
I do not think that we ever really convinced him with our arguments of adventure-seeking, travel opportunities and professional development. Maybe some of the stories we will share will help him to understand what this is all about. So …after one week – here’s our first impression.

We don’t speak Spanish (yet). But using the languages we do speak (including French and Portuguese) and thanks to the good nature of Ecuadorians, who are incredibly friendly and helpful, we have managed to arrange accommodations, SIM Cards and minutes for our cellphones, eat regularly (no guinea pig yet, though) and not get lost.

The school has pulled out all the stops providing a driver and others to support our house hunting, shopping, banking, etc. There are 9 new teachers (3, like me with non-teaching spouses, 2 singles, and 2 teaching couples, one with a 5 year-old and one on the way, and the other just married last month). We all arrived on Monday or Tuesday,August 6-7, and we are all in various stages of getting settled.
We looked at 20 apartments over the first 3 days and decided to try out a small 3-BR house, a 15-min walk to school. The house is perfect, fully furnished and equipped (dishes, bedding, etc.). The only drawback is that there is absolutely no view from the house, except for the high walls surrounding the property and well-kept gardens. We are living in the Andes and from some places in Quito, you can see 3 snow-capped volcanoes all at once. We would prefer something with a view of the valleys and peaks. We want to be able to look out our windows and see that we live in South America. But now that we have this base, we can take more time to find what we are looking for. Heck – what is one more packing and unpacking….??

Today the school arranged for us newcomers to visit Papallacta (pronounced papajacta because 2 l’s is really a /j/ as in jump – I love this language already!). Papallacta is about 2 hours NE of Quito. I am not absolutely sure of the NE part, because it was overcast and the roads twisted and wound up and down and around mountain sides, and being south of the equator also throws me off. I lost track of the direction. As we stepped out the van we discovered we were underdressed – at 3,300 m above sea level it was cold and misty as the clouds rolled in – BUT – we were there to spend the day in the hot springs. That was heavenly!!! There were 6-7 pools with varying temperatures. We spent a couple of hours in the hot water, had a nice lunch and returned to Quito late afternoon. Definitely a spot we will return to.

The weather has been perfect, warm, sunny days with 22-24 degrees and cool evenings falling to 14-16 degrees and nightly lows of 9-10 degrees. We have not been very bothered by the altitude, but we do get winded very easily, walking up stairs and hills. The traffic is hectic, but not worse than Dhaka or Cairo. The food is great – lots of potatoes, fresh fruit (the papaya we have for breakfast is sooooo delicious) and we’re looking forward to getting to know about the varieties of quinoa. 

So…the first week has been a whirlwind. Week 2 will be about car hunting, getting local driver’s licenses, sorting out our technology (e.g. the blackberry doesn’t work, we still need to get internet in the house) and more exploration of Quito. I don’t actually have school stuff until Monday, August 20.
Here’s a picture from the school.