Day: 347

My alarm beeped off at 8 am this morning and I jumped out of bed with the exuberance of a child at an all you can eat ice cream buffet.  The sun was streaming in our second story window overlooking the street, and the day looked spectacular.  Yet, for some reason Felicia didn’t have the same zest for the day as I; it could have been the time difference, the sleepless night on a plane the day before, the altitude, her reoccurring fever, or the new bacteria hanging out in Ecuador’s water, all I could coax from her was a general sense of malaise and an “Uggghhh…” 

We finally created a united front and headed downstairs to the café on the first floor for a breakfast of coffee, assorted bread products, jam and cheese.  We stuffed our faces quickly and soon found Luis (who, it turns out manages the Spanish school) waiting for us in the lobby.  He wandered the four or five blocks with us back to the school and introduced us to our teacher, Jimena (a charming woman in her 40’s who has been teaching Spanish to travelers for 12 years). Class started and before long Felicia and I were conjugating up a storm, learning all sorts of priceless information (unless you count the $85 we each paid for 20 hours of private lessons with Jimena).  Felicia was right in her element as a front of the class student and I was constantly scribbling to keep up.  

After an hour or so, we were informed today, being Friday, was the day we would be taking our cooking portion of the class.  We were each given a short list of groceries to buy and Jimena walked with us down to the market where we picked up some tomatoes, onions and chile peppers for the soup we were concocting. Each student had their own list and soon we all piled in the kitchen to chop and boil like mad.  I was assigned to peel the avocados.  Shortly there after the soup was ready and all the students and teachers piled in one room for lunch.

The next couple of hours with Jimena passed quickly, until I felt my head would burst of esta, estoy and nosotro-s pouring from my ears.  We set up to meet tomorrow at 8:30am and Felicia and I headed out to see what we could find in the “Old Town” a couple of miles walk away.  We bumbled through a church (where we promised to come back and climb the rickety steps to the top for $2), wandered the streets watching old men carrying refrigerators, and just got a general sense of Quito until it was time for an afternoon nap.  Which lead into an evening of Spanish homework and overachieving (en Espanol!) followed by a dinner of assorted bread products from the bakery.

Day: 346

Somewhere over Central America I open my eyes, blinded by the bright morning sun. The Singaporean in the window seat next to me has that, ghost white-hands clenched-holding down the vomit look on her face; the look you never really want to see on a fellow passenger at 35,000 feet. I glance at my watch and add two hours for the coming time change, fuck we still have another 45 minutes until we are back on the ground. I give her my best weak smile and try to be supportive.

Over the next 15 minutes, she progressively turns paler and paler, rifling through the seat back pocket looking for the puke bag. We find the Central American airline, TACA, doesn’t really see the need for vomit sacks, which to my dismay, is when I realize this could turn into a very dirty situation. Finally she grabs the flight pillow from between us, strips the pillow case from its soft filling and sits with the thin nylon sack clenched in front of her excessively focused face.

As the flight attendants collect the headsets I realize in 15 minutes we’ll be on the ground, possibly without being covered in two hour old, regurgitated breakfast omelet and fruit cup. Just as the thought crossed my mind, the plane hit a bump and the torrent was released. My stomach went queasy, but like a good boyfriend I leaned forward to block her from prying eyes.

Four hours and one layover later we arrive in Quito, Ecuador to be greeted at the airport by Luis from the language school where we signed up to better our Spanish over the coarse of the next week. He delivered us to our quiet hostel in the New Town, and arranged to pick us up at 8:45am tomorrow morning to start our classes at 9am. Felicia and I, exhausted from a more or less sleepless red eye flight, agreed on a quiet afternoon, starting with lunch, during which the skies of this high altitude capital (9405 feet) decided to dump buckets on us. We ran back three blocks in the driving rain and settled into our room for a late afternoon siesta.

Two and a half hours later we were awoken by screaming, flag waving people in the middle of the street, chanting about something I didn’t understand (I can only assume it is the recent trouble with Colombia making military incursions on Ecuadorian soil although Felicia thinks their chant sounded like “potatoes… tortillas…”)

When we checked into our room the hostel owner, Jeanette warned us to not walk the streets after 9pm, seeing how they become “very unsafe”. It was closing on 8pm now, so we made a dash to the market for some water and pastries, and came back to our room for an early, easy evening of altitude acclimatization.

(P.S. Sorry for the sub par pics. It´s that first day in the country thing… exhaustion always shows on my lack of getting the camera out)