17 septiembre 2009
on saturday we went on the biking tour of cotopaxi national park. we left from the mariscal at 7am and drove to cotopaxi which is about 2 hours south of quito. we entered the park and drove up these winding dirt roads until we reached near the refugio which is the overnight resting place for the climbers of the mountain. we got out and it was so cold! you might notice the warm winter coat i borrowed from the biking company to wear because of the cold and windy conditions. we tested out the bikes but it was difficult because of the wind. but the views were amazing. cotopaxi is the highest of the mountains here. it takes 3 to 4 days to climb to the top with ice gear so we probably won´t but i loved being there. we started off going downhill on bikes which was actually quite hard because of the dirt and having to brake the whole time hurt our hands a bit. but once we got down a ways it was wonderful. much warmer and less windy and the trail was very much mountainous with large rocks, small streams and dirt that occasionally made you spin out because you´d get stuck in it. i liked passing the small streams by bike. there were also wild horses in the park! large groups of them. we stopped for lunch near a stream and then kept going until mid afternoon. we returned to quito later in the afternoon exhausted but very thankful that we had such a wonderful day. on sunday we got up and went to la compania de jesus again for mass at 9 and then returned to our hostal to check out. we moved all of our stuff a few blocks away to casa oriente where we live now. it is more like a casa than a hostal and we like this. pedro, the owner sat and talked with us for a while about what to expect living there and he and his wife and children and their grandmother live in the apartment in front of the house. we wanted to go to quitofest to hear the live music in parque ichimbia which is very near our casa and we arrived but it had already ended. so we walked around the park, tried some food from the vendors and enjoyed the peace of the park up on the hill away from the noise of the city. on monday i started work in the clinica. i went up to the north of the city to talk with a fundacion called vista para todos (vision for everyone) to ask if they can send doctors to do eye checkups for the children at CENIT, and if we can negotiate a lower price because the parents have to pay for their children and many are very poor. they told me $2.50 per child for the initial checkups and the nurse thinks that is too much because last year a doctor came to do the checkups for 1 dollar per child. on tuesday i went to the clinica vision 20/20 to talk with them about negotiating a lower price and this time it went a bit better but i am still waiting to hear when i can have an appointment with the doctor´s wife to negotiate the terms of the checkups. on tuesday afternoon we walked to a neighborhood north of ours called La Floresta in which all the streets are named after cities or islands in Spain (por ejemplo Madrid, Toledo, Mallorca) and we found a panaderia (bread shop) called Pan del horno (bread from the oven) that was so good. it is now my favorite panaderia in Quito. we hope to go back tomorrow. it is near the Universidad Catolica y 12 de octubre. on wednesday we tried to figure out our extension on our visa but that did not go as planned. the embassy changed locations so we had to go way up to the north near carcelen, which is nearly out of the city it is so far north. we got off the bus and it was pouring rain. we walked up and found the embassy but they told us to go to another building called migracion, and when we arrived there soaked about a half an hour later they told us to go to another one too. it was already 5pm so we called it a day and took the long cold and wet bus ride home. we cooked pasta with meat sauce and rewarded ourselves with submarinos (a type of hot chocolate.) this morning i got up at 7am to wash clothes because now that it is rainy season, it rains in the afternoons and i needed my clothes to dry in the morning sun. today at work i went with the coordinadora jessy into the clinica de la calle, the street medical clinic doing blood pressure and general health checkups for the adults in the mercado camal, a market nearby. they were very grateful that we came and gave us avocados and mandarinas (a type of oranges.) i am making guacamole tonight from the avocado. after CENIT i went with Lisa to her spanish lesson but it was canceled so i will go tomorrow, to check out how her profesor is and if i want to take some lessons. my spanish is improving but it has a long way to go before i consider myself fluent. lisa and i went for ice cream and vino caliente (hot wine) at a cafe in the centro historico. she is from Cologne, Germany and studies Latin American studies and Spanish and is passionate about speaking spanish like me so we always talk in spanish which i love. we are going to puerto quito with her and her housemate this weekend which is a town about 3 hours west of quito where there are chocolate farms and different fruits as well as waterfalls and a river we want to swim in. al went to the migracion to talk about the visa extensions and we have to go to the ministerio de extranjeros next week for more information as well. it is a long process we are told because we make is so hard for the ecuadorians to enter and stay in the US they do the same to us. we are trying to get at 45 day extension so we can stay until the beginning of january before leaving for peru. tonight we went to santa maria a big supermarket that has discounted meat on thursdays. i made a really good chili con carne earlier this week so we bought more ground beef for that. tonight i will make patacones which are fried plantains.
chao!
Tags: Quito
annieandal
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