Semana Tres

Wow! Our third week has come to an end and what a third week it has been! For myself, I think it is safe to say I have done Ecuador! Seriously, and I know there is still so much more left to see and experience. Last week during one of my classes, a student asked what was my favorite Ecuador dish. I replied that I had not really tried any typical food from Ecuador as yet. With that one sentence I believe I created a monster. I have four classes and each class has about thirty to forty students.Everyday for the past week students from each of these classes has been presenting me with food. Yes. Seriously. As these are english classes it was decided that the students would get grades by making a presentation in english about the name of the food, what region of the country it was from and the preparation involved. The students brought in foods from the coast, the amazon and the mountain regions.These dishes comprised of various types of plantain pressed or roasted with cheese,green plantain dumpling with cheese in the middle and others with pork and cheese in the middle, pan de yuca or yuca bread with cheese, potato patties, sugarcane pieces as well as sugarcane juice was brought in. Large roasted corn grains or choclo was brought in as a snack or I was told I could put it into a shrimp or ceviche soup that a student brought in. Empanadas, pork,lentil and rice from one student, arroz con leche or rice pudding, pork prepared different ways served with potato or rice, beef served with tomatoes and onions, different salsa sauce to put on the pork,shrimp,with tomato, onion and peppers,tamales, a corn drink called chicha, I have had coffee brought in to go with the patties and last but by no means least I have had Cuy from a student .Yes cuy. Translated ....Guinea Pig. A whole roasted guinea pig , head intact laying on some potatoes to finish of my week. All I could do was smile and say thank you, to say I was surprised would be putting it mildly.

Our group has also enjoyed many activities this past week which included Mitad Del Mundo- middle of the world, Pululahua Volcano and Papallacta Hot Springs. It was a surreal feeling to believe that you were standing in the middle of the world. In between our spanish classes we met with GIZ Germany, a group that is involved with assisting the government of Ecuador with various projects. We ended this week with a trip to Mindo which is north of Quito. There we visited an area where butterflies are being harvested. The only simple rule to follow was no insect repellent, or the butterflies would die. We spent about thirty minutes or more taking pictures and being totally enchanted by the large beautiful butterflies before going tubing.
Yeh, they called it tubing, personally I think it should have been called whitewater rafting! Either way it was amazingly cold but still a lot of fun. We hiked , and I mean hiked to a couple of waterfalls, took some great photos then dragged our tired aching legs (well I did), back up the mountain to take the cable transport back to the waiting pickup truck.
My favorite activity this week, well besides tasting all or most of Ecuador's foods was the cable car ride or teleferico. The cable car takes you high above the city. I loved it because you get to see most or all of Quito spread out before you as far as you can see and it's absolutely beautiful. It was a definite double, no triple wow moment.

H.