Greetings (and goodbye) from Quito

[Between being busy and spotty internet we did not get to regularly update (hence the title) during our week, but here is a summary of our time in Quito.]

Door to door it took us about 22 hours to get from San Pedro to Guatemala City to Mexico City (yes, wrong direction but they were free tickets) to Quito. We left San Pedro early because of potential disruptions due to protests in Guatemala City regarding corruption with the Vice President (and now President), but were able to navigate them without incident. This meant we had a lot of time to kill in a very small airport. We found an open space and proceeded to calmly pass a mini soccer ball around - that lasted about 25 seconds before we were reprimanded.

In Mexico City security we were forced to pull out every electronic device separately for the first time ever. This was quite a chore but ended without incident (except that one child left his electronic bag in security which we thankfully noticed quickly after the fact).  We boarded our flight in Mexico City at about 1AM and landed just before 6AM local time. We were then taken to our new home which is another Airbnb place. Here we have more space, a TV, and separate bathrooms. We also have laundry (the 15 loads by hand were fun but....), we can drink from the faucet and put toilet paper in the toilet, which does actually swirl the opposite direction! Needless to say, we will enjoy luxuries that we now appreciate more than ever, having not had them for the last month.

Quito sits at about 9400 feet and is huge. We knew from the start that we would only be about to scratch the surface here as we need to get a lot of school done because the next two weeks will be tough to accomplish much.  

Day 1
Having barely slept on the plane it goes without saying we were exhausted. All in all though the kids did great. We slept for about two hours and then headed out with 3 missions: lunch, SIM cards and groceries. Our place here is more out in the suburbs and there is a true mall nearby which contained all 3 of our objectives. We had our share of mishaps and communication issues but untimely got the 3 chores done in about double the time it should have taken. The funniest was trying to get from the grocery store back to our place. The groceries got put in the trunk and the driver took off with only half of us in the car. The half in the car didn't have our address and because we were both trying to call each other the calls were not connecting. Eventually we got the driver to turn around and collect the other half of the family. The driver was quite gracious with us as we couldn't stop laughing because we couldn't exactly state our address correctly.... We just keep saying "more" to go further down the street as he drove 20 yards and stopped followed by another 20 yards and so on. 

While here we had no definite plans which was nice. Here is the view from our new place.

Off in the distance is Volcano Cotopaxi which is experiencing violent tremors of late and being watched very closely. Here is a link to recent story. http://www.wired.com/2015/08/cotopaxi-continues-rumble-ecuador-prepares-eruption/  This is about 30 miles away so we didnt believe we were in immediate danger, but it could've certainly make things interesting.

Day 2 - Saturday
 We enjoyed getting to spread out in some space of our own and catch up a bit on life electronically.  However wifi was spotty and we still have to figure out some of our apps and systems to make school go a bit smoother.
     We went to a park where the locals tend to hang out and played a bit of soccer.  We attended a college soccer game at a local stadium.  This was interesting as it was not heavily attended and we joked that there were more riot police there than fans!

Day 3 - Sunday
We are on the same time zone as home here, so we watched the live feed of our church from home via computer which was a real treat. We enjoyed Cinnabons we had purchased the night before because today our beautiful daughter turned 4!!  Happy Birthday SJ!

New swimsuit birthday present!!

Later, we experimented with the public bus system as we headed up to Mitad Del Mundo which is a location on the equator with museums, monuments and all sorts of hands-on educational displays. It is about 40 minutes north of Quito and was a very cool experience. The site was built in 1979 but modern technology has proven the line drawn is 262 yard off the actual equator. The actual equator though is a line 5KM wide as 0'0'0" changes throughout the year depending on the earth's rotation, translation and nutation (yes, that's a word). Supposedly on June 21st exactly 0'0'0" approaches the yellow line.

Monument housing museum and hands-on activities

Panoramic from top of monument

The day concluded with a meal of SJ's choice which meant ice cream and Papa Johns pizza - yes that's right, they are here, along with Pizza Hut, Dominoes and many other American fast-food establishments.

Day 4 - Monday
We headed into the old city and took a 3.5 hour free (excluding the highly requested tip) walking tour which was excellent. This free tour provided all sorts of history and information about the city pointing out museums, churches, government buildings, currency, wars and food options to name a few. It was a great way to get high level info so as to decide what else we wanted to do during our stay in Quito. Because it was Monday we were able to see the Changing of the Guard at the Presidential palace but not gain access to any museums as they are all closed on Mondays.

Presidential Palace

Panoramic of Royal Plaza

Raising of the flag

Day 5 - Tuesday
Was supposed to be a half day of school that stretched into a full day - ugh

Day 6  -Wednesday
School in the morning and then headed out to check out museums and more of Old Quito. We did many interesting things including visiting the original Jesuit church (with baroque architecture covered in gold leaf), a currency museum, the museum of San Francisco which housed some amazing art work originally developed to help the Spanish explain Christianity to the natives, and lastly we circled back to La Ronda which is a very artsy part of Quito with lots of crafts shops and excellent dining. None of the museums really allow photos, so these are "unofficial".

Small portion of the church

Garbage bins rise up to reveal larger containers

Day 7 - Thursday
Today we explored the "Telefrico" which is a gondola that rises up above 13,000 feet over the city. Amazing views were had from all directions as were chilly temperatures. We ended this day with a surprise YoungLife connection - but will do a separate post on that.

13,000 feet - Part of the city of Quito

Panoramic view

So much more we could have done here as we barely scratched the surface. Equally so much more we could say but we head to the Galapagos at 4am (which is less than 6 hours away) and we need to get a few hours of sleep!