Our Stay with Raquel

Colegio Menor awesomely sets up each of their new teachers with a host family for their first few days in Quito.  The idea is that their host can show them around the city, teach them to use the buses, help them find an apartment, etc.  Our host, Raquel, was AWESOME right from the start.  As you read, we had some minor delays getting here and she was a trooper with all of our emails and calls on Friday saying 'We're going to be late!' 'We're not coming today!' 'We may make it today!' 'Nope, we're definitely not coming today!'  And she was there waiting for us, with a 'Javier Cabezas' sign when we arrived at the airport on Saturday :)

Raquel lives in Cumbaya, which is also where Colegio Menor is located.  Cumbaya is in the valley and Quito is up on the mountain. Her house was absolutely amazing (big!) And we fell into an easy routine with her and Pancho (her little perro).  She fixed us breakfast every morning (always with fresh juice: tomato, pineapple, passionfruit and banana) and dinner each night!  And spent the day helping us get to know our new home!  Here's a quick tour of the house:

This is our room (gorgeous ceiling!) and the picture below is the view from our balcony.

Here is Raquel's kitchen (no oven, just stove top! pretty typical it seems) and cool floating staircase.

This is the beautiful backyard!  It had an adorable little BBQ and Pancho :)

This is a tomato tree in Raquel's backyard.  It grows tomate de arbol which is my new favorite juice. 

Our first day, Raquel took us to 'Old' Quito.  It's the southernmost part of the city and is the original colony, so there are amazing Spanish churches everywhere.  It was really fun to walk around and people watch.  I didn't take any pictures that day for a couple of reasons: 1) we wanted to focus on soaking it all in and 2) it was Quito's Independence day, so there were a lot of people and it seemed smart not to look more tourist than we had to (who are we kidding...Javier is at least a head taller than every Ecuadorian we've seen...we stick out like sore thumbs).  We tried some new snacks as we walked: mani con azucar and espumilla.  Mani con azucar are sugar coated peanuts (think cracker jacks) and delicious.  Espumilla is whipped egg whites that they serve with fruit.  (Probably my new favorita!).

The next day we looked at an apartment (didn't love it) and then went on a hike in Parque Metropolitano.  Parque Metropolitano is larger than NYC's Central Park (whoa!) and located between Cumbaya and Quito (sort of).  It's still up on the mountain, but has gorgeous views of both the valley (Cumbaya) and the city (Quito).  Here are some fun pictures (its amazing how the pictures just don't do the view justice) of us and Raquel and the views!

Javier and I also took a day to walk around Cumbaya a bit.  It seems that it would be ideal to have a car if you were to live in Cumbaya, but the park and many restaurants were only a 20/25 minute walk from Raquel's.  (We've already noticed there is a definite walking culture here, which is awesome!)  The park is right next to a beautiful church (photograph below, where Raquel's daughter was married) and had many benches for people watching.

Staying with Raquel was really great.  We can tell already that Colegio Menor knows how to do this international teacher thing.  She fed us well and even took us to the Supermaxi (grocery store) to try to help us learn about food options and prices.  She really treated us like two of her own kiddos (especially when we told her we wanted to move into the apartment we rented for the first month...she said 'why would you do that when you can stay here and I'll take care of you?!')  She even checked the blankets on our bed (when she dropped us at the apartment) to ensure there were enough, saying 'It gets cold at night!'  We know we'll be keeping in touch with her and she's still offered to help us find a permanent spot.  It was so great to have her these last couple of days!