Iglesia de San Francisco

Javier and I had another amazing weekend (our last hurrah before the kiddos come to school!), which included a fun concert/show on Friday night.  A fellow teacher (who rides our bus) performed in the show and told us a bit about it (mostly that everyone would be dressed as little devils and that there was a lot of fire planned).  The show was at Plaza de San Fransisco and told the legend of the church, Iglesia de San Fransisco, that dominates the western part of the square.  Here are some pictures, the plaza looked beautiful at night!

This is the most expensive hotel in Quito! You can also see the statue of The Virgin on El Panecillo (to the left).

This is not Iglesia de San Francisco but Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus that we've toured!

I should maybe start with a quick recap of the legend of Iglesia de San Fracisco (so that you know why there were little devils running around everywhere).  The story (as we've heard it and another version you can read on the church's wiki page ...down at the bottom under El atrio de Cantuna) is that a native man named Cantuna was supposed to build the church.  He was given the money upfront but (depending on which story you listen to...) spent it drinking and having a merry ole time instead.  As the deadline for the construction approached, the devil offered to build the church for Cantuna in  exchange for his soul.  Cantuna accepted the deal from the devil (that he would 'place every stone in one night' in exchange for Cantuna's soul).  So the devil and all his minions ran around and built the entire church in one night.  Cantuna, however, hid a single stone (either by drunkenly passing out on it or cleverly hiding it from the devil...again depending on which story you're going with here...) so that when the devil claimed to have completed construction, Cantuna revealed the hidden stone and claimed the devil had not 'placed every stone.'  In this manner he escaped hell and was able to complete the church on time.

At the start of the show they set off ample amounts of fireworks from this church that was first constructed in the 1500s (which made all the Americans very nervous).

Here are the devil's minions descending from the church and into the crowd.

Two demons actually walked down the church from the roof (where they had been setting off all the fireworks)

This is the stage (there was fire everywhere, constantly) where the band played some awesome (and creepy) music throughout the show. (Santiago is the Colegio Menor teacher who told us about it...he played sax!)

The performers (and their fire) ventured out into the crowded square often.

Their costumes (and the fire) were terrifying!

Here is a picture of Santiago on stilts!  He told us he was going to walk in them at some point, but he ended up dancing, hopping down stairs and playing with fire in them.  We were very impressed!

In the end Cantuna came out (also on stilts) and defeated the devil by revealing the last stone (which was also made out of fire).  It was a super entertaining show (did I mention the fire?)!  It was fun to dance in the square and get to witness such an extravagant Quito event!  Also the fireworks were awesome (and close)!  We hope it was just the first of many :)

Ohhhhhh Otavalo!

Javier and I survived our first full week at school! But I'm not ready to write 

a post about it because I'm still feeling quite overwhelmed stressed undecided about my room decor and first week's lesson plans.  When I'm more pulled together ready, I'll be sure to share some pictures from Colegio Menor and of my room!  I will say, that I am equal parts overwhelmed stressed unsure and super excited about this upcoming school year!

Instead I thought I'd share some pictures and souvenirs from our day trip to Otavalo!  Today we joined some fellow new teachers on a little excursion that started with a stop in Cayambe to get some bizcochos con dulce.  Apparently you can find bizcochos everywhere, but Cayambe is particularly known for them (and decidedly worth the stop!).  I'd describe bizcochos as little biscotti, but served with a side of dulce de leche (basically carmel sauce).  They made for a good start to the trip!

Then we were off to the small town of Otavalo, well known for its indigenous market.  The market is packed with folks selling ponchos, scarves, jewelry, art and knick-knacks.  We were fairly warned that sellers would likely mark up their prices when addressed by gringos (that's us) and so we shouldn't take the first (or likely second or third) price offered.  (I am horrible  at this and usually 1) lack a poker face and show shock and excitment when they name their reasonable-by-USA-standards price or 2) go on and on about how beautiful the item is making it obvious that I really want it...leaving Javier very little to negotiate with...) We were on the look out for apartment items: an alpaca blanket for our bed, rugs, art, etc. (Have I mentioned we think we found a permanent apartment that is awesome!...but not furnished...but that's another post, another day)  In addition to scoping out our potential purchases, I also enjoyed people watching...particularly down the aisles where food (live chickens, fresh fried fish and whole hogs) was being sold.

In the end, I would say we were pretty successful, ending up with a blanket, piece of original art and clay dish (which will be great for making pastel de chocolo, a Chilean dish we ate on our honeymoon) from the market. (Also a piece of delicious pie from The Pie Shop that is located in Otavalo's market!)

With our purchases stowed safely on the bus, we took a quick walk to the Peguche waterfall, another Otavalo attraction. It was an easy hike walk and completely beautiful.  Totally worth the stop.

Lastly, we ate at Cabanas del Lago that had a gorgeous view of the lake and surrounding mountains.  This was now our third Colegio Menor sponsored lunch that included three courses, cloth napkins and gorgeous scenery. (They took the new teachers out to a great spot our first week, then had a tented 'Welcome' lunch the first day all teachers reported to school...I'm getting so spoiled...)  And after our delicious lunch, we took a quick boat ride around the lake to appreciate the views more closely.  

We were almost detained getting home by this herd of cows....but luckly passed them safely to make it back to Quito. It was an awesome day! It seems the more we see of Ecuador, the more we love it!

Dos and Don'ts

Well we've been in Quito a week :) and I updated you on some of our shenanigans from our time with Raquel.  Since we've been in our Airbnb spot we've been searching for a permanent apartment and exploring the city a bit.  We've also started working (yikes!), but I'll save those details for a Colegio Menor post.  Instead of giving you the play by play of our last couple days, I thought I'd share a list of 'dos' and 'don'ts' that we've been doing (and don'ting?) to try to give you an idea of our life in Quito so far.

Things we are doing

• Having fresh juice every morning (I've been following Raquel's 'recipe' and made us fresh tomate de arbor juice and pineapple juice (which turned out a little more sour than hers).
• Boiling the tap water before drinking it.  Raquel told us that even though the government says it's okay to drink, she thinks it could cause some....bathroom troubles if you drink it. (All I needed to hear...)
• Eating helado de paila.  Not to be confused with ice cream because there is no cream (or milk) in it.  Helado de paila is just fresh fruit and egg whites that are frozen (but sooooo delicious)

• Finding a Packers bar in Quito.  That's right, Finn McCool's is listed on PackersEverywhere as a legit spot to catch our Green Bay boys on Sundays this fall.  We've already been for a visit and guess what else they serve....Baby Guiness shots.  I swear they are right there on the menu ($2.50) and I have a picture to prove it, but some of the names of the other shots made me hesitate to post the image online...
• Eating bananas and plantains.  A. Lot.  I had plantains two ways at lunch; savory, fried plantains and a sweet roasted plantain.  We're also eating these amazing banana chips!  They're salty, not sweet (we think because they harvest the bananas before they're ripe to make the chips) 

• Trying our darndest to learn Spanish...some of us *cough* *cough* Javier *cough* *cough* are doing juuuuust fine chatting it up with locals (and have been greeted with shock when we say we're from the US because...I quote....'you don't sound gringo')  Others of us are diligently working on our Rosetta Stone lessons...(and missing Lily Mae while we do them)

Things we are not doing

• Flushing toilet paper down the pot.  That's right...the plumbing can't take it (at least they say, and we're not willing to take the chance), so we're discarding our used TP in a little trash can next to the commode. (Now you've all been warned and can prepare yourself for this tradition when you come to visit...)
• Pulling our phones out on the buses/metro.  (Apparently this is the easiest place to be robbed of such a device so NO ONE has their phone out on public transportation...not even locals)
• Buying peanut butter (a tiiiiiny jar is like $6 here)
• Drinking American beer.  For the most part, it's more expensive (Except for Bud Heavies that are randomly the same price as Ecuadorian beers...Jeff Marklin, Quito must be your heaven!)  A six pack of Corona was $13 at the grocery store and a 16 ounce can of Guinness draft was $14 at the bar! 

• Wearing shorts.  It seems that they are just not worn in Quito.  A veteran teacher at school said you'll find them a lot more on the coast, but truthfully we haven't missed them.  Quito weather seems perfect for pants and short sleeves with a sweater at night! 
• Finding a permanent apartment :/ But that's certainly not for lack of trying.  Even these apartments with gorgeous views have something we don't love (like not having an oven...apparently ovens are hard to come by in Quito...)

• Paying much for fruits and veggies.  Some items at the grocery store seem comparable to US prices (particularly meat and cheese), but fruits and veggies are super cheap.  Two grapefruits = $0.42, huge lime = $0.12, 5 avocados = $1.80, a pineapple = $1.80.

We're doing and don't-ing lots of other fun stuff, but I thought this would give you a little snapshot of our day to day.  Tomorrow marks the start of our first full week of work at school, so we'll publish some Colegio Menor news soon :)

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!

National Lampoon's Trip to Ecuador

Embarrassing outfits, another Griswold family staple.

Have you seen any of the Griswold Family vacation movies?  Any one of them will do...regardless of your selection, you should (I hope) have some particularly ridiculous scene that comes to mind (driving up to a closed Walley World, Christmas decorations causing electrocutions, getting lost on a tour of the Hoover Dam, etc).  Each movie seems to run  through a common timeline: grand plans lead to a series of disasters which are remarkably resolved and result in a general vacation success.  Unfortunately the Cabezas experienced their own version of a Griswold Family vacation during our quest to move to Ecuador (primarily the series of disasters part...)

The trip started with my grand packing plan (see previous post) and a small miracle when the man checking bags at the Delta counter felt a moment of overwhelming generosity and charged us for only ONE overweight bag!! (Even though our bags came in at: 49, 50, 55 and 73 pounds each). What a great start to our trip! (a stroke of luck...also often the start to a Griswold vacation...)  Things got more dicey when we were 'next' for take off for our 1pm flight, but were halted due to bad weather in Atlanta (our first destination).  No problem, we'll just sit on the run way until we're cleared....2 hours later we headed back to the gate (primarily because there is some law now that forbids us from staying on a plane much longer).  At first they told only those that had already missed a connection or no longer wanted to fly to Atlanta to deboard.  Then...they started letting us get off to grab food and come right back...I appropriately selected the below to be our LAST meal in the US (boy what a jinx....)

these were all of our boarding passes
(many reprints, redirects etc.)

After 4 hours on the plane they made us all deboard.  The pilot explained that even though we had been cleared for a take off, the crew had now been working too long and wasn't permitted to fly us to Atlanta....they would be looking for a different crew..... I'll save you the suspense...we did fly to Atlanta at 10pm (9 hours after our original flight time) only after watching every other Atlanta flight depart before us (the 3pm, the 5pm, the 6pm....the worst).  AND only after I waited in a 2 hour line at Delta's 'Need Help' desk to ensure we had reserved seats on the following day's Quito flight (we were all but certain we would miss our flight to Quito in Atlanta even though it too had been delayed).

We arrived in Atlanta = YAY! But had to sit on that plane for another hour and 45 minutes until a gate was available for deboarding (we're deboarding at 1am).  During that time we were calling every hotel in Atlanta to see if they might have a room....no, they didn't.  None of them.  (Although hotel.com was acting up just enough to let us think we had a room for the briefest of minutes, in which time we left the secure area).  Every Delta line in the airport was 2+ hours long (people trying to rebook, etc) so we decided to head to the international gate (after going back through security) and hunker down for the night.  By now its 2am.

So we got some sleep, but its hard to rest easy when you're clutching your belongings as you sleep.  And awoke with a splendid day in the airport ahead! (there is only one Delta flight to Quito a day and it leaves at 6pm,  Yes, we could have left the airport, but after seeing the mob crowd of people trying to get out of Atlanta the night prior, we didn't want to chance leaving and having to come back through security...) It was actually a fine day: Phase 10 tournament (I crushed, NBD), blog reading and writing catch up (Atlanta airport has free wifi = AWESOME) and a delicious lunch at One Flew South = consistently ranked the best airport restaurant in the country.

So after 36 hours of being in an airport or on a plane and only a day later than we had planned....we arrived easily in Quito :) (we realized our trip to Sydney was shorter...Griswolds you've met your match...)