Getting my feet wet

Well, it has been four days in Ecuador so far and already it feels like I've been here a month. The days have been packed to say the least but the experience has been wonderful. After finally getting into Quito 2 days after planned, I woke up and left the first morning, heading out to Atahualpa for Spanish school. If anyone wants to learn Spanish, this is the way to do it!

I was lucky enough to be the only student and I stayed with the family that runs the school: two sisters, both their daughters, their mom, and their brother. The whole family lives in a three story house and don't speak any English at all. Talk about immersion right away! Spanish classes started upon arrival as I had a lot to catch up on and we zoomed through the material. I think I had about three years of classes in three days...

Atahualpa is a very cute town, up at about 2,000m in the Andes and the view from their kitchen window was stunning. A lot of people still ride horses around and the clapping of their hoofs on the street durning class made me so happy! The third day there I got to go with them to help milk the cows at 6:30am. Whoa, so cool! Definitely the best milk I've ever had...still warm :D Then that afternoon I helped them catch a chicken so we could have chicken soup for dinner. Talk about fresh food. It's about as organic as you can get up there.

I'm back in Quito now for a day and head out to Pucara to start tracking bears. I'm excited to get back to the forest and away from all the smog (though Quito is a really nice city and very bike friendly!).

Thats all for now, next post will be Bear-y Bear full (I couldn't help myself :D) Off to the jungle!!!