I have made it to Ecuador! I will start by
saying that this country is absolutely beautiful. I had read the travel books
but never imagined how truly magnificent the countryside would be.
We departed our hotel in NYC at 4 in the
morning to catch a flight at 9 am. The Peace Corps wants to prepare us for what
they call “Ecuador Time”. We flew out at 9 and arrived in Miami in the
afternoon and caught a flight to Quito at 4 pm. When we landed it was dark and
about 7:30 in the evening. As the very rudimentary luggage belt turned we all
noticed that none of our bags, marked conspicuously with red yarn, had arrived.
Some of us began to have a slight panic attack. We had prepared for just this
however by packing 3 days of provisions with us. After much confusion and 2
hours, we found out that half of our bags would be in that evening around 10:45
and the other half in the morning. We spoke with the Peace Corps staff that was
picking us up and we were advised to leave our bags and head to the compound.
We did just that.
I could not see much on the hour drive but
instead bombarded our Training Master with questions. He got to know Todd the
Texan pretty quick, as all the staff now has. We are in a three day training
here and will soon meet our host family that we will live with for the
remainder of the 3 month training period. I have been inundated with
information and paperwork and shots, too much to document in the quick post. We
do not have internet at our compound thus blogging and communicating is very
difficult. I will be posting this from an internet café nearby.
One more note about the scenery. The city
of Quito is very high in the mountains, roughly 9,500 feet. The mountains
surrounding us are beautiful. The weather is about 40 degrees in the morning
and 75 in the evening. This weather and the magnificent views of the
surrounding mountains is breathtaking. Couldn’t asl for a better place to train
for my service in the Cuerpo De Paz (Peace Corps).
More to come soon from a content and
excited friend.
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