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| Pululahua Geobotanical Reserve |
The
quimester is over... which is what a semester is called at least at my school. It was a long and stressful five weeks between Christmas Break and the February Break. February break also coincides with
Carnaval, which I might experience more of when I go to
Panama next week. Before really getting into the events of my first half of break, I have some successes to celebrate!
My students took their exams for
quimester one, and it was like nothing I have ever experienced in all of my teaching. Although I "curved" their scores using the school's "
Diploma Program/Middle Years Program" (DP/MYP) conversion chart, only one student failed the exams. And they were really tough! Even without the curve, all of the passing grades were over a 70%.
The only exam I had to develop 100% on my own was for my 10th graders. The first quimester was interesting since I have them only for four periods over three days, every six day cycle. I have two 10th grade sections, or parallels. One of them is my homeroom group and I leave with them once a month for four periods to do community service. These field trips have always fallen on days and periods where I am scheduled to teach the other 10th grade parallel. Between this, other field trips, in-school events, etc., I feel like I have done more vocabulary instruction than science instruction. This led me to including 26 matching questions with choices A-Z, all in one section. I was overwhelmed when nearly all of them got 22 or more matches correct. One of my students, who is also going to take biology in the diploma program, scored a 100%. I am reaffirmed with my teaching abilities and feel very confident. When I did not have exam periods, I spent my time developing lessons for the first two weeks of the new quimester... because my February break would be over-scheduled with plans, trips, and visitors.
Revisiting Quito with Visitors
My dad and his wife/my step-mom made arrangements not too long after I moved to Quito to visit me during February. My dad was adamant about making these plans in advance. My initial hesitation with trying to make plans was that I wasn't sure if I would be ready or prepared by this time to host visitors, especially since there are very few Ecuadorian English-speakers in this beautiful country. However, I committed to this first week and they moved ahead with arrangements. The itinerary I developed were basically all-around hot-spots for tourists. It would give me an opportunity as well to revisit some places and retake pictures that were lost when I lost my iPhone in December.
On Sunday the 8th, they were set to leave Milwaukee around noon C.S.T. and land in Quito around 9 P.M. E.S.T. Last minute, the departure flight from Milwaukee to Atlanta was pushed back, and then delayed due to de-icing the plane. Their already tight connection became even tighter. They told me the Atlanta crew had to reopen the gate for them because it was ready for departure and that their bags would not be arriving with them.
Travel Tip: I will live by this tip for the rest of my life, to pack extra clothes and toiletries, and anything else necessary for survival, in an overnight bag for my carry-on just in case. Especially since Quito has a very limited number of international flights arriving and departing... you can never be too prepared.
I didn't meet them at the airport because they were arriving quite late, so I was going to meet them at their hotel the next morning.
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| Parque el Hijido |
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| Climbing to the top of the Basilica |
Monday morning, I treked to their hotel and took them on a stroll down Av. Amazonas to stop #3 on the
Quito Bus Tour (QBT). The weather was quite cloudy so I was disappointed they wouldn't see the grandness of the mountains while on the bus. We waited... and waited... and waited. Back in August, I wrote a rave review for the bus but I now I am considering writing another review about how late the bus was. Seriously, it was more than an hour late. After the first 30 minutes of waiting at the stop, I took them down to
Parque El Hijido. We walked around there for about another 30 minutes and that's when I decided to take our fate in my own hands. Being a bad tourist, I took them onto the Trolly on
10 de Agosto to what I consider as the best stop on the entire bus tour--
La Basilica del Voto Nacional. We went up to the top of both towers and took in the sights. From there, we got on the
QBT to
Centro Historico for lunch,
El Panecillio, and then to
Parque la Carolina. From there, I wanted to get supplies for to-go lunches and snacks which brought us to
Megamaxi... surprisingly it wasn't busy. This brought us to the end of the first day and prepared for the following one.
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| Iglesia San Francisco, in Centro Historico |
Tuesday I knew we could take it easy with the start because the plans were flexible. Originally, if the weather was nice, we were going to take the
Teleferico up the
Pichincha, then
Guaysamin's House before stopping by my apartment. However,
la clima had a different plan. Since the previous Sunday, it decided to be cloudy and rainy so Pichincha was out of the question. It wouldn't pay to go up there if the weather wasn't prime. Instead, I quickly changed plans and opted for
Pululahua, one of my favorite places in this country so far. The hotel "called" us a taxi, a.k.a. one of their own private drivers. The transportation dude was trying to upsell us on a tour/adventure that would cost $75... which I immediately turned down because I can figure out ways for us to get around just fine by myself. So for $30 the driver guy would take us to the crater. Halfway there, I started talking (in Spanish) to the driver to find out what exactly $30 was getting us. He immediately, also, tried upselling this $75 tour. My reaction was "
Es muy caro, no?" and he dropped the price down $15! JUST LIKE THAT! Anyway, long story short: we went to
Pululahua for a little bit...
then to the
New Equator Museum...
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| BIENVENIDOS! New Equator Museum |
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| My first time standing on the official equator line |
and lastly the
Old Equator Monument for some lovely photo opps.
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| Mitad del Mundo |
We finally returned to Quito and I took them to my apartment so I could show them where I live and then I spent the night at their hotel: the
JW Marriott. I will never be able to afford to stay there so it was a luxury and privilege.
Thank you, Tina! The reason for me staying there is that I wanted to take them to
Mindo the next day, which meant we would have to make an early departure to catch a bus there.
Wednesday morning I was feeling sluggish. Essentially everything done in the first two days were things I did over the course of four weekends... and I have grown to enjoy taking my time and relaxing. However, with haste we left for
Terminal Ofelia and got there with only one minute to spare before the
Flor de Valle bus left for
Mindo at 8 A.M.... without Tina, because her back problems were flaring up and she couldn't get out of bed. In two short hours, we arrived in
Mindo and checked-out two single rooms at my favorite
Cabañas Bambú. After dropping our things off, we completed the full
waterfall hike. This included hiking up and down the mountain, to and from the
Tarabita. The rest of the day was devoted to dinner and relaxing.
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| So good to be back in one of my favorite places in the entire world |
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| One of the several waterfalls we saw |
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| This caused a great deal of adventure! |
Thursday morning, we planned to take the 11 A.M. bus back to Quito... this plan was foiled because of the intense rainstorm that hovered over Mindo for what seemed like 12 hours through the night. It caused a mudslide on the one highway directly connecting Mindo and Quito. Of course, I don't have to be in a hurry because of living in Ecuador now. However, there were plenty of people who desperately needed to return to Quito by a certain time for various reasons. Shockingly, I was one of the few people who spoke both English and Spanish among the travelers... some of the English-only people were questioning what we were being told and I had to translate. Mind you, I have only been learning Spanish for a few months but (1) my determination to learn and (2) great tutor both set me up with enough skills and vocabulary to understand and communicate in this awkward situation. After about 30 minutes of people freaking out and trying to come up with a plan, my dad and I joined about eight other tourists in a taxi-van to
San Miguel de los Bancos, where we got on a bus to take us on a round-about route back to Quito. The bus dropped us off in
Santo Domingo, and the bus from there returned us to
Terminal Quitumbe. Including a taxi ride back to my dad's hotel, the adventure took us about 6 hours to complete. I was exhausted and headed home for a glass of fine wine.... HA! Just kidding, it was just
Clos. At night, I went out with some friends to
La Ronda for drinks and food. Seriously, this trip was turning into a cluster of almost every trip and adventure I have done since getting here except crammed into four days.
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| Outside Santo Domingo, on the way back to Quito |
Friday brought the end of my visitors. We went up the
Teleferico because the weather finally cooperated. Afterwards, Tina treated me to lunch at the destination of my choice... so I chose
McDonald's. I officially caved in!!! BUT it was the first fast food I had in three months and I was craving gross greasy goodness. Thank you to both of them for the adventure and I wish them safe travels back to the states.
Summary
My Spanish is improving so much so quickly. A few different people mentioned that my Spanish is quite good (at least for how long I have been studying it) and that I am good at understanding it as well... one taxista kept making a point of that to me! However, it is exhausting to think and speak in Spanish still, despite the growth. It took me a lot of energy to pay attention to all words spoken, think of what I wanted to say, and then translate it out loud. On top of that, moving and shaking all over Pichincha Province. Thank goodness I have a full-day to recouperate before heading to Panama:
- My sixth country visited overall
- My fifth country visited in 13 months
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