Month: September 2016

Baños Day 3 – more Spanish classes

Today our Spanish class was moved from morning to afternoon, 2-6. So we got several things done this morning. 

We mailed postcards. Postage for a postcard to the U.S. costs $3.30! That’s five stamps and you have to layer them on top of one another. 

We took our laundry to the lavandaría. We will pick it up tomorrow. 

We had coffee. Then Duke got a haircut while I bought some cachitos (like a croissant) at the panaderia. 


Speaking Spanish for four hours of class is exhausting! We had a great dinner at Bambu Steak House although neither of us had steak. My chicken and prawn skewer was great and so was Duke’s trout. 

Baños Day 2 – Spanish classes

We started our Spanish classes this morning at 8:00. Duke and I are at different levels so we each have our own teacher. This is the view from the school. 


After two hours of brain numbing speaking we went with our teachers for a walk around town. Here I am with my teacher. 

We walked over to the waterfall. They have wash tubs right by the bottom of the falls. But I think we will use a laundry later this week. They charge about 75 cents per kilo. 



We went to a steak restaurant for dinner. Duke had meat on the stone. 

Latacunga to Baños

This morning we left Latacunga to go to Baños. We took a taxi out to the Pan American Highway where we caught an express bus to Baños. The bus was very similar to our last bus but they weren’t showing a movie. They did however have free wifi.



In Baños we are staying in a flat share owned by the woman who runs the Spanish language school we will be taking classes at for the next five days.

We explored Baños a bit in the rain.  Baños is a small town surrounded by towering mountains. In the picture below which is taken right outside our accommodations you can just see a waterfall.


We stopped for an afternoon snack of coffee and a crepe to get out of the rain.


By the time we went to dinner the rain had stopped. We ate at a Swiss restaurant. I had a wonderful pork tenderloin in raspberry sauce and Duke had beef stroganoff.  

Tomorrow our classes start at 8am!

Into the Mountains to visit Lago Quilotoa

Last night we booked a tour for today. A van and our guide Alex picked us up at our hotel at 8:30  and we headed up into the Andes. Our first stop was Tigua. A style of painting called Tigua originated near here. It shows colorful indigenous scenes painted on skins. We stopped at a shop and browsed. We almost bought a fairly large painting but ended up with a small one. 

Saturday is market day in Zumbahua the next town we stopped in. We spent about 20 minutes exploring the market. Everyone who lives in this area is indigenous and we drove by many indigenous farms as we climbed into the mountains. 

The market had everything from guys with treadle sewing machines sewing clothes, to live chickens and sides of lamb. 


They also had wool. 


Pineapples


And bananas. 

From Zumbahua we climbed up to the volcanic  crater lake, Laguna Quilotoa. The rim of the crater is at an elevation of 3914 meters (12,841 ft). We climbed down the steep sandy trail 400 meters (1312 ft) to the lake shore. 

Coming back up was really hard work and made me think we were out of our minds. We could have hired a couple of these for $20 to ride back up but didn’t.


We had lunch of soup, broiled chicken, fried potatoes, cabbage and rice at a restaurant on the rim. Boy did it hit the spot!

For dinner tonight after getting cleaned up and resting a bit we had pizza and beer. 

Quito to Latacunga

This morning we packed up and took a taxi to the bus station for buses heading south from Quito. The bus station was very modern and looked like an airport. The bus ride to Latacunga was about two hours. The bus was very comfortable and modern. On the drive we passed the snow covered Cotopaxi volcano.

On the bus They were showing a Japanese vs Chinese war movie dubbed in Spanish. I finished my first book of the trip – the new Louise Penny inspector Gamache book.

The bus tickets for the two of us cost $4.70!


Latacunga is much smaller town than Quito, about 100,000 people. We spent the afternoon wandering around the center of town. We are staying at the Hotel Endamo.