It's been very nice to "settle down" for a month in one particular city for a while. I have been keeping myself quite busy by attending Spanish classes, which are about a 5-minute walk from the hostel. I feel like I have been progressing well during my time here, mostly because I have been studying like crazy. Getting the most out of the lessons this month has definitely been my top priority. My teacher is very intelligent, and he generally likes to talk with me about Ecuadorian, world, or U.S. politics. Today we talked about such light, breezy topics as the controversy over the mosque going up in New York and the war in Iraq; this was after we talked about why Ecuador is an ungovernable country (my teacher's opinion).
Kait has been volunteering at the animal refuge, a place outside of the city that has all kinds of wild animals that they are rehabilitating. I haven't been there yet, but I will go this Wednesday on my "day off" from classes. (I arranged with my teacher to add those hours on to a different day.) She also just found another refuge located here in the city where she will be volunteering for two days per week.
The weather here has been quite rainy throughout our entire stay here. I guess it is supposed to be like the Corvallis of Ecuador in that it rains a lot, and the weather is just as unpredictable by the week as it is by the hour.
We do enjoy, however, going to the nearby food market, a large indoor warehouse sort of building with two stories - raw produce and meat on the ground level and cooked food and fruit blends on the top. This is a nice way to get out of the hostel and eat some good food. I personally enjoy the roast pig that they have in one section of the upper level. Once you come up the stairs, you immediately see about seven whole, roasted pigs sitting out on the counters waiting for you. The vendors serve the pork on a bed of rice or some kind of cooked corn mixed with vegetables. Yum!
To get out over the weekend, we went to our nearest ice cream/coffee shop and sat for a while to study. After that, we found the local shopping mall (wherein could be found a cinema) to watch a nice romantic action movie. Other than that, we have been keeping pretty busy by cooking for almost every meal, studying in the hostel, reading our newly purchased books from a nearby English bookstore (a rare thing in Ecuador) and just getting to know the city.
Hopefully next weekend, we will take a trip to Cajas National Park and we'll let you know how it goes. We wanted to go this weekend, but the weather was so rainy that we decided to stay in town.
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