Quito, Ecuador

We left Los Angeles on Christmas Day and after about 24 hours (with a very long layover in Colombia) we arrived in Quito! We made our way to our hostal in the Mariscal area of town (aka Gringolandia) and immediately took a nap. When we woke up a few hours later, we were hungry and ready for adventure. We headed on a half hour walk through Parque Ejido and onto the Grand Plaza and Districto Historico. It was amazing to see all of the families out playing soccer, eating every kind of food from carts, and just enjoying their time. I have never seen so many people at the park! When we made it to the center of Old Town Quito (the Historical District), we were also amazed by the masses of people. Apparently, every Sunday the Historical Area where we were closes off the streets to cars and because this was the day after Christmas, everyone was out! We immediately noticed that the clouds seemed so close to us and then remembered we were at over 9,200 feet. Quito is one of the highest capital cities in the world and one of few major cities at this altitude. The backdrops of every corner were truly breathtaking with incredibly steep mountains in all directions and the city stretching down a narrow valley in the middle. We walked from the Grand Plaza along the gorgeous streets to La Compaña and Basilica San Francisco. The old white-washed buildings were striking. After wandering around for a bit, the hunger hit us and we began to walk back and UP (the city is incredibly hilly!) towards the main Grand Basilica. We stopped at the most crowded restaurant we saw, Marisqueria “La Fragata”. After using all the Spanish we could remember at the time, we order the most incredible seafood dishes! I ordered encebollado, which is a seafood soup with everything under the sun inside of it, and JJ ordered a pescado frito that was “one of the best first he has ever had!” What luck! With full tummies, we awed the Grand Basilica, with its giant spires and gothic look, and continued back through the park to our hostel. Walking through the park, we noticed a free art exhibit and checked that out, only after JJ purchased a 75 cent cup of morocho (a hot horchata/rice pudding drink that is actually made from sweet corn, milk and cinnamon!) that we gulped down! After admiring some wood tables and sculptures and picking up some treats at a nearby panaderia we made it back to our hostal and feel asleep listening to Quito’s nightly rainfall.

The next day, we met my cousin’s cousin (or mi prima), Alana Gilman. She is the fearless leader, coordinator, and incredible organizer of the Quito division of the Timmy Foundation, an organization that brings pre-med students, medical students, doctors, nurses, EMTs, and pharmacists to help in medically underserved communities abroad. I was so excited to meet Alana because I have literally head about her my whole life, but never actually met her! As luck and fate would have it, I emailed her and found out that we would be in Quito at the same time and we would be able to hang out with her and help out for a few days with the next medical brigade. We instantly clicked and spent hours talking and getting to know each other before it was time for Alana to get to work in planning her upcoming medical brigade with students coming from Davidson College in North Carolina (the next day!). We walked to lunch at a nearby place to get pan de yucca and smoothies. Pan de yucca is tiny bread pockets filled with yucca, delicioso! After lunch, JJ and I let Alana catch up on some work while we took a walk through Parque Carolina and to the Jardin Botanica of Quito (botanical gardens). We were instantly awestruck by the thousands of bromeliads and orchids, cactus, and jungle fruit exhibits. After meeting back with Alana, we headed to South Quito in order to eat dinner and discuss the preparations we were going to help her with the next day.

The next day, we started off at a nearby hospital prepping for the medical brigade. Alana and I sorted meds, while JJ and Alana’s friend Paco made many, many deliveries of meds to the “command central” we stayed at, El Centro de Espiritualidad. Then we ran some errands and picked up two interesting and delicious new fruits in our diet along the way, mangos para chupar (sucking magos) and guaba (which looks like something from Jack and the beanstalk). We spent about an hour in the afternoon taste-testing our goods and getting mango juice all over us. Later in the day, we made our way to the airport to greet the incoming students and med professionals. After a pizza dinner, we sorted meds late into the night to prepare for the upcoming days of providing medical services to those who have no access to medical services. For the next two days, we traveled with Alana and the brigade of 27 to two neighborhoods in the southern edges of Quito. JJ and I rotated between helping the pharmacist, Diane, sort and count medications for patients and taking incoming patients vitals with Andrew and Jennifer (height, weight, blood pressure, pulse, etc.). I was astonished at Alana’s ability to make the whole operation run so smoothly! We saw around 80 patients each day, who received a review of their medical history, a meeting with a doctor and/or a dentist and received their needed medications. After the second day of clinic, Alana took JJ and I to Calle de La Ronda, a very cool place for dinner, a drink, and exploring. The street is long with white walls, iron work, and flags. All of us agreed that it reminded us of Barcelona. We started with some incredible enchiladas, soup, and potato pancakes (all local specialties). Next, we had a hot drink canelazo of cinnamon, orange flavored moonshine….mmmmm! After that, we went looking for a really great Enchilada de viento, which is a sweet enchilada with cheese and sugar on top. After Paco picked us up, we met up with the group at El Panacillo Hill, where a giant statue, Virgen de Quito can be found. It was extremely misty and so she was hard to see, but we enjoyed our time with the Virgen!

On New Years Eve, we headed North of Quito to the town of Mindo, which is about 2 hours away and in the Cloud Forest for fun and festivities. We stopped along the way at Paulaiuia, a picturesque city/agricultural area in a giant crater in the Andes Mountains, that we were able to look down on. After arriving in Mindo and checking in to our “New Year’s Suite”, we had an excellent fish lunch and headed to do zip-lining through the cloud forest. We had a great time doing this and even got the chance to do a “Mariposa” through the forest which is where you are taken completely upside down on the zip-line through the forest! JJ and I were truly amazed by the endless GIANT bromeliads in the trees. After finishing the nine zip-lines, we decided to get even more of an adrenaline rush by going on a giant swing that began with a 20 meter drop. Everyone let out very entertaining screams, including Alana and me! Although, JJ did not scream, he just jumped off the platform almost exactly perpendicular. Alana snapped a really crazy picture of this, because it was the most dramatic jump of the day, we will try to get posted up on the blog! After Alana battled her fears and we all had our last thrill of 2010, we went back to the hostel for dinner and pre-partying for New Years. We had a great time hanging out with the brigade and playing some drinking games until we headed to the center square of the town for salsa and other dancing! We bought 24 ounces of beer for 1 dollar and danced until it was time to burn El Año Viejo on midnight. So far in Ecuador, we have learned that there are countless cultural traditions on New Year’s such as: wearing yellow underwear on New Year’s eve for good luck, walking with your suitcase around the block in order to travel frequently in the new year, eating 12 grapes on the strike of midnight for good luck in each month, cross dressing to earn money for the funeral of the Año Viejo, which will be burned on midnight. The Año Viejo is a huge or small doll (male, female, batman, superman, etc.) that is made of paper and is burned by individuals, families, or businesses to start the New Year (Año Nuevo) fresh. So instead of buying individual paper dolls, we all took part in burning one giant stuffed El Año Viejo that had actually been strapped to the front of the bus we took around for the past 2 days. Happy New Year!

After waking up late the next day, JJ and I joined in the brigade to go to the “Tarabitas” and take an open-air cable car through the cloud forest to a hiking point for several waterfalls. We really enjoyed walking through the cloud forest and even spotted a butterfly or moth (we couldn’t identify it) about the size of my hands! It was so big! We also of course saw incredible waterfalls and even found our own private on to take a dip in before heading back. We had a quick lunch and then took the bus back to Quito with the group, only to make a quick stop at a monument on the equator! The monument was not really much to look at, but it was pretty cool to be standing on (or fairly close) to the actual equator at zero degrees!

Today we woke up and headed to the Teleferico, which is a gondola ride to the volcanoes that tower over Quito. We really enjoyed the ride up, watching the clouds zip by us and seeing all of Quito from about 14,000 feet high! From the top of the gondola, we hiked up about 500 more feet to get more incredible views of the city and the surrounding mountains. When we got down, we headed to an authentic Ecuadorian restaurant/home of an art collector for some amazing hominy made of white corn, empanadas, and other delicacies like the tree tomato we had for desert! After lunch, we left the group we had such a great time with, said our long goodbyes to Alana and Paco, and settled into our next hostal (called the Secret Garden, with excellent rooftop views of Quito!). Tomorrow we are heading South from Quito to see the volcano Cotopaxi! What a great start to our trip! Happy New Year 2011 to everyone and we wish you all a great year of health, happiness, and excitement! We will write more soon!