Ecuador: In Retrospect

I´m leaving for Peru tonight. My time in Ecuador went at warp speed; I can´t believe it´s time to move on already. I went to my first fútbol game last night, but I´ll write about that later when I can post some video. For now, I´ll just take this opportunity to wax poetic over my time in Ecuador.

Quito, as a city, is not bad. It definitely has personality. If I wanted to complain, I´d say that it´s a bit dirty and that there are ferrell dogs all over the place. I´ve seen more than one case of Discovery Channel-like perro amor, but I think this may be an issue all over South America, so I guess I better get over it. Now I understand why the CDC recommends a rabies vaccination when traveling to South America, but they also recommend it when traveling to Colorado, so how am I supposed to know when it´s really necessary?

For me, though, Ecuador has been more about the people I´ve met than anything else. Sure, we did cool things in Mindo, but the reason that weekend was so awesome was because the people who went were so awesome. My host family has been wonderful, and my teacher, Carlos, was great. I only hope I have half the patience with my students as he did with us. (And we have butchered his language a lot.) And then there´s the salsa. I only hope they salsa as much in Peru.

My fellow Americans that I´ve met have been anything but the "typical" American traveler. You know, the loud ones who keep complaining that nothing is like home. (Lea even told me I was the nicest American she´s ever met. Awwww.) In fact, the first two weeks I was here, there was a group of British girls who were pretty darn loud and annoyed pretty much everyone. I´m so used to the Americans being the loud obnoxious ones that it was kind of refreshing for another country to take the heat.

Our pub quiz team on Tuesday came away victorious. It helped that we were representing the U.S., Britian, Norway, Sweden, and Germany. That and there was a "Friends" category, and Laura and I know all the words to "Smelly Cat." It wasn´t really fair. Free round of cerveza for everyone. (Of course, I didn´t partake in the prize, I just basked in the glow of victory while everyone else did.)

Yesterday, I went sightseeing in the Old Town with Kris, who´s from Norway. (I can´t say his first name, and neither can you, so he just goes by Kris when traveling abroad.) We went into the museum of the Monestary of San Francisco. We didn´t have a guide, and everything was in Spanish, so we "translated" or just made up stories. Definitely more fun than reading the truth in English.

It´s kind of disappointing to have to start all over again after meeting so many great people. But then again, many people have already moved on and everyone else will be leaving soon enough. Luckily, a lot of them will be moving on through Cuzco, so I´ll be seeing a lot of them again soon enough.