We arrived in Quito at 9pm after a 5 hour flight from Santiago. We cleared immigration and customs quickly, then shared a taxi into town with an Australian girl we had met on the plane. The taxi could not find our hostel. It had no GPS and the driver did not have a phone, only a handheld radio. We found hostel after about an hour, and hoped the other girl had some luck finding hers. We rang the bell, and eventually were let in by one of the guests. The 24 hour reception was sound asleep somewhere. We checked through the desk and found which room we were booked into, and headed off to bed.
The next morning we paid, and headed off to our student accommodation, walking distance away. Our host had expected us the night before, but we did not know that, and our one page of paperwork did not show that. But all is well.
We are staying in accommodation at the rear of our host family's house, which is a 4 bedroom house. We are not sure which one was built first. There are 3 Germans staying here as well. They are volunteering at an orphanage in Quito, and are having Spanish lessons before they go. They eat with the host family, and we are having our evening meal with the host family.
We took it very easy the first couple of days, firstly due to altitude 2,800 metres, and now are heads are spinning from the Spanish. Peter and I are in a class of our own, we filled in our name on the top of the entrance exam. Today we requested we focus on Spanish for travel, we don't really care if we know the colors if our clothes.
This afternoon we ventured into the old part of Quito by bus. Very easy. The bus has its own lanes and named stops, that are like stations. It cost 25 cents to catch the bus. Ecuador uses US$, so that is easy. Quito is very long north to south, and we are living in the north, so it is about half an hour into town.
We have several days in Quito after classes and before our trip starts, so will focus on Spanish for now.
