Our group arrived on January 8th in Quito, Ecuador at around 11pm at night. We went straight back to our cute little hotel. We woke up the next morning and we spent the whole day touring Quito. Ecuador was and still is strongly influence with the Spanish culture. We went to the cathedrals, old town, museums, and quite a few other places. For lunch, we actually got some French food. I thought we were going to have a traditional Ecuadorian food. After getting back from the tours, we had some time and some of us explored around our hotel. Then for dinner, we had some free time and a few of us decided to go into one of the restaurants that were by our hotel. It was a typical Latin American restaurant. I order a vegetariana emapañda and a shrimp salad with pineapple. The food was decent. We went back and I just called it a day.
On the third day in Ecuador, we left for the butterfly place called Mindo. That place was simply beautiful and amazing. The smell of nature was the best. I am so glad that we got to spent a night there. That place was like a mini rain forest. There were many hummingbirds, butterflies, and flowers. It took us a long time to drive there. On the way there, we stopped at the center of the world. We arrived at Mindo in the afternoon and we had the option to go tubing or tour the local chocolate factory. I decided to go to the chocolate factory because the weather was a little bit too cold for me. The chocolate factory was actually just a processing plant. I learned the process of making chocolate and had some 100% cocoa. I realized and saw for myself that in order to have the regular chocolate we eat, huge amounts of sugar was added. After the tour, we went back and had free time for the rest of the night.
The next day, we went on an almost four hour hike into the mountains. The hike was pretty hard and in the end, we went on the zip line. It was awesome because I have never went on the zip line before. It felt so liberating and great! We left Mindo for Quito after lunch. We had the rest of the day to ourselves after getting back to Quito. There, we went to get some touristy traditional food. The food I ordered wasn't very good. There were stone-hard pork, mote, fried mote, fried plantains, and salad. After dinner, we went to "in shots" and took a tequila shot. It was really interesting for me because I have never in my life taken a shot before. After that, we went to this place where they charged 3 beers for only $3. We played some games there and left. Then we decided that we should hit a club. All the people were trying to get us to go to their club. We ended up in a club where they charged the guys $5 each and all the girls got in for free. We also got free drinks. The rum and whisky tasted HORRIBLE! Ewww.... Besides that, it was really fun and interesting because we all got to dance with someone. At the end of the night, I was really surprised that I was not drunk at all. We went back to the hotel and I fell asleep right away.
What a fun way to start of my Ecuador Study Abroad Trip! One of the things that I noticed is how well the food is presented here. So far, our lunch has always been a 3-course meal: appetizer, entree, and dessert. I am loving this so far!
