I made it!

I made it! The flight was long, dull and disorientating and mostly involved half-watching films whilst sympathising with the elderly Ecuadorian lady next to me about her very long catalogue of horrible ailments. (Looking on the bright side, I have now improved my vocabulary of illness and disease in Spanish)

But I then had an easy smooth arrival in Quito as Luis, the Country Representative for Progressio in Ecuador collected me from the airport in his car and delivered me to a hostel. Since then I have been doing lots of sleeping (can´t decide whether to blame jet lag, the mental effort involved in speaking Spanish or the altitude for my tiredness) and I had my first day in the office and a day of wandering around the city.

I am staying in a hostel in a super-touristy part of Quito in the new town where there are almost more tourists than locals and every block seems to house several internet cafes, bars, laundries and a hostal or two. Yesterday I had a tour of other parts of the city with Jenny, the administrator in the office and her husband. The old part of Quito is beautiful (lots of photos below) and we climbed el panecillo (the little bread roll) a rounded hill in the south of the city with a huge statue of the virgin Mary on top. There are amazing views down over the whole city which is a long thin strip running north- south, 40km long and 3-5 wide with volcanic mountains to the west.

On Monday my two week orientation programme starts with meetings with some of the other development workers and lots of interesting-sounding people from other NGOs, trips to visit some of Progressio´s partner organisations and Spanish classes in the afternoon.