New Best Friends

There are so many people here travelling alone so inevitably you end up getting together with other people heading the same way. Most of my first morning was spent exploring the old city of Quito with two American girls, Grace and Lauren. It really is the most beautiful city - street after street of pastel coloured colonial houses, the sun always shines, it's about 20 degrees most days - but the altitude does affect you more than you realise. We climbed about 50 steps to a park over looking the city and it took about half an hour! We were all gasping by the time we reached the top. Also I realised how much quicker you burn at altitude, just a little too late. Fortunately my new friends are both fluent in Spanish, so after they ordered our three course lunch of soup, jelly and fruit juice for 1 dollar 50 it was time for Spanish lesson number one. My teacher Santiago is lovely and so patient with me. The way they teach here is by talking to you in Spanish ALL the time and teaching you phrases rather than the usual grammar, verb conjugation etc. But I like the theory (surely not) - so I found it really hard at first just repeating rather than actually knowing what I was saying. Poor Santiago... four hours with me must have killed him... but he has come back for more since then, and I think, I think I am improving. But if I have to talk about my family and pets one more time...