Quito, Quito, Quito

Last weekend I was "out of town" the whole time because I took a trip to Quito. There is another family of missionaries who are also part of MTW who live in Quito and they offered to let me stay at their house for the weekend. So what did I do you ask??

Well I traveled alone for those of you who may be wondering and I arrived in Quito at about 4pm and was picked up at the airport by Craig Pohl, the husband. By the way the missionaries are the Pohl`s, as you can tell and they include, Craig, Stacy, Karis, and Amy. Karis is 7 and Amy is 4. So when I arrived at their apartment I was given a tour and shown where I would be sleeping. Their apartment is on the 5th floor and there are no stairs but it`s worth it for the view they have of the city.

That night we went to a restaurant called "Pim`s", which is at the very top of one of the mountains. It was a very nice restaurant and from the top I could see all of the historic downtown of Quito. It was an amazing view. I will try to get some of the photos uploaded soon. So Saturday I awoke to tiny footsteps outside my door and little snickering every few minutes. When I finally got up and opened the door the girls said they thought I would never get up; like they were waiting for Christmas morning or something. It was really cute though. So we got ready and went to "Mitad del Mundo", which means middle of the world, more or less. There is a monument built in the spot that at the time they thought was the equator; which is about a football field`s length away. I did however cross over the equator in case anyone was wondering. Inside the monument is a museum with displays of the different provinces of Ecuador and at the very top on one side you can see the mountains and volcanoes and on the other the line showing where the "equator" runs. It was still cool though.

That night we went downtown to see the historic buildings that I saw my first night at Pim`s restaurant. There is a street named "Calle de las siete cruces" which is Street of the 7 crosses. There are seven churches (all catholic I believe) down this street and all very beautiful. We went to the open plaza area and walked around while taking pictures. I took a tour of what used to be a catholic church that has been turned into a museum. It was a lot of fun. I could have spent hours downtown, but I knew the kids would have wanted to strangle me. We went home after that and Stacy made homemade pizza.

Sunday we went to Sunday school and then to the morning service and I actually understood about 80% of what was said. I really enjoyed the church service. The name of their church is San Marcos I believe and it is the largest Presbyterian church in Ecuador. After church we went to the mall to eat lunch and I had some good 'ol KFC. It tasted pretty similar to the one at home but they didn't have mashed potatoes with gravy, which I was a little disappointed about but it was OK. After that we went to a place called the "Teleferiqo". This is basically the same thing as a ski lift and it takes you to the top of one of the mountains. The view in the cable car was absolutely amazing. We could see all of downtown Quito, the slope of the mountain we were ascending, and the volcanoes in the distance. At the top we got out of the cable and walked further up the mountain to take some pictures. There was definite drop in temperature from the bottom of the mountain to the top. At the bottom I was hot in my sweater but I the top I had to put my jacket on over my sweater because the wind is so strong at the top. It felt really good though because I started to get a little motion sickness and the cool temperature helped it to go away. After that we came back down the mountain and then I got my stuff together and Craig took me to the airport! It was a very busy weekend but I really had a good time and the Pohl's really took care of me and made sure I had a good weekend.

There is a substantial difference between the altitude in Guayaquil and Quito. Guayaquil is basically at sea level but I think Quito is somewhere around 9,000 ft. above. I never really thought anything about altitude sickness because I have never been that high up before but the whole weekend I had just a little touch of nausea. And when we went to the Teleferiqo, it really got worse, but the cool temperature at the top helped, remember. I think Craig and Stacy said the at the top of the mountain the highest point we got to was around 13,000 feet!! Wow. Pretty high up. It was a little difficult for me going from 13,000 ft to sea level in the span of about 3 hours. (Oh by the way it only takes about 40 minutes in a plane from Quito to Guayaquil, but 8 hours in a car).

So long story short it was a great weekend and I really enjoyed getting to know the Pohl's and spending time with them. Hope you all aren't too mad I waited so long to write this entry. Hope you still enjoy reading.