Magic beans and sloth gargoyles

Following Catherine's recommendations through Mariscal I treated myself to a heaping huge delicious breakfast of huevos rancheros, mango juice, and coffee at a place called the Magic Bean. Fancy beans! I wandered around the streets and bought a T-shirt and then layed in the sunshine on my balcony overlooking the city and staring up at the sky. Treating myself.

Around noon I met Hannah, one of my new students. She has studied Spanish here in Quito before and came down early to stay with her old host family. First impressions are excellent, fun, adventurous, quirky, and bright. We made our way to the famous basilicas of Quito, where I snapped this shot out of the huge stained glass windows bright and ethereal as a dream. These basilicas are the highest structures in the city and a cavernous somber testament to God no doubt, but with a twist. Two of my favorite things about these twin basilicas are, first: instead of gargoyles along the buttress colonnades there are monkeys, sloths, toucans, boobies, armadillos, tamanduas, frigate birds and all other sorts of fantastic real life magic creatures from Ecuador! I love it. Real life is often more magical than fantasy once you contemplate the miracle of this world. Second: climbing the towers. Up stone steps giving way to spiraling staircases climbing up literally by iron bars to the very top of the basilica spires. Up here the wind whistles through the belfries and you can listen to the distant sounds of the city while looking out over the sprawling valley of Quito far below. On top of the world.

Climbing back down from the clouds Hannah and I got lost in the Plaza de San Francisco, bought fresh squeezed juice off the street, and found Indian food later after our plans for sushi, sushi in Ecuador (!), were foiled. As for the rest of the night, I savored it for all it was worth before heading to the airport near midnight to meet the students flying in for the first time from the states. It was a bit nerve wracking waiting so long expectantly! Every time I saw a college age girl with a backpack I got expectant. Bonnie? Sarah?...quizzical dubious looks and another sad shake of the head. I shrug my shoulders and lower my sign embarrassingly. Eventually they did arrive though, all of them. Bonnie, Sarah, Jessie, Sierra, Intefada, and Arthur. It is late now and I am dog tired weary, but....

Bienvenidos a Ecuador!