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Well, I´ve been very busy this last week. Spanish lessons have been mainly four hours chatting in Spanish each day with my tutor - very tiring and I´m not sure that my Spanish is improving, though it must be. Was coerced into having a salsa lesson at the beginning of last week, and to my surprise I really enjoyed it. Maybe I don´t have two left feet after all. Also had an Ecuadorian cooking lesson, which involved little more than shredding chicken, but we had a nice ceviche at the end of it.
Have ticked off a few of the sights in Quito. Visited the old town a couple of times and went up to the Panecillo on Sunday, which is a hill overlooking the town with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary (41 metres high I think). Unfortunately a couple of the people I went to the old town with had things stolen from them whilst on the bus: they had their bags slashed and a camera and wallet stolen. I´m now on my guard all the time!
Also visited something called the Capilla del hombre, created by Oswaldo Guyasamin, who I´d never heard of before but who apparently is a very famous Equadorian painter. I really liked his stuff - a bit like Picasso (but better in my humble opinion).
At the weekend I went on an excursion to Cotopaxi national park to climb the volcano. I got as far as the refuge (at 4800 metres I think) but couldn´t go any further as I started to suffer from altitude sickness. I felt rather pathetic as I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. Other people got to climb as far as the glaciers, and I was very jealous! We got to go back down on mountain bikes, which was great fun - I think I´m definitely a convert to downhill mountain biking and may have to take it up when I get back!
The family I´m staying with is lovely, especially the son, who´s 11. He´s so much fun and has such a lot of energy (possibly a little mad too!)
I´m having a great time, but really could do with some sleep! If this ramble is a little incoherent that´s probably the reason why ...
Love to everyone,
Emma
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