Well, I´ve just finished my last language class. It feels like the end of an era and I was quite sad to say goodbye to my tutor and other people I´ve met there. Saw an Argentinian film for the last class, called El secreto de sus ojos (roughly The secret of her eyes), and I´d thoroughly recommend it. This week I had another salsa lesson and this time stood on my partner´s toes a couple of times, so perhaps I do have two left feet after all! Also had another...

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...

Well, I´m here ... Staying with a host family who seem to live on a motorway intersection, so not the most peaceful or sleep-inducing of places. The family are lovely though, very welcoming. Suffering a bit from lack of sleep and slight altitude sickness but happy to be here. I appear to have private tuition for my language classes as the others are beginners, so that´s pretty lucky! Thinking of signing up for a couple of trips this weekend, one to Cotopaxi Nat...

Day one: Crouch End to Heathrow Travelodge! Scheduled to leave 10 minutes ago but trying out blogging instead. Finished packing and rucksack is bigger than me - I can just about walk so the Tube should be fun ... Just been to hairdresser to get grey bits dyed so I look less of an old bag next to all those students taking gap years. Here goes ...!