My home away from home

Hi everyone!! After nearly 20 hours of traveling, I FINALLY made it safely to La Primavera- the valley where Chino's neighborhood is.  We're technically in a suburb of Ecuador's capital city, Quito, called Cumbaya (yes, pronounced like the song).  I am exhausted! I started my travels Friday night to St. Louis, where I spent the night at my sister's place.  We chatted until 4:30 in the morning which left me only about an hour and half of sleep before I had to get up and head to the airport! Bad idea.

From St. Louis I flew to New York, then to Miami, and then to Quito.  Three flights was way too much- I spent at least 10 hours inside an airplane, and by the last flight it started to feel very claustrophobic.  Our flight was an hour late which meant I didn't arrive to Quito until midnight Sunday, and after spending a good 15 minutes in the WRONG customs line, I had to go to the back of the other line to wait almost an hour.  To make it worse, the customs officials were SUPER inefficient...The lady who stamped my passport made me wait for nearly 5 minutes while she did NOTHING.  She took her jacket off...put it back on... folded her vest...yawned...wow.  Pretty annoying after such a long day.

Immediately after stepping off the plane I could feel the altitude- it's so much harder to breathe here!   Just going up one flight of stairs gets me huffing and puffing and my heart rate up- hopefully in a few days I should be acclimated to it. Yesterday I spent most of the day napping, only getting up around 5pm to go to mass.  Since it gets dark here at 6:30 everyday, it was too late for me to take any pictures afterwards. I finally took some today to give you guys an idea of where I'm staying- his house is gorgeous!

 Side view of the house- so gorgeous!

 Backyard with the family doggy- Tobias (Toby for short).

 Back view of the house.

 Mountain view from the neighborhood (Chino's neighborhood is in the valley so it's hard to get a pretty view of the mountains! I'll try to get a better pic next time we're in the city)

Chino and the front view of his house.

That's all for now, but I'll try to post at least a few pics everyday! This weekend we might be traveling to Otavalo, a really indigenous city with a HUGE indigenous marketplace with tons of handmade crafts and fresh food.  I can't wait! Then next Thursday we'll be traveling to the coast with Chino's family for a week- my favorite part of the country.  I'll keep you all posted :)

Hasta luego

xxoo