Otavalo is famous for it?s weekend market, where locals flock from far and wide to exhibit their wares and tourists descend to spend their dollars on all sorts of goods, from jewellery and paintings, to tablecloths and of course ponchos!It all gets going about 8am so many people choose to stay the night in Otavalo to allow themselves first look at the goods...but we decided to get up early and catch an early bus to Otavalo from Quito. It takes about 2 hours, depe...

So it?s week three at spanish school and all is going well. My powers of communication are definitely improving, just need to master the art of tenses now so it?s obvious whether I?m talking about something I?m doing or something I?ve already done!I went into the old part of Quito one afternoon this week?as I hadn?t yet managed to get any pictures of the beautiful old buildings and churches, the Plaza Grande, Santo Domingo and San Fransisco?plazas by day. I wande...

After much indecision about what to do this particular weekend four of us eventually decided that Riobamba was to be our destination. I met one of other students at our spanish school on the Saturday morning and we took a taxi to the bus station in the old part of Quito. We had all arranged to meet there as we thought it was a good central place because we were all coming from different parts of the city - but that was a big mistake...In Quito it is not generally...

So it?s week 2 and my spanish is definitely getting better. Instead of just saying ?si? and smiling when I think it?s appropriate I actually started to understand things my family were saying to me.Feeling brave and adventurous I made my first steps out alone into the metropolis that is Quito. I caught the bus all by myself to one of the shopping centres and even managed to ask someone where the toilet was?! It was quite a long bus journey to the main shopping ce...

My first trip out of Quito was to the town of Banos, about 4 hours south of the capital. It was organised by my spanish school so was a gerat opportunity for me to get to know some of the other students better as well as having someone else organise the transport and accommodation etc for a change. We left Quito on Friday night and I had my first experience of the madness of Quito traffic. It must have taken us nearly an hour just to get outside the city before w...