¿¡Hay Más Para Subir?! y Más y Más y Más.....

Enough about classes, school, tests, and all of that boring (but okay, maybe important and kind of the reason I am here) stuff! Believe it or not, even with a teacher who goes by “Professor Homework” I do get to do more than just study my Quito-life away. A lot more!

I have had so many great experiences so far during my short time here. There is so much that I absolutely need to do and see that I have no idea how I am going to fit it all in! But I must say, things are off to a pretty good start.

This past weekend was full of making plans, breaking plans, and loving where the new ones led. Saturday was our first full free day in Quito, and of course we were not about to let it go to waste. We had all sorts of great ideas about what we wanted to do…

And then it rained. And rained and rained. The rain fell all day long, and with it our plans fell through as well.

Still, we decided we couldn’t let the rain stop us from taking full advantage of our first weekend here. Plan B: visit the nearby markets (covered of course) where we could check out the work of the local artisans. I had way too much fun looking at all of the jewelry and other crafts. I have decided that I must have been Ecuadorian in a past life, as every piece of jewelry I saw seemed to be made just for me. I would’ve bought out the entire market if I could have but decided to hold off on buying anything, let alone everything, until next time at least.

Sunday a bunch of the people from my program decided to head to the park and play some soccer, banking on the weather cutting us a break…which it did! The other people in the park however did not. The park we went to is called el parque Carolina and is absolutely ginormous! But somehow not ginormous enough to fit all of the people who wanted to play soccer. Every inch of the park seemed to be taken up with a soccer game, and there were at least 50 going on at once, probably more. A little bummed at our luck, we decided the day was too beautiful to waste and found an empty basketball court. After watching a little basketball, a couple of my friends and I decided to check out la Basilica.

La Basilica is the largest church in all of Ecuador, and we had heard it’s definitely something you have got to see while you are here. The church was absolutely beautiful from the outside and none of us could resist taking way too many pictures. I was already more than satisfied when I found out that you could not only go inside, but could also climb all the way up the huge towers for only 2 bucks! I was excited, but had no idea what was ahead of us.

The staircase leading up the first tower was definitely not what I expected. The staircase was small, dark, cramped, and dirty. It was so bizarre to think that it could possibly be inside of the overwhelmingly beautiful and intricate building I had just awed over. Still, we climbed excitedly for what seemed like forever until we reached the next level. There were a number of levels that you could stop at along the way where you could take pictures both inside and of the view of Quito outside.

With the first two levels reached by stairs, we were then led across a wood-plank bridge to a ladder-like staircase that definitely would not have flown in the US. It was at this point that I realized the climb wasn’t going to be quite as easy as I had expected.

With each level, reaching the next got more and more difficult and it felt like we were constantly being tested on just how far we were willing to go to get to the top. Each time, the ladder got steeper, the rungs further apart, and my heartbeat faster. Not to mention most of these ladders were outside as well, circling around the tower. I wish there was a way to describe it all that would truly get across just how terrifying it was. Had my hands not been shaking too much to do anything but keep putting one foot in front of the other, I would’ve taken pictures, but not a chance. There are a few in the pictures I posted, none of course that do it justice, so you will just have to take my word for it.

Anyways, against my better judgement and despite the Basilica’s apparent wish to keep anyone from making it to the end, I reached the top (which by the way didn’t even have a real floor to reward you with…only a grated metal covering that was anything but reassuring). Beyond that, I even crawled out onto one of the ledges (too terrified to even breathe at this point of course) to take some pictures (okay, maybe just one picture) before scrambling back inside. Overall, it was an awesome experience with some incredible pictures to be taken too and I’m so glad that I was able to do it.