Travel Day 014 – Quito to Banos, ECUADOR
Today was finally the beginning of a one week Side Trip, namely my Traveling Classroom with the goal to learn some Spanish while travelling with a teacher through local villages…
Parque de la Basilica in Banos, Ecuador
Initially there was supposed to be a group of people travelling and learning together, but either because this program was fairly new or due to the crisis, I ended up being the only student in my class. And so I met up early in the morning with my teacher Paola, who turned out to be about my age, at the language school in the New Town of Quito. From there we started our adventure by local bus to one of the main bus stations outside of town. After being stuck in traffic forever, we finally reached the station and then took another bus towards Banos…
Luckily Paola spoke some English as well and even if she insisted that we try to speak in Spanish only, at least I was able to ask some stupid questions in English and she answered them in Spanish. Whenever I had no clue at all what she was talking about, she even explained a few things in English. This way I could already learn quite a bit while we were taking the bus. She explained to me not only how to buy bus tickets, but also gave me a general briefing on the culture and history of Ecuador. She also explained how she grew up in a village outside of town and had to live with her parents until she would get married…
We finally reached Banos de Agua Santa, a small town famous for its hydrothermal springs, in the early afternoon. After settling in we enjoyed some local lunch and then went for a walk around town. Banos turned out to be a really nice place with interesting architecture and since it was known as the Gateway to the Amazon, there were not only mountains around, but also a somewhat green forest feel to it. On top of that all the fruits and roasted guinea pigs displayed on the streets gave everything a slightly exotic feel… : )
The rest of the afternoon consisted of a 4 hour sit down Spanish lesson with a coffee in the garden of one of the local cafes. While we only went over the bare basics of Spanish, being in this relaxed surrounding and being forced to order something in Spanish made this kind of studying not really feel like actual learning, but rather like a fun thing to do. So I really enjoyed this kickoff day of my Traveling Classroom and I was already excited to learn more useful things over the course of the next couple of days… : )
Leave a Reply