Moving on to Riobamba
Got outta Quito before 8 and headed to Riobamba. It sits in the high valley between the Andes. Most of the women here wear ponchos and wear their hair very long and bound with embroidered ribbon making a loooong ponytail. Both men and women wear hats with birdfeathers...some are like bowlers and others stetsons. Most women also carry a baby or basket on their backs. We have seen so many young kids here...so diferent than China!! We took a hike in the nearby hills and saw lot of volcanic rock & dust and a good view of a nearby inactive volcano. We met a girl from TelAviv who is coming to teach English in Riobamba as a volunteer. She says it is very popular in her country for the youth to take time to volunteer abroad. I asked what life was like in TelAviv...she said very safe and nice. Not the picture I had in my mind.
Strange Sites
-people eating chicken at KFC with plastic gloves
-if a store is selling TP (and we have only seen one brand)...it will be displayed in their front window
-beware...just because you find a drink in a cooler...doesn't mean it will be cold as many are not plugged in
Day Care
Many small children and babies are behind counters, under carts, between shelves, on mom's back, nursing in mom's arms or playing in front of store or streetside cart...no need for day care!
Kindness
Had to point out just two kind acts that happened to us yesterday...as we were hailing a taxi, a gray car pulled up and waved us in. We hesitated...and then a man on the street came over and said ¨No, no!¨ and proceeded to hail us down a marked, yellow taxi. A storekeeper whom we had just bought a drink from spoke to us in English. So in our conversation, we said we wanted to find a trail in the nearby hills...he left his store...hailed down a taxi and told him exactly where to take us! So many times, so many people have gone out of there way to be kind and helpful to us...it's like we are surrounded by guardian angels!!!
