Cotopaxi, fine dining, ramping up Spanish

 A heads up, this will be my least exciting blog post I ever write, I can just feel it. I went to Cotopaxi last week, an active Volcano. We did the beginner climb which was pretty brutal cause I do know cardio and the elevation is above 4000 m (Quito is >2000). I went solo but some cool solo travellers.

Below: so tired

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=13lwSfOm4RPzvXMZ-URBDCc080WaPo1gF

I am now an expert and explaining to everyone how volcanoes work.

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1uLiP6xUForQoVjtuLAp6X3cPW8lmmV8J

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qkmtNsOYnKWYpd04XtaTvka78wzErM9ohttps://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qN3-3OOaNoUFFw3KmohXkMqIssYKuNMl


I started a new Spanish school, Banana Spanish School. It looks pretty run down. All of these schools are "5 stars" online but there is clearly a lot of pressure on students to give great reviews and I don't think anyone wants to ruin the reputation of someone's livelihood. I'm doing 6 hours a day, the 4 hours in the morning are with 2 women who are super interesting, one is Swiss and Speaks 5 languages fluently (Italian, French, German, Swiss German, English) and her Spanish is decent. The other speaks French, English, Korean, a good amount of Japanese and her Spanish is pretty up there. She's retired and just likes learning languages! The conversation between us and the teacher flows really good!

 My classes in the afternoon suck, so I told them I don't want to go and the manager flipped out!!! 

I went to another school called Simon Bolivar for individual classes and have a great teacher, he asked me a ton of questions uses all different grammatical structures and I think he made a really good assessment of where I need to improve.


I've also eaten at some great restaurants. Often tasting menu's "desgustaciónes" cause its really not that expensive. 


Some dishes from Chulpi Urbano, probably the best I've had here.

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Qa_HZCSF7gO9P6EL-iP6ziqMtH02_hKA

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1t6HcD_4B0cCUYcMhdvZvPezkDNNoXU9m


And dishes from Cordó.

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1k0819bZjL4BUlpHYg0TQnLMRhnSjHfyy

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1BeDv15wmrJkD-aYSdtP7mrVIa_hrGKo6


I've also applied for the East African Tropical Medicine course to try and get in for Jan 2024, if anyone reading this has hookups... please help. https://med.umn.edu/dom/education/global-medicine/courses-certificates/in-person/east-africa.

It's in Uganda and looks super interesting.

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 24, 2023 at 9:00 AM

    Great blog so far. Keep up the good work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 1, 2023 at 4:43 AM

    Fingers crossed for your application

    ReplyDelete

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