This week, Terry and I were fortunate to add one more country's stamp to our passport; Ecuador.   We began our short trip in the capital city of Quito.  Quito is surrounded on all four sides by the Andes mountain range giving visitors and locals a like a breathtaking view.


On our first day in Quito, we visited the "Old Town" of Quito. Stopping at the Plaza de La Independencia.

In 2007, Lima repurposed one of their main parks, Park of the Reserve, and turned it into one of the cities major tourist attractions. With a final price tag of $13 million, the park has 13 fully illuminated fountains, many of which are interactive.  Within the first 7 months of its premier, it had 2 million visitors.  It's listed with Guinness Book as the largest collection of water fountains in the world.  The main fountain has a jet strong enough to send a constant spray 260 meters in the air.

Built in 1557 and later restored in 1672 after an earthquake, the Monastery de San Francisco is a Franciscan monastery and church in downtown Lima. During your visit, you are required to follow a guided tour (Spanish or English) which is included in your ~$2 entrance.  The monastery is famous for it's catacombs lined with the bones from over 25,000 people.


Used as a public cemetery, the monks and parishioners to be "buried" underneath the monastery until 1821.  The decomposition of the corpses was aided with the use of lime before their bones were added to the others.  Some of the pits are said to be as deep as 60 feet. During a study of the catacombs in the first half of the 20th century, the conservationists arranged the bones in the eerie patterns you see in these pictures to aid in their counting.

When was the last time you wandered around a city you were unfamiliar with and asked for donations in a language you were learning?

Well for Terry and I that was last night. We set out with a group of students from our Spanish school to volunteer and collect coins for Un Techo por mi Pais.  Created in 1997 in Chile, it now operates throughout most of Latin America.  It's mission is to improve the quality of life for families living in poverty through the construction of emergency housing and implementation of social empowerment plans in a joint effort between university students and the community.



We traveled to the town center of Barranco, where for 3 hours we hit the pavement asking for donations. Walking around town with only a donation can in hand and a limited knowledge of the organization, Terry and I were both a little apprehensive about this. Since we aren't fluent in Spanish, it is difficult to engage people as they walk by.  After about 30 minutes of walking the streets and timidly asking for donations, we posted up shop in front of a grocery store to catch people leaving with change in hand.  Terry even went into the grocery store and purchased some oranges to juggle and bring more attention to us.  We ended up adding quite a bit of weight to our cans and got some good donations. All in all it was a great experience that we both enjoyed and made the best of it together.


I am so proud of Terry for doing this with me. This was not really his cup of tea, he is not a shy person but this was defiantly stepping out of his comfort zone.

As we started our journey, we knew we wanted to use our extra time to get into better shape.  Since day one, we've been using Google Maps and MapMyRuns to track our daily outings.