Andean Dreams: Hello from Quito!

Buenos días! Here I am. On day 3 of my Ecuadoran adventure. Things started really well, auspiciously even. My first day was a Sunday, passed with leisure and grace. A true sabbath. My new housemate here in La Floresta (Annie) cooked a lovely breakfast for us; we sat and talked and ate in the beautiful little dining room flooded with morning light. Then we went for a walk around our neighborhood and down into Guápulo--a beguiling little neighborhood of Quito--with one steep road down that ends at a soaring, dusty church filled with saints and flowers. The path is lined by old-world style houses with faded shutters and impossible architectural angles. Each city in Ecuador has its own festival, or fiesta, once per year, and Guápulo's has been going the past week or so, I am told. Annie and I found strings of balloons arching lazily over the cobbled road, rose petals strewn in the central plaza in front of the church, borachos (drunk men) reclining on the grass, and some eager young boys setting off firecrackers, seemingly just for the noise, as it was the middle of the day. We labored back up the steep hill and I met up with Monica and her friends Michael and April, while Annie went home to study.
Michael and April drove us down into the valley below Quito (to Nayón) to the house of Michelle: a fun and gracious lady who grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan and has lived the past 40 years in Ecuador. Michelle is an excellent cook, and has in fact published various cookbooks on Ecuadorean cuisine. For 6 hours we luxuriated in her hospitality, first sipping lemongrass water, preparing the food (I eagerly accepted my sous-chef duties), and talking on her patio with awe-inspiring views, including of the snow-capped volcán Cotopaxi. Then we ate. Oh my. The menu included a creamy beet, dill, & potato soup made by Michael and April, thick slices of whole grain quark bread brought by Monica from her favorite German bakery, a sort of quinoa risotto made with chilies from Peru and wild Ecuadoran mushrooms very similar to porcini, a beautiful salad of avocado, uvillas, grapefruit, pepino dulce, alfalfa sprouts, and habas, all on a bed of butter lettuce, with a maracuyá vinaigrette, and for dessert a chocolate cake made with almidón de Yuca (Yucca starch) instead of flour. During this amazing dinner, the almost-full moon rose in the unusually cloudless sky. Its light was incredibly bright, and we could see the moon as the sun set, its white light stark and beautiful against the fading ruddy sky and dark mountains.
Since this glorious first day, things have gotten a little less idyllic, but wonderful nonetheless. I have begun some text-based research for my project, talked to Inés (my primary contact for my field research in Cotacachi) on the phone and set up a time next week to come visit her, procured a mobile phone (a much more complicated process than you would think--it took me a good few hours today), learned some of the streets around my neighborhood, bought groceries, talked to the university professor who has agreed to sponsor my research here (and thus, my visa), and had a number of lovely skype conversations with friends in the U.S. Plus, in Quito, everywhere you turn is a showstopping view of volcanic mountain ranges, swaying Eucalyptus trees, and the fertile valleys below. Thus far, all is well.