Food

So, I've received a request to describe food and drink here in Quito.  Surprisingly, it's actually quite good.  Since i'm not good at writing long paragraphs, I'll give you a run down of food for the average day here.


Desayuno
Every morning I have some combination of the following: Yogurt, cereal, fruit, juice, bread, and cheese.  I can safely say that I have had a bowl of fruit every morning since I got here.  I can also safely say that I literally have no idea what half the fruit is.  Regardless, I eat it and it's usually pretty good.  The yogurt is slightly thinner and comes in a bottle, not cups or a short round container.

Almuerzo
Lunch has differed quite a bit seeing that I haven't had a consistent schedule and have been eating everywhere. Here's an example of one standard lunch we had during our city tour.
Aji is a spicy pepper that is served as a sauce or ground up.  It has been at every single meal.  I'm a "good latino" because I like it.
This soup is made from potatoes and has cheese and avocado in it.  It has a specific name but it's hard to pronounce so I just call it "that potato soup."  It can be varied depending on who is making it.
The main course usually contains some form of meat, rice, and vegetables.  Here it happened to be pork, some type of corn, plantains, an avocado slice, and a cheesy potato thing.  As you can tell I'm not good at remembering names of things.

Cena
Dinner also varies a lot.  The only consistency is the availability of Aji sauce and some form of fruit juice.  Usually we have some type of meat, rice, salad, bread, corn, beans, and cheese.  It's very good, and we always have a small dessert after. 

Golosinas
As far as snacks go, Ecuadorians do pretty well.  My favorite has been the empanadas with rice and beef.  We have a large chunk of mozzarella cheese that we often cut slices off too.  Fruit is abundant and readily available, and even though I never know what I'm eating it's almost always delicious

That's your standard day.  Sorry if it's boring and non descriptive but we eat so many new things it's hard to describe them all. 

PS- I put an album up on facebook containing pictures from the first few days.  It's too much to upload here, but check it out if you haven't already.

PPS- When hiking through the Andes, wear crappy clothes because you will get literally covered in mud.  Here's one of my favorite pictures from the 10k hike, stole it from Mario.  Also, here's our group.  I'm in the back in the middle