The Beginning...

Just a few of the iguanas in the Inguana Park in Guayquil!! They were everywhere!

Today was a very long, eventful day but a great time. We started off with breakfast at the hotel and a short orientation. Then we headed out for a tour of Guayaquil. It was beautiful. Guayaquil is a very big city with 3 million people with crazy busy streets and lots of people. The traffic is insane because they don't use signals and don't really have lanes. There is a lot of honking to communicate with other drivers. We saw a very pretty church, lots of beautiful buildings, and parks. We went to an iguana park where there were just huge iguanas EVERYWHERE!! Up in the trees, on the sidewalks, in the grass! It was crazy!! Lots of very pretty buildings and such though so it was neat!

We then went and got lunch at a food court at a mall in Guayaquil. The mall reminded me a lot of Mayfair Mall in Milwaukee with two stories and it was very big. We didn't have time to do any shopping, though.

:( Eventually I'm sure; we're all anxious to check out prices and such.

Then we loaded up in the van and headed towards the mountains. The ride was beautiful!!! We went through two layers of clouds and the scenery was spectacular!! We even drove through Cuenca, where we end up tomorrow, and I'm very excited to go back! After a four hour ride up on winding roads up into the mountain. We arrived at Uzhupud for the night. The hotel is all open and is very pretty!! We had a welcome dinner with our professor and the program director, who we have been with, that was very good. Good first experience with a true Ecuadorian meal.

Now I'm exhausted from all the traveling and the long day today. I'm trying to figure out adding pictures too so hopefully there will be pictures to come soon!!

The view from our hotel in Uzhupud

Our group in a park in Guayaquil!