During my stay in Quito I experienced what it is to live in a 1.5 million people metropolitan city. I celebrated New Year's eve there in the streets, where people were burning their so-called effigies (personalities) in the streets. Without any feelings of aggression this celebration was a very peaceful event under a friendly atmosphere. To me it was a totally new way of inaugurating the new year, a real eye opener. In Quito, however, I also experienced a feeling of discomfort in this stunning city, where people could get robbed at any street corner and the air quality is very bad due to the heavy traffic. Realizing this I'm very happy to have decided to work in the more southern city of Cuenca, where I just moved.

The official purpose of my stay in Quito was to get my visa registered at the office for immigration. Please don't ask why. This proved quite a hurdle and I won't bother you with all the details. It will probably satisfy you to hear that I felt happy to see so many people being employed by putting stamps in passports of ignorant foreigners. These officers are clearly ordered to have gringos hand in useless copies of basically anything you can think of and giving instructions without speaking a single word of English.

So after this week in Quito I moved over to Cuenca, where I'm now temporarily staying in a decent hostel. In Cuenca I'll teach English at Centro de Estudios Interamericanos (CEDEI) as from next Monday. CEDEI is a US-based, private, non-profit organization where many locals can apply for English lessons and where gringos like me are able to learn Spanish.

While walking through the streets of Cuenca on my first day here, the differences with Quito are remarkable. I immediately start to understand why this city attracts so many retired US expats living here. Cuenca is a beautiful and picturesque old colonial town. Although it's got the benefits of a large city, the atmosphere is much more enjoyable than Quito's. On one of my first days I decide to walk by the central office of CEDEI, where I meet the management and get shown around through the nice building, located in the city center. I'm introduced to some of my new fellow colleagues. Two of them, Tracy and Collin, are from the US, while Rob is from the UK. Another US girl called Chelsey will join us in a few hours as she's still in a plane from Guayaquil. Basically our main priority now is to find housing, so that's what we start doing right away. Armed with a list of vacant apartments and rooms, the five of us start strawing around the streets of Cuenca. The weather is pretty hot this morning, so the walk seems tougher than we'd expected. The rooms listed range widely between less than US$ 100 for a single room with shared bath to over a 300 US for a full two-bedroom suite.

The first location we're visiting turns out to be in a hotel, not really what we expected. The next one seems to suit our expectations much better, as it looks like a kind of students' house. We continue our search to some more decent rooms and get a good impression of the offers and prices. Our Spanish learning curve is quite steep, as most landlords don't try to understand any English at all. On our way we cross this beautiful river towards the new town, which offers a great scenery. While walking we exchange stories about our previous experiences abroad and tell each other our individual drives to come to Ecuador and teach English here.

After our fourth house visit, we´re unhappy to notice that the sky is darkening. Although we try to increase our pace, a shower turns out inevitable. Our gringo status becomes very clear, as most of us are unprepared not carrying any rain jacket and get completely soaked. The river's levelis risingand its flowis getting much wilder. After months of prepping, it's intriguing to finally meet similar people that are following a road to where no-one knows, while being on the same boat crossing that same river. We cross it again, back into town.