Week 67 from Quito Ecuador

This has been an interesting week.  Last Tuesday, as someone came into the office, I looked up and to my great surprise I saw Elder Vega, who served as an office Elder in the Quito mission over a year ago.  He was the one who trained Lynn and I in our duties as new missionaries.  It was so great to see him.  He is here visiting for a couple of weeks.

Lynn acquired a new tie this week.  One of the missionaries, who is serving in Otavalo, brought some with him to sell for a member there.  The H L J  “Haz lo justo” stands for “Choose the Right” in Spanish.

This Saturday some of the senior missionaries went on a trip to the Quito Zoo and side trip to the Cochasqui Archaelogical Park.  The Segos and Greers were unable to go with us.

The zoo was very interesting.  It was very green with lots of vegetation.  As we enter the Zoo an man greeted us and told us that, with the exception of a few, the animals in the zoo were native to Ecuador and were not taken from the wild.  They were ones that had been rescued from situations where they were being abused.   They had two lions that had been rescued from a circus and a couple of bears.  I think the most interesting animal for me was the giant tortoises.  They were fun to watch because they moved so slowly.  Everything about them was slow, even down to eating.  When they walked they just seemed to slowly drag their feet along the ground.  It gave the story of “The tortoise and the hare” a whole new meaning to me.

As Lynn was going through looking at the exhibits he had a group of young high school students approach him and asked if he spoke English. They wanted to interview him and film him for a class project so he agreed.  I had gone on ahead so I wasn’t with him during the interview but returned later to find him surrounded by the young people.  They seemed to enjoy their visit.

Lynn even met up with a saber tooth tiger and got a ride.

Here's the link to more pictures of our trip

After our visit to the zoo our driver took us to a nice restaurant for lunch in Guayabamba.

The last place on our trip was to see the Cochasqui Archaelogical Park.  It is located 52 km from the city of Quito near Mojanda gaps and has 15 pyramids and 21 tombs or burial mounds that belonged to the Pre-Inca culture Quitucara, which was a war-like people that disappeared with the arrival of the Incas and abandoned the site.    This was about 1500 years ago and about 500 years before the Spanish invasion.  At first glance the pyramids and burial mounds just appeared to be small hills but when seen from an airplane they are more apparent for what they are, pyramids with large ramps leading to the top.  A human skeleton was even found near the site along with some pottery.  After the zoo I was a bit done in so I chose to stay back at the van while the others did the vigorous hike.  Lynn got a few pictures for me.

Today was a pot-luck Sunday at our apartment.  We always enjoy these times to just relax and chat.  We have some interesting discussions.