Greetings blog followers!

We just finished our first full day in Ecuador.

After a breakfast of eggs, breakfast, fruit juice, coffee and tea at Hotel Ambassador in Quito, we boarded our bus for a four-hour ride to our final destination, Riobamba.

As we drove out of Quito we really got a sense of how the city is cradled by the Andes Mountains that surround it. We drove down the Pan American Highway passing through the city of Ambato. As we moved further and further from Quito the landscape and environs got more rural although there were still towns and small suburbs along the highway.

About an hour outside Riobamba, the landscape suddenly became as green as any countryside in England and we saw cows, sheep, and other farm animals enjoying the sunshine.

Soon after we pulled into Riobamba and arrived at our hotel. Riobamba will be our base for our trip for the next two weeks.

All of the students were assigned rooms with roommates and settled in before we went to lunch down the street at Café Nativa (where we will be eating most of our meals) which specializes in traditional Ecuadorean food.

To help the students get acclimated to the altitude of Riobamba and to give them the chance to rest, we kept the schedule light today.

We spent the afternoon discussing group norms and expectations and did a bunch of ice breakers activities to know each other better.

After dinner at Café Nativa, we returned to our group meeting room in our hotel to learn more about the position of LDD ( Lider del Dia—or Leader of the Day.) Ever student will be assigned as the LDD for one day during the trip. They are in charge of making sure all the students are awake and on time for activities, they talk to staff at Cafe Nativa to make sure that any student dietary restrictions are known and accommodated, they write the daily blog entry and help the adult leadership team with a number of tasks throughout the day. Developing young people as leaders is central to work of Global Glimpse. The LDD position is an opportunity for students to step into their leadership and grow as young leaders.

Overall, a low key, but great first day in Riobamba.

Come back tomorrow to learn about our first day of programming and read about our scavenger hunt in the city center of Riobamba!