Quito is the capital city of Ecuador, and at an elevation of 2,850 metres above sea level, it is the second-highest official capital city in the world. Is located in mountines and it is a perfect starting point for trips around all the country.

Quito has 2.6 million inhabitants and is the second biggest city in Ecuador. It is a really big city which is located in the valley and surrounded by mountains and you can find there almost everything. There is beautiful historical centre in colonial style, lots of parks, salsa clubs, markets with fruits..... But like every big city has got lots of traffic jams. So sometimes take a lot of time when you want move from one point to another. City has got parts which are less save but you can avoid them and in the night go just by uber or taxi and not alone.

Ecuador is really beautiful country and I really admire diversity of the country......you find there hight mountines, coast, rainforrest and Galapagos. There is many places to go.....even three months is not enough to see everithing.

Few place recommend to see:
Otavalo - Saturday handcraft market (biggest outdoor market in south America)
Cotopaxi - acive Volcano 5,897metres above sea level.
Chimborazo - Volcano and the highest mountine for hiking in Ecuador 5100 m high
Mindo - nice waterfalls and butterfly garden
Baños - city of adrenalin sports and good partyes
Pichincha - vulcano connected with Quito by teleferico.
Isla de la Plata - called small Galapagos, but you are lucky you can see whales
Montañita - awesome party city on the coast
Jungle - really worthy to go and Carpediem offers really good tours
Galapagos - if you have time and money dont hesitate and go.....so many fantastic animales...
and many other.......

I was employed in private architectural office called CONSTRUCTIVA.
http://constructiva1.com/

Office were locate next to the university (so good location), but still its took me one hour from my hostel to work and one hour back by bus. I was working from 9-9:30 to 18:00. So when I copared whit other it was working little bit longer. In office were other 8 employee and my boss. Mostly i helped them with 3d design of interiors in sketch up or some 2D. Work gave me colleagues because boss wasnt in office a lot. It was good that they gave me space in creativity, but sometimes I was missing some informations and feedback about my work. In the end I visited buildsites with my boss and its was perfect. Everybody in office were kind and helpful to me so it was nice experience :-)

380 usd/month was definitely not enough. Just for hostel I paid 230usd and supermarkets and drugstore are more expensive than in czech...... so it is not a cheap country and if you want to travel you have to bring extra money.

Requirements were good english or good spanish. So I spoke english because i started to learn spanich after I arrived. But my boss was not so happy that I dont speak spanish (he speak good french but just little bit english). But most of the colleagues spoke english so it wasnt problem. Just sometimes when they were togehter they started to speak spanish and I didnt understand anything.

I stayed all time in Casa Agua Canela (a hostel), where I spent three months. This house included services (toilet paper, drinking water, cleaning, laundry). The price was 230 USD for a single room with my own bathroom (so its not so cheap). There was a big kitchen shared with all the house guests, a roof terrace and a patio. This hostel provided to me IAESTE in Ecuador and it was perfect to live with other studenst (perfect community) but disadvantage was distance to work (1 hour there and 1 hour back depend on traffic). Otherwise it was close to historical centre to fruit market, supermarket to Carolinas park so in the end good location. And the owner is really helpful guy.

I was pick-uped at airport with other polish girl by Johana´s (the IAESTE exchange coordinator) brother and he took us to our hostel. I met Johanna after one month of my stay but I was with her in touch since begining by watssup.
The trips were organised by Johanna, Stefi (other IAESTE coordinator) and in the beginning by Rafa (perfect organisator).
Almost every weekend were some trip :-).
Johanna, Stefi and Rafa were really helpful and kind coordinatores.

Because I lived in hostel provided by IAESTE in Ecuador so there lived just students from iaeste and it was perfect. Always in the evening everybody met in kitchen were we cooked, danced or just hade vine evening together. And there was other hostel were were other students and with them we met on trips or organised parties like internacional party.
And we have our IAESTE groun on facebook and watssup so connection with other wasn problem :-).

Ecuador is perfect for hiking mountines are beautiful. But also there is really nice and big park called Carolina Park you can go run, play football and basketball. Its about 25minutes by walk from my hostel.
But the best sport is dancing salsa and bachata (best club is Lavoi).
About building you can find there nice colonial architecture but its really young not so old arch. like in europ.

They eat rice with everithing :-D. And chicken is really common also. But what Iam really missing in czech is local markets with fruits.....so sweet and maturely pina, mango and other fruits which I have never eat before.
Tipical local food is seviche perfect are with shrimps at coast, other is guinea pig, but I didnt like it so much and in Quito it is expensive. Or Empanada with chees.... yes and platanos fried bannanas they eat it with everithing.
Local food is good, but hygiene is terrible, almost ewerybody had some trouble with stomach. And avoid to water from waterpipe is not drinkable.

When you will come to Ecuador is really good to arrange Tuenti card.....you will have ecuadorian number with 2 giga of internet + using of watssup so you can communicate with you familly all the time from ewerywhere. So connection to czech republic were perfect. Just wifi on hostel was sometimes really slow.
If you want to send postcard it cost around 3,5usd and it takes 2 weeks or 1 and half monthes......to me happend both cases.

Be careful, but dont worry if you are not comeing to dangerous parts of city and you are really careful about your stuff its ok. I wasn robbed not even once and I travel to my work with laptop every day.
Dont forget Ercefuril (its medicament against diarrhea) and it helps in every case (it saved my life many times).
It is really good now bacis from spanish because they really dont speak english there. So sometimes it was really hard I had to ask my colleague from work about help.

Most important are money :-D you can buy most stuff there, but sometimes its more expensive than in czech, so its better take it from home.
Passport
Computer - if you have to because of you work and skipe home :-)
Insurance - (take some from czech) I hade AXA and I was at doctor and I didn have problems with them. And something what cover adrenalin sport if you will go to raft or something else.
Something agains diarrhea - Smecta is first help, but if it not help its infectional and you have to use Ercefuril (its helps me many times in my life, but its on prescription)
Sunscreen - but not 20 factor like me :-D but 50.....even local people use 60 factor
Travel adapter
Repellent - but in Quito you will not needed
Camera ;-)

Experience which you dont find at home :-D
You will learn new language because you will really need it there.
New friends from whole world :-)
New experience at work (good for your CV).
Student card so for example you dont have to pay fee at galapagos 100usd but just 25usd.
You will see new fantastic plasec.

In Ecuador Johanna and Stefi were really kind and helpfull. But before when I came and when I left the communication take little bit longer.