Quito? What Quito?

I love official airport taxis. There is nothing more relieving than arriving, frazzled and emotional, in a new country and having a friendly lady gently coax your destination out of you, very forgiving of your rusty Spanish, charge you a set price, give you a ticket and point you to the nearest cab, where a friendly man helps you with your luggage and cheerfully takes you on your way.

It may well be a rip off, but it was just what I needed.

Another thing I needed, and in this I was once again guided by the indespensible Lonely Planet, was a hostel full of people mindlessly having fun and being sociable. El Centro Del Mundo provided exactly that, and I´m not too ashamed to say that my 5 days in Quito were spend doing almost nothing cultural or remotely productive. Instead I surrounded myself with new friends, drank a hell of a lot of rum and coke (free in the hostel 3 nights a week) and tried to cheer myself up.

I also managed to visit the equator, and had great fun leaping from one hemisphere to another, balancing eggs on nails (apparently it´s easier there) and observing the opposing flows of draining water. It genuinely does work!

On, and Hallowe´en was cancelled. That was interesting. Apparently it interfered with some Ecuadorian national day, and the President didn´t want the local culture to be subsumed by a mass of American commercialism. Good for him! So he policed the streets and threatened to fine any bars hosting parties and arrest people in costume. (I consequently spent the following night dressed as a man, while my new friend Alex paraded around in my miniskirt and top for the local Irish bar´s ´replacement´ cross-dressing Hallowe´en night. Don´t ask.)

I also managed to find, negotiate and book (totally in Spanish, a huge achievement) a great last minute cruise to the Galapagos Islands on a fabulous boat called the Beluga.....

written by

Alex Kent on October 28, 2007 from Quito, Ecuador

from the travel blog: On the Varieties of Nature

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