It was time to back my bags again, this time off to South America, although being so big I could only cover a portion of it - I'd be starting in Quito, Ecuador, then heading down to Peru to join an organised Tucan group tour from Lima, Peru to Rio, Brazil. I had initially intended to visit the Galapagos Islands, hence, starting in Quito, but after much thought, I changed my plans and booked an extra week in the Amazon instead. Most travellers would be aghast at turning down the opportunity to visit the Galapagos Islands as it is on many peoples' list of must-visit places, but I thought I'd enjoy the Amazon much more so we'll see!
Due to the timing of coaches from home to Heathrow, I arrived at Heathrow at about 10pm and had to spend overnight in the airport as my Iberia Airlines flight didn't leave till 6.30am the next morning. I found some comfy seats, set my alarm for 4am, wrapped an arm and a leg around the straps of my bags and attempted to get some sleep. Heathrow is a ghost town at night since there are no night flights, all the shops were shut and there was hardly anyone around, even the ghosts had disappeared.
I had a short flight to Madrid followed by a short wait for my connecting 11 hour flight to Quito, Ecuador. I managed to get some reasonable sleep on the plane before we landed. It was probably the strangest landing I'd ever experienced on my travels. The landing strip was built in the middle of the city so when you were coming in to land, it looked like you were going to land on someone's house! Maybe they'd had some close shaves in the past because after we landed, many of the locals burst into a round of applause! Actually, the airport was originally outside the city, but the city has expanded so much that it has been built up as close to the airport as possible, surrounding it on all sides.
A short history aside: On 10th August 1809, after nearly 300 years of Spanish colonisation, a movement was started in Quito which would eventually lead to independence from Spain culminating in the Battle of Pichincha in 1822 led by Antonio José de Sucre, under the command of Simón Bolívar (the major figure in South American independence from Spain). Quito became part of the Republic of Gran Colombia, and when that was dissolved in 1830, it became the capital of the newly-formed Republic of Ecuador. These dates and people are commemorated around the city in memorials and statues.
Quito is the second highest capital city in the world at ~2,850m above sea level. Later on in my trip, I would also be visiting the highest capital and highest cities in the world (La Paz and Potosi respectively, both in Bolivia). Quito is also the closest capital city of a country to the equator. The city sits on the eastern slopes of the active volcano Pichincha in a valley surrounded by volcanoes to the east and west (the "Avenue of Volcanoes") - the volcano last saw action in 2006 when it covered the city in ash. In 2002, another of the volcanoes in the "Avenue" also erupted covering the city in a few cm of ash. So we're overdue for another eruption!
My first week in Quito comprised a Spanish language course at school - 4 hours a day of individual tutoring from Monday to Friday. As part of the learning process, I also stayed with a local family. After arriving at Quito airport, I was picked up by the homestay father, Christopher, and we got a taxi to his home, a bottom storey apartment. Quite a nice place, pretty big, because families in Ecuador tend to be very large. I was introduced to his wife, Estela, and two sons also living at home, Diego and Javier. Only Chris and Diego could speak some English, the others were Spanish only. He also had two daughters but they didn't live at home. After dinner comprising mushroom soup and pasta with mince, I was pretty tired after my long journey so went to bed.
The next day, Saturday, after breakfast I headed out with some maps from my Lonely Planet to explore the city. One advantage of starting my South American trip in Quito was that it would hopefully allow me to acclimatise to the high altitude. Quito isn't that flat, and as I walked up a few hills, I soon felt the effects of altitude, gasping for air and breathing heavily. I had a wander around the Old Town which is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has a number of picturesque plazas, well-preserved colonial architecture and many beautiful churches. The streets here are clogged with traffic, and they don't seem to have any limits on exhaust emissions judging by the acrid black fumes being expelled from the decrepit buses. The New Town is to north, the heart of which is the Mariscal Sucre (aka "gringoland"), a collection of guesthouses, restaurants, travel agencies and bars. As its name suggest, this area is more modern, cleaner, less congested and quieter, at least until the weekend when it more resembles a typically raucous Western town centre. As in other Latin American cities, there is a major security problem and the tourist areas are flooded with police. There are even armed security guards outside banks and some shops and schools. Premises have metal gates and walls topped with broken glass. Tourists are advised not to walk around at night and catch a taxi instead. The temperature is a pleasant 20-25 degC during the day, and presumably because of the altitude, the sun is pretty hot so definitely cap and shades time.
There were elections taking place on Saturday to vote on some reforms in the constitution. This normally wouldn't interest me, apart from the fact that they'd made it illegal to drink alcohol so all the bars and off-licences were closed that day! In the evening, I was invited to a family birthday (Estela's niece's 18th birthday). I couldn't understand much but there were a few people to translate, and a glass of champagne was handed out too. It is advised to abstain from alcohol for the first few days at altitude as the body acclimatises as even moderate amounts can cause you to get drunk a lot quicker so all good :-)
On Sunday, there wasn't much much open for me to visit, so I was going to visit a nearby park. However, Diego was going to see if any bars in the Mariscal were open to watch the football (Man Utd v Chelsea) and I didn't need a second invitation! Due to the time difference, a 4pm kick-off in the UK translated into 10am in Ecuador, so there I was, at about 10am, sat in an Irish bar in the Mariscal watching the match with a Pilsner "grande". Back home for lunch (which they have at ~2pm over here) and we had cheese fondue. I'd never had it before and it was supposed to be mainly a Swiss and French dish, but there you go.
By Sunday evening, the combination of altitude and a new country with new food and different standards of hygiene was playing havoc with my body. Not so much a case of Delhi Belly as Quito Belly. Ecuadorean plumbing can't handle toilet paper so it has to go into a bin beside the pan (which sometimes leads to a smell of poo wafting through the house) - seemed a bit strange to me as the flush handled the big brown baby I gave birth to in the afternoon so I failed to see how it couldn't cope with a few extra sheets of paper. Still, it wasn't the time to experiment further while I was staying in someone else's home. At one point during the week, I was on a triple combination of pills for altitude (which has the unfortunate effect of making you pee a lot but I stopped taking them when I thought I had acclimatised), malaria and my belly - all the fun of travelling!
It was off to school on Monday, an 8.30am start and 4 hours solid of one-to-one lessons for the rest of the week, and I had homework to do every night! Still, it did leave the afternoons free for some sightseeing. Taxis in Quito are very, very cheap. A 10-15 minute trip across town was about $1 (handily, Ecuador uses the US dollar as its currency). After I found this out, it wasn't worth walking anywhere! During the week, I visited:
- Parque La Carolina. I visited the Jardin Botanico (only $1.50 since it was late in the afternoon) but the carnivorous plants I wanted to see seemed to have disappeared and the orchid house which was supposed to be really good didn't have many flowering orchids. Next door, the Museo de Ciencias Naturales was rather small, just one room! My Lonely Planet stated there were thousands of dead insects and arachnids on display but they must have all risen from the grave and scuttled off because there was only one spider (a big tarantula) and a handful of display cases of insects. There were a few interesting skeletons including a 9m anaconda, python, monkeys, fish, and birds but all in all, the museum was only just worth the $2 entry fee.
- El TeleferiQo: A cable car takes you up from Quito at ~2,850m to part way up Volcano Pichincha to a hill known as Cruz Loma at~4,100m, with walking trails taking you up further to ~4,700m. At the top of the cable car station along the walking trails, it was freezing cold and because of the thin air at this altitude, I hadn't panted so much since I saw Kylie Minogue's underwear advert. The views were great although the cloud meant we couldn't see any of the surrounding volcanoes.
- La Basilica del Voto Nacional - a fabulous Gothic church. Inside there were many large, colourful stained-glass windows and outside, grotesques were of Ecuadorian animals and dragons rather than the usual gargoyles. It was also possible to climb to the top of the towers via a few hundred steps, a rickety, wooden bridge and a couple of ladders but I gave that a miss.
- La Compania de Jesus was built starting in 1605 and the interior was fabulous, covered in gold, highlighting the Conquistador's love of precious metals.
By the middle of week, I had decided to forego lunch in my house and was having a Western-style lunch in La Mariscal with some of the students from the school, washed down with a beer or two. Ecuadorian food seems to be pretty bland, meals are very samey, comprising a piece of meat, plain rice and/or potatoes, some vegetables/fruit (particularly avocado and fried plantain) and watered-down fruit juice. They also don't like spicy food.
On Saturday morning, I moved out from my homestay and into a hostel for 2 nights, Posada del Maple, a very reasonable $19 a night for an en-suite single, with WiFi and a TV. It was also the first time I'd had hot water for a week which was a welcome relief. A group of us from the Spanish school went for a visit to Otavalo, famous for its market where traditionally-dressed indigenous people come to sell their handicrafts. The market dates from pre-Inca times and is the biggest in South America. A half-hour taxi ride (for $8 in total) took us to Quito's northern bus terminal from where we caught a public bus (only $2) for the 2 hour ride to Otavalo, passing through stunning mountain scenery along the way. There were all sorts of traditional crafts at the market, including tapestries, blankets, ponchos, hats, carvings, necklaces, paintings, along with a lot of what was clearly mass-produced tourist tat. There is also an animal market (where animal welfare is not an over-riding priority) which we didn't visit and a food market. After late lunch at Tabasco's, a rooftop Mexican restaurant over-looking the market, we caught a bus ($2) back to Quito just as the heaven's opened, followed by a taxi from the bus station back to La Mariscal (only $6 this time).
On Sunday, we visited La Mitad del Mundo ("the Middle of the World") outside Quito. There were public buses going there but since there were four of us, we got a taxi ($10 there and $15 back between us). It was $2 entry. A French mission in 1736 determined the position of the equator (with impressive accuracy for the time) and the La Mitad del Mundo tourist complex has been built around a monument to the expedition. The complex comprised the monument, which also contained an interesting ethnographic museum (another $3) displaying the dress and lifestyle of the different tribal people in Ecuador, an insectarium, various pavilions, and rather a lot of souvenir shops. GPS technology determined the actual equator lies ~240m to the north and the Intinan Museum has been built there ($3 entry, includes a guided tour). This contained supposed "scientific" experiments that demonstrate the strange effects of being at the Equator, along with an assortment of tribal artefacts. Some of the experiments were pure baloney, but I found the museum interesting nevertheless.
These trips were interspersed with food and beers in La Mariscal district which, depending on your point of view, inflicts a rather depressing slice of Western nightlife on central Quito. Tomorrow (Monday), I'm off on the first of my visits to the Amazon rainforest, a 5 day itinerary at Jamu Lodge, which involves a short plane ride and then motor boat to Cuyabeno, Ecuador.
Back to school
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Quito, Ecuador
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