Mariscal, Parques, Buses, and Guayasamin

Buenos Dias everybody. So it has been a couple of days since my last entry, and I have experienced some interesting things here in Quito. I moved into a hostel called El Cafecito (the little coffee?) in the tourist district in north Quito called the Mariscal Sucre. I was leaning towards staying in Old Quito, which by all my accounts is much more charming--old narrow Colonial streets and buildings, big colonial churches, and lots of local restaraunts. However, contrary to the Lonely Planet which says Old Town is quite safe now, my buddy Esteban who is Ecuadorian says that it´s still pretty sketchy, and although the mariscal is very touristy it has all the resources one might need very close. I´m glad that I stayed in the district for a couple nights, it´s true that all of the touristy resources one might need are close at hand, and there are a lot of people around--and not just gringos. The bars in the mariscal are packed with local young Ecuadorians. However the Mariscal I think is far from an authentic Ecuadorian experience--it´s pretty much impossible to even get an authentic meal. Me and some dudes (Drew and Nate--some excellent dudes from D.C.) went wandering around the Mariscal last night trying to find a place to grub, and after having an overpriced beer and overpriced ´papas´(french fries) at this English pub, run by an Ecuadorian woman--we found ourselves at this fushion restaraunt just off the main drag in the mariscal. The place looked like it just opened and we were the only people there. It tried to ´fuse´basically every kind of cuisine there is, you name it, thai, japanese, ecuadorian, italian--so it ended up being really bad. The owner was on site and seemed worried, he smoked a bunch of cigarettes and talked sternly to employees. The food was very poor. Of course I can´t remember the name of the place but don´t go.

El Cafecito, the hostel that I´m staying at right now is quite nice. It´s cheap, seven dollars a night, has a cafe/bar/restaurant downstairs. Lots of people show up for dinner and stay late for drinks. Which is not cool or really cool depending on if you are trying to party or go to bed early. The staff is quite nice too, they all speak some english but humor people like me when I mumble some spanish to them. Very cute too. I´ve met some real cool people there as well. Right now I´m in a room with the afformentioned Drew and Nate (brothers from D.C. travelling for 4 or 5 months, a very similar route to myself), and two Swiss. The other night they got in from a 22 hour trip back from the Amazon, via plane, canoe, and bus. I felt compelled to tell them how much I like watching Roger Federer play tennis but I showed some tact and restrained--for the time being.

I spend most of my time walking around Quito. I think that I´ve seen a good portion of the city by now. It´s a very nice city, there a many parks--mostly running along the central corridor of the city. That said, I would not call it clean. The streets are pretty dirty with trash--I don´t think people are very concientious about disposing their unwanted. And there are some serious noxious exhaust fumes floating around. Everyonce in a while I will get a lung full of it and shudder--it´s gotta be worse than smoking a lot of cigarettes--which a lot of people tend to do as well. The public transportation here is hilarious, a lot more fun than in the States. Most buses are packed super tight and people are constantly jumping on and off mostly at unscheduled stops. The people with the most exciting jobs are the guys or girls who yell out the door at people on the street about where the bus is going. They have to collect everyone´s fare on the bus which means squeezing by everybody in the bus front to back, and jumping off and on yelling at people. Most of them are really athletic, they jump onto the bus usually while it´s moving. Steet vendors who take their merchandise to the bus also makes things interesting. There is a huge commercial market selling bootlegged DVDs and CDs so these people come on these really crowded buses and hand anyone whose interested a bunch of DVDs or CDs to look through. Whats funny is the collection of stuff they are selling--calling it eclectic doesn´t do it justice. DVDs of every genre old and new, CDs of hip hop, salsa, batchata (lots of other latin american music I´m totally unfamiliar with), kids movies, and of course pornography. There is something quite funny about seeing someone shuffling through these DVDs and going from a sesame street to a...porn. I´m so full of bus experiences today because myself, Nate, and Drew went to the equatorial line, the middle of the earth, or el mitad del mundo. It´s a crazy place. Apparently in the 1700´s this cartographer or explorer dude decided that the equatorial line was at this spot--maybe 40km north of Quito. He did a pretty good job, he learned that the earth bulged in the middle, but turns out he was wrong. The actual site is farther north (some group of indians had it right from the start). Anyway so the mitad del mundo which is the uber-touristy place with the monument where the explorer dude said was the middle claims to be the middle but it´s not--gps proves this. So a couple of blocks north of this atrocity is a museum that claims to be the actual middle of the earth. We didn´t go inside, but I believe them. The highlight of the trip to the mitad del mundo wasn´t feeling the equatorial energy or thinking about science...no it was the bus ride, and when we played on the playground. A note about playgrounds in Ecuador--they are way more bad ass then in the states. I think cause in the states everyone freaks about their kids getting hurt (I point to the once green structure in Shorewood Hills--what the hell?). An exemplary park of the Ecuadorian playground is in the north of Quito--the parks called Parque La Carolina. It´s the biggest and probably best park in Quito. Besides the excellent play grounds they have a bunch of soccer fields (mostly dirt), basketball courts, and yes I know this is just as important to you as me--TENNIS COURTS! Yeah and they have red clay too. I kinda wish I woulda brought my stick.

The same day that I went to the parque Carolina, which is pretty far north, it´s a long walk, my legs were tired by the end of the day...Anyway the same day I went to the museum of Oswaldo Guayasamin. I had heard about him before only from people who had been to Ecuador, and...he is great, and so is this museum. It´s in the northeast in a burb called Bellavista (some very nice views), located on a hill. The museum was Guayasamin´s house and they´ve turned it into a museum of his art and his collection. The dude has all this indigenous stuff and all this colonial art (mostly done by indians). The house is really pretty, nice gardens and great views, and the people are great too. You can get a personalized tour in Spanish or English, they spoke slow spanish so I could understand and they pointed out some really interesting stuff too. Guayasamin´s art was the highlight though. Check some out on the web. He was a talent--the way he draws hands. I donno just check it out if you get a chance. He also built this house farther east in this neighborhood which was attributed to the suffering of man, or being human. I would have loved to go but it was closed for renovation when I was in the area. I would go back. I´ve been writing for a while now, I doubt anyone will read this far except my parents. I feel like I had more to say...I think I will do the teliferiqo hike tomorrow, sin guia. Hope that it´s clear. Then I think i´ll be going to Baños on monday or tuesday...and perhaps to da forest...Ciao everybody.

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