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Published: February 4th 2011
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We're surprisingly a little wistful that we missed something so big, but thankfully we missed the epic
Blizzard of 2011 in Chicago by a day and thawed out in our new home country. Our first days in Ecuador were spent getting acclimated to the country – literally. Quito is 9200 ft high. Arriving here from the flat as a pancake Midwest can really take your breath away. On top of this, Justin has a history of high altitude sickness, so we were careful to take things pretty easy.
Our first order of business in our Expat Experiment was getting our visas stamped, a step that we’re told is required within the first 30 days in the country. So that first morning, we jumped on the Trole express bus out to the very end of our tourist map to find the Ministry of the Interior office. We found two rooms of total chaos. Chris used her broken Spanish to ask someone where we needed to go, but instead of getting the presumed instructions to take a ticket or wait in one of the lines, she was taken out front and directed to walk six blocks to the Banco International and deposit $20 in a specific
account and then return with the receipt. We would then receive our next instructions. Now, this could have been a completely legitimate requirement. Even if it wasn’t, we don’t mind putting $20 towards our legal status in this country, but as we walked the six blocks, we remembered that we had 30 days to complete this. We decided to postpone the transaction until we could talk to others who have muddled through this before us.
So now that we had taken our “bus tour” there and back of Quito’s new town, we headed off to the city’s “old town” or Centro Histórico. The area of colonial plazas, churches, and government buildings was beautiful and charming and everything a tourist looks for. We wandered past the Palacio Presidential, the Plaza San Franscisco, and the Centro Cultural Metropolitano – like Christine was going to miss the free municipal cultural center located in a historic building. We returned later that night for dinner at a way-too-touristy restaurant where we paid way-too-much to stare at other gringos also eating way-too-expensive (but tasty) food. Swearing never to do this again, we tucked back into our
hostel with a cup of coca tea, a local
remedy for the high altitude.
The next morning was a late one as we continued to fight off the altitude, but we eventually stumbled out. Still smarting from our lighter wallet from the previous night’s dinner, we found the cheapest lunch possible in the mercado. It was inexpensive, but the fried chicken was super tasty. Even one day in, we quickly learned that we better get used to chicken, potatoes, and rice as the standards of an Ecuadorian lunch, but to Christine’s great happiness, ice cream is ubiquitous with heladerías are on every street.
After lunch we once again boarded the Trole and headed to the edge of town, then caught another bus to take us several kilometers north of the city to the
Mitad del Mundo . Why did we take this hour and half trip there and back? – to straddle the equator and stand on both hemispheres at once. Worse, we did this knowing full well from the guidebook that this isn’t the real equator. The advent of GPS now shows that the giant monument built to mark the 0 longitude, 0 latitude spot is 240 m off. So we hiked over to the real spot, but found
that a separate admission price was needed. By this point, we felt that we had gotten close enough, took a few pictures from a short distance, and called it a day. By the way, they say that you weigh your least at the equator, so the bus trip was certainly worth that quarter pound or whatever it was.
Back in Quito we refreshed and headed over to the Mariscal, the nightlife center…on a Wednesday night. Everyone – the guidebooks, the hostel, and any tourist info – tells you not to walk around the Mariscal at night because theft is rampant. So, scared to extremes, we took our life in our hands and walked around a little to compare the many gringo-friendly restaurants and bars that included gems like Sports Planet, the BBQ Pit, the Chelsea dance club, and some place called Only Shots. We grabbed an inexpensive hot dog at a stand called “Hot Dog” and saved our money for a couple of beers at an Irish pub on a nearby corner. Despite the poor name choice of
Finn McCool , the place was - as Justin put it - the only one of these bars that we would ever go
to at home. Even better, they put on the NBA game on ESPN, so Justin got his basketball fix. We'll just have to try the more Ecuadorian-authentic "Only Shots" some other time. Following the guidebook’s advice, we caught a cab home at the end of the night.
There was more to see in Quito, but having gotten a few highlights under our belt and eager to move on, we caught a bus to Baños on Thursday.
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