Landing in Quito

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We finally arrived in Ecuador late sunday night after a long day of travel. We left Vancouver at 8am, had a 5 hour stopover in George Bush International Airport in Houston, and made in in one piece into Quito. Stepping off the plane we were full of excitment, nervousness, and not too sure what to expect. Our driver from the hostel wasnt there to pick us up, so we jumped inside a cab and drove to our hostel in the middle of the night. Quito seemed to be dead and vacant at 12:30am on a sunday night, the cab drive sped through every red light nonchalantly. when we finally pulled up to the hostel, we where greeted by a canadian traveller who was working at the Hostal Chicago named Morgan. we stayed up with him until about 3am as he answered our neverending questions about quito. we went to bed and slept like babies until the morning.

DAY 1 - QUITO

We awoke to loud trucks speeding by and honking. we got up and had breakfast on the roof of our hostel, a complimentary plate of eggs, a croissant, orange juice and tea. an amazing view of the city, we quickly ate and showered and ventured out onto the streets of Quito. immediately we noticed that we were in the old town part of the city, the only gringos in this part of quito. loud crazy traffic, old heritage buildings, little stores along the street blasting loud music, lots of indigenous people, polluted air and altitude sickness greeted us right away. it was an immediate culture shock, everything was different right away. we decided to walk around for a while and ended up going to an old cathedral church and climbing up the the very top for an incredible view of the second highest capital in the world. i had a hard time adjusting to the bad air so we took it easy for the rest of the day and went back to the hostel. Later that night we went out to the mariscal new city part of quito, where the locals call gringolandia. we had some food at a pizza spot and later went to bar owned by a couple of quiteños who lived in vancouver and toronto for 20 years, the entire bar was decorated in canadian sports logos....almost like home.

the next day we went up the teleferico, a gondola that took us up 1000 km higher above the city. i was huffin and puffin, gasping for air at times and my heart was pounding a million times per minute, while enjoyed another incredible view of the city. smog and pollution is everywhere, it was hard to see parts of the city at times.

the following day we took a local bus to mitad del mundo, and decided to avoid taking the tourist buses. it was much cheaper this way, only 40 cents each way for a 1.5 hour ride to the ecuator. we were the only gringos on the bus, and made friends with a family of farmers that were carrying 8 stinky little puppies in there bags. we spoke with a little 6 year old girl the entire way there, she was way above her age and was an old soul for sure. we taught her some english, and she taught us about her country and her way of life. it was very interesting. mitad del mundo was nice, there was a museum there that showed us different artifacts and clothing of the different indigenous group in ecuador.

by day three we were sick of the high altitude and pollution of quito so we decided to take a nite bus to the coast of ecuador to a little beach town called canoa. the bus station in quito is really shady, lots of people screaming and yelling, bus drivers boxing with each other, and just chaos. we bought our tickets and went back to the hostal for some chinese food with our new friend Luna from morrocco, then headed back to station to get out of quito.

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Comments

[andrea]

i've never seen a sign for no guns, knives and bombs before! how did the equator feel like?

[SniffandSnore]

Hi guys...
Good blog. Where did you stay in Quito? Looks great! Rich

[miguel2006]

hi rich, the hostal we stayed at in quito was called HOSTAL CHICAGO, its located in the San Blas area of quito, right between the old town and new city.