Blogs from Quito, North, Ecuador, South America - page 14

DAY 22 With no firm plans for the day we had a latish breakfast before setting out to soak-up the atmosphere in warm sun. Just what we needed for recovering ills! Pretty happy to get past the outlets with only a minor purchase plus some other essentials for up north. Later found a nice coffee shop & as Argentineans like to do the owner started chatting & it turns out she is a pharmacist & was able to translate names for our exhausted drug requirements with the local brand names & directed us to a shop a few doors away. This was a godsend as previously a pharmacist did not seem to be a requirement in a shop, as most drugs seem to be available over the counter, & therefore you mainly deal with a limited/non-english ... read more

27 January 2014 – Monday – Quito, Ecuador A strange start to the morning: a very brief visit to the South American Explorers Club building where the ‘President’ tried to recruit us for all kinds of tours, even a tour to the local prison. His sales monologue was uncomfortable and weird and a little bit creepy so we informed him that we were only in Quito for a couple more days and left the building. Next followed an attempt to have a coffee and use the toilet at the Juan Valdez cafe without handing over our passports. We also went to the nearby Cafe Libro but they don’t open until noontime. So we returned to our apartment where Joan whipped up an egg and bacon omelette. We went to the Botanic Gardens and spent a couple ... read more

25 January 2014 – Saturday – Quito, Ecuador Today we visited the historical centre of Quito. In 1978, along with the historical centre of Krakow, Poland, was the first city in the world to receive World Heritage Site status from UNESCO. In 2013, Quito was nominated for the prestigious "World Travel Awards" in the category of "leading South American Destinations". Quito has the largest, least-altered, and best-preserved historic centre in South America. It is considered one of the most important historic areas in Latin America. There are about 130 monumental buildings (which hosts a variety of pictorial art and sculpture, mostly of religious inspired in a multi-faceted range of schools and styles) and 5,000 properties registered in the municipal inventory of heritage properties. Although a multi-million dollar regeneration program has claimed to leave the historical centre ... read more

It will be a life threatening event to ever go and participate in Dutch traffic again. My fright reaction has fallen behind in comparison to my brothers and sisters in evolution anyway (or actually, it has over-evolved: it can only be evoked by acute life danger that´s directly visible), but after two weeks in Quito, I´ve also become honk-immune. One has to be, or else you´d need tranquilizers every time you go out on the street. So by now I´ve learned the basics of the Ecuadorian honk language and I´d like to share my new knowledge with people in countries where you pay 130 euros if you honk when there´s no direct danger. I have to admit though: there´s always direct danger here, so maybe it´s not as mad as it seems :). Here are the ... read more

Twice I had almost turned around. The first time it was because of the taxi driver: obviously a special case of ADHD. Everytime he couldn´t accelerate, steer or change gears (oh yeah, or honk of course!), he turned the volume of the radio randomly up and down. Loud, quietly. Loud. Aaaand quietly again. Loud. Sigh, quietly. Besides, there was a local program on and Friday afternoon was ¨bad jokes continuously¨-time. Our driver found everything said hilarious, but his good mood didn´t reach any further than the front window. Honking, swaying, pushing in, and pointing at his forehead he made his way through the Friday traffic in Quito. And when occasionally he didn´t touch the radio for more than a minute, the volume was always left at an annoying level of 12+, where 8 indicated the limit ... read more