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Published: December 30th 2010
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About the best of it
Not sure its quite botanic garden worthy As I lay in bed wishing I was asleep, while trying desperatly to ignore the gross gargling snore of one of our roommates, I realised we hadn't yet shared with you the joys of dorm room living! They are definatly interesting to say the least. In the main we have been staying in dorms with 3-5 bunkbeds so 6-10 people in each room-the sight of Tom clambering up to a top bunk is def a funny one and something not to be missed! Our hostels so far have been pretty good with the odd nasty one getting in our way but they are generally comfy, always safe (for Mum's and worry heads!) and usually pretty clean. What we are not getting used to is all the odd balls along the way. For the most part I'm usually the only girl in the dorms (to anyone looking to find a young single boy Central and South America is a gold mine...you need to come join us!) I've never felt nervous or unsafe but I guess having a 6ft rugby playing boyfriend tends to keep the kooks at a safe distance but they are def all around...from the silent starers who look like
they may cry when you speak to them or catch them staring, to the overt party goers who somehow think we're gonna be impressed by tale after tale of late night antics of sampling local delights, Columbia of course housing more excited travellers than most places we've been so far.
We've not done too badly with really noisy rooms and I've only had one mortifying moment when I woke in the night to some extra curricular activity going on. (I can hear all you Nacro heads who think its halarious that I'm a prude laughing your heads off by the way!) Apart from nearly dying of embarrasment the ordeal ended quickly and I managed to get back to sleep although somewhat scared for life!!
We of course have had our share of drunkards coming in late, getting up, going out, coming back, banging around, looking for things, thinking they are whispering when really they are shouting before they fall into a snoring coma leaving the rest of us wide eyed and counting sheep. The noisy drunkards are ok actually, starting to get used to that and its of course to be expected but what I'm finding harder to bare is
plastic bags....of course when all your stuff is in one back pack a plastic bag or two is essential for the inevitable toiletrie spillages but you have to know when is appropriate to rearrange! Our hostel in Bogota was definatly the worst for it, one of our fellow travellers had the entire contents of his bag sectioned off into compartments seperated of course with plastic bags! This in itself not such a problem the fact that he of course felt the need to rustle, rearrange, sort, move, play and make music with these plastic bags every night and every morning for at least 10 mins was, doesn't seem like long but when all else is silent 600 seconds of plastic melodies is not the most fun. Thankfully though both Tom and I are pretty sound sleepers so sleepless nights aren't the usual but every now and again you get that one noisy snorer, smelly farter or just general weirdo that makes a night with one eye open advisable!
Bogota as we had been warned was just another big city so we didnt stay long. There were some lovely Christmas lights and our hostel was in a great location but there
wasn't a whole lot to see or do around the place. We had hoped to go to the Salt Cathedral about 2 hours out of the city but Columbia has caused a pinch to our pennies so we decided on a cheaper site seeing option at the botanical gardens (my choice of course not Tom's). Big mistake , we thought we were going to be treated to 500 types of orchids and a huge ground filled with exotic and beautiful flowers...what in fact was on offer was a highly out of season park with lots of shrubs, bushes which had not yet flowered, lots of signs with names of what at some point would be there but mainly just lots of shudawudacuda as a few droopy lillies is all we really saw...em sorry Tom! Bogota did of course throw up a few highlights for us. Tom one day walking through the hostel wearing his new Zealand rugby top was stopped and asked did he in fact play for the All Blacks-a chufty badge would not have cut it, Tom's ear to ear smile all day clearly explained his feeling on the matter. We also refound my love/addiction of Dunkin Donuts
which wasn't helped by the fact there was one on every corner and within 3 days we managed about 14 donuts. The weather has been shocking here-really cold and wet in the afternoons so between weather and donuts Bogota has put a severe dampner on our hopes of coming home thin and tanned with the latter fading fast.
From Bogota we made a mammoth bus journey to Quito...the bus itself was on a 3 day 3 night epic to Lima but we were only going part of the way...a mere 30 hours!!! The bus was comfy enough but yet again we managed to score the dudd seats by the toilets, not cool at all. So alot of junk food, stiff legs, tired eyes, polluted nostrils and a day and pretty much 2 nights on board we finally arrived in Quito, in the middle of nowhere...we were literally dropped off in the middle of the road at 4.30 in the morning...dodge is right but thankfully there was a lovely wee taxi man waiting near by to whisk us off to our hostel for a well earned sleep. Ecuador was only ever gonna be a quick stop as we were desperate to
get down to Peru for some sun but Quito defintaly brought on the first big regret of our trip. We loved the city which is unusal for us and made us think we would have loved to spend alot more time in Ecuador to travel around and experience some more of the country which seems like it would have been really really great. Quito also gave us our first big map mistake by busing (the most busy and cramped bus I think I've ever been on) and walking a good 2 hours out of our way looking for the wrong Avenue Mera, which of course we were hoping would have had a highly recommended restaurant on it but we were sorely dissapointed with the alternative which was just lots of houses, none of whom wanted to let us in for the steak grill we had been promised! Although you all know us better than to think we gave up there, we literally spent pretty much the rest of the afternoon making our way back to the right Mera Avenue not to be dissapppointed by two enormous steaks and the best onion rings I think I've ever had. Qutio also offered some great site seeing with more beautiful churches, a huge statue on the hill over looking the whole city, a street seller with the best home made cake since my Mum's and a few haircuts...Tom steered clear of the dodgy mustache and I for some reason thought it would be ok to pay someone 3 dollars to cut my hair...I was wrong, tears of course followed and I was gently reminded that it was 7 months before I would have to show my hair to anyone I cared about and that was plenty of time for the wonky to grow out!!! So Quito was great and made us a little gutted that we didnt have more time for the country but another overnight bus awaits to bring us onwards and downwards to Peru where we will be spending our first ever Christmas's away from home. 5 star luxury may stop the tears but we'll have to wait and see.
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