Finally in Quito

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I finally made it to Quito. The airport in Quito is much like the one in Guayaquil, only its even newer! Unfortunately, though I made it safely to Quito, my luggage did not. Since it was a Sunday, no one was in any of the airline offices, and neither AA or LAN could offer any explanation as to what had happened to my bag. I filed a claim and then sought a way to get to my hotel. Fortunately, the taxi stand was close by, and there is a fixed price for travel to downtown Quito. 45 minutes and 26 dollars later I was delivered to the front door of my hotel, Hostal La Rosario. Not without a little confusion, but the taxi driver was very helpful and actually drove around a bit trying to find the hotel, which is only a couple of blocks from the Cathedral of San Francisco and Parque Alameda.

I arrived at 11 AM and check in wasnt until 2 PM, so I placed my belongings in the hotel storage room and went out on foot to find desayuno ...breakfast.. As I was more tired than hungry, I settled for a orange and pineapple smoothie and then headed back to the hotel still a good two hours before check in. I sat down in the front lobby and quickly fell asleep, and the hotel proprietor must have taken pity on me, for in a short while he woke me up and said that he had a room for me! I was delighted, because what I wanted most was a hot shower and some much needed sleep. Despite all I had read about the showers in hotels in Ecuador, mine was both very hot and very powerful...Ten minutes of a hot shower massage and I had to pour myself into bed.

I woke up at 6 PM with what I thought was a new lease on life, but after another 15 minutes trudging up and down the streets of Quito in search of a good place for dinner, I realized I didn´t have a new lease on life, just a contract extension! I finally found an inviting place that had hamburgers on the menu, so I stopped in and was served much more than I could eat for $4.50. Before tackling the steep hill back to my hotel---it seems every direction in Quito involves a steep hill ! --- I stopped in a little shop and bought a new sim card for my phone. Wow...now I even have an Ecuadorian phone number!!

I finally got back to my hotel room just as it started to rain...an everyday occurrence here it seems...and once again I hit the sack and was asleep in ten minutes. But unfortunately, I was awake again very soon. My hotel was a very nice hotel, but like many I have stayed in Europe, the floors are tiled and sound not only travels far, but it seems to increase in volume as it moves. I could plainly hear the voices of guests gathered in the lobby two floors below, and had my command of Spanish been better I am sure I would have felt like I was directly involved in the conversations. There was also a soccer game going on somewhere, and that was joined with someone watching a devotional program on a TV somewhere on my floor, so I got a mix of drunken revelry, spirited sports commentary, and what seemed like the chanted liturgy of a Catholic church service all mixed up and flowing together, punctuated occasionally by the beeps of car horns and the occasional distant car alarm. Instead of letting it bother me, I just imagined it as very much an example of Ecuadorian white noise and I let it lull me back to sleep. Somehow in all the nocturnal hullabaloo...I never noticed that my hotel was right next to the local Red Cross hospital with ambulances arriving and departing at all times of the night. Such is the power of Ecuadorian sleep sounds coupled with sheer exhaustion.

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