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I didn’t think about it at the time but the trip to Quito was my last big bus ride. The service arrived in the city centre at 5am so I was relieved that the hostel I had planned on had rooms available.
I sat in silence in the lounge room and ate a fantastic baguette sandwich prepared by the night watchman.
Much later, as people began emerging from darkened dorm rooms, I began to get the idea that there had been a very big night here while I was dozing on the bus. Someone appeared to retrieve a pile of their clothes that they couldn´t remember shedding and another was vigorously accused of trying to spin on his head, breakdance-style.
The hostel was very social and I quickly got to know the ringleaders and was brought up to speed on the lifestyle. The rhythm of the place was entirely controlled by the hostel-sponsored Rum-and-Coke-Bucket nights (Mon,Wed, Fri). The attempt at gentrification by calling the drink a
Cuba Libre is fooling no one. You are still reaching into a big silver tub with a ladle to fill a plastic cup with a lip-curling 50/50 mix.
I was introduced to
Me and Keilly
New bucket: "Everyone change shirts!" (I wielded a strange and undeserved influence at this place).the riotous process on my second night and found myself powerless to resist. It’s rum and it’s nasty but it’s free and if you don’t drink up in a hurry, you are not going to get value for money (second, third and yes… fourth fillings of the bucket require a contribution of $1 per person). It doesn’t take much time around the bucket to get to know everyone a little better than you had intended.
The first three days of my time in Quito were spent pounding the pavement of Avenida Amazonas searching the hundreds of agencies for the perfect Galapagos cruise. It was a long process of elimination and compromise which ended with me booking a place for much less than I had initially been prepared to spend. (A good thing too as I would have been spending money that I don´t have). I left the agency (after a nervous walk from the bank with USD700 in my pockets) feeling very happy with the boat and the itinerary.
Returning to the hostel I reported back happily to my new friends who were sprawled out at various angles on the futon couches and I was promptly joined on
my cruise by Keilly who decided that, if I approved, it sounded good enough for her. Later that night we found out that another girl from the hostel, Scottish Mary, was
also on our boat along with her mother who was flying out especially for the islands.
The area in which I spent my first week is absolute Backpacker Central. It is often referred to as “Gringo land” and the dense concentration of travellers has attracted a slew of internet cafes and restaurants as well as a seriously bad element who loiter, waiting for their moment.
In the time I was there, three people from the hostel were robbed at knife point, one being robbed of his…erm… knife. On a night out in the club strip, a mere three blocks from the hostel, there was a double shooting (non-tourists) 100m from where we sat. The crowds of drinking tourists with their wads of dollar bills is too great a temptation and, although there are many simple things that I was doing to reduce the risk, I still felt lucky to have avoided any nasty encounters.
I came to my senses later and moved to a beautiful part of
the city but for the first week I was hyper-alert and moved around the city in a very deliberate way.
Struggling to escape the powerful gravity of the Rum and Coke nights, a group of us heaved ourselves off the couches and set out for The Equator, Quito’s main tourist attraction and namesake of the country. It was a sad, hung over little group that battled the public transport system while refusing to elect a leader and eventually arrived at the gates of
Equator Worrrrrld (at least that’s what it looked like to us. All a bit Disney).
We arrived armed with the knowledge that this huge park, carefully painted line and towering monument were all, sadly, in the wrong place. After a brief snigger, we wandered down the road to the “actual” equator and the little museum constructed there when the (gigantic) error was discovered.
There was a fun little guided tour during which we did various experiments that can only be done at Latitude 00° 00' 00". Balancing an egg on a nail, watching water drain away in clockwise and anti-clockwise directions before seeing how it goes straight down over the equator, and much more.
The High Council goes out to dinner
That little power-huddle is myself, Kieran (The DON), and Meghan In a vaguely related part of the tour we were allowed to try our luck with a traditional weapon of the indigenous people, the giant blow gun. The sharp darts flew incredibly fast with little effort and, after yanking one out of the cactus target, I was glad that Dan had refused to shoot me with it when I suggested it.
It was considerably easier to get home but still amazingly complicated for the city’s Number One attraction.
Looking for something a little further off the beaten track, our next excursion was to the Quito men’s prison. The hostel encourages visits to foreigners being held on drug trafficking charges to bring them a little comfort while they either await trial or serve their sentence. It was a very sobering experience.
After being frisked, verified and stamped like cattle we wandered into what seemed to be a very loosely-arranged system of incarceration. As it was visitor’s day, the halls were full of women and children, some sitting down to lunch in the cell of their family member. Most of the guards do not wear a uniform and it was difficult to tell the difference between them and
Becoming one with The Bucket
Making fun of Kieran´s aviators. the inmates.
After a few false starts and some nervous glances, we were led out into the exercise yard and introduced to an American inmate who’s name we had been given at the hostel (you need a name to get access as a visitor). His reception and tour of the facility was truly surreal. With a big smile and a larger-than-life New Yorker personality, he launched into tale after tale of life on the inside. These included his fifteen minutes of fame before the international media during riots that saw guards taken hostage,walls smashed down and dozens of prisoners murdered (no time is added to your term if you murder a fellow inmate so long as it occurs after you have been sentenced).
Unfortunately the rioters burned all of the prison records and one slightly-crazed looking guy described how a prison official had approached him weeks later and asked him for his name and what he had been charged with. He has been there for three years.
Our effervescent guide readily confessed to being guilty as sin but some others that we met claimed to have been tricked by “friends” or forced onto a plane at gunpoint. Still
others had no idea when they would stand trial and told stories of lawyers that had taken all of their remaining money and disappeared.
During our chat in the sun, one of the guys from the hostel fainted dead away from a combination of his recent arrival at altitude and a severe hangover. I managed to catch him on the way down and attracted a
lot of attention as I leaned over to put him in the Recovery Position, the prisoners surged over to look and I can only assume that they thought I had “shivved” him. Too funny. (He woke up quickly and recovered fully).
Our little tour wound through an area of the prison reserved for the well-behaved, well-connected and for foreigners. One inmate described how, after a shower and shave, he was moved from the hellish conditions next door because the guards realised that he was not South American. No explanation was given for this preferential treatment.
The cells that we saw were some of the most comfortable in the facility and included cable television, a DVD player and personal libraries (I had gone out earlier and bought an expensive book as a gift
Our transport to the Otavalo Hostel
Wedged in with four huge dogs and an even bigger bag of kibble. to try and ease their suffering!). The men were coy when I questioned them directly about mini-economies within the prison walls but we were later shown to a private “suite” that they hired out regularly for conjugal visits. All in all it was a truly bizarre day.
The following afternoon, I was wandering down the street when I bumped into Daniel and Chantal, my friends from Vilcabamba. I was promptly whisked off to dinner on the terrace of a beautiful little fish restaurant at El Mirador del Guapalo, close to Chantal´s old apartment. The lookout had amazing views of the city and was surrounded by old white buildings on steep cobbled streets, a welcome change from the roaring buses and street kids of the Mariscal district.
It was here that I had the long-overdue opportunity to sample
cebiche, a seafood and citrus dish which I have seen everywhere in South America. It was beautiful and I enjoyed it in the blissful ignorance that it would make me horribly sick the following day.
Bedridden with this new fleet of stomach aliens, I was unable to head out on a day trip that I had organised at the hostel
Otavalo
Smell that non-Quito... - very disappointing. Daniel had decided to move to the hostel and come along with us, all I could do was get up and introduce everyone then struggle back upstairs. They had a great day jumping off waterfalls and tubing down river, all returning with big grins and firmly welded into a new social nucleus.
Deciding that we needed to remove ourselves completely from the influence of the Bucket Nights, Daniel, Meghan (a great new friend from New York) and I headed out to nearby Otavalo for a night away from the city. This was a very cool side-trip into the hills and the beautiful hostel that we stayed at immediately reminded me of my stay at Vilcabamba. Sitting at our fireside table, we had the place almost to ourselves and I was involved in one of the most enjoyable conversations of my trip over dinner and a few litres of red wine. With a little hike to a waterfall in the morning, I was all but cured of the tourist bustle that swirled around the Quito hostel.
Returning to the city, we found that our paid reservations had been ignored and there was no room at the
Otavalo Hostel
How to keep the hammock swinging... inn. This was another example of bad/good luck as the three of us moved to a much nicer hostel and had another funny night together eating far too much pizza and cheating at cards.
When morning came it was time for the three of us to head our different ways, Daniel to Mexico City, Meghan to a volunteer program in the Ecuadorian jungle and for me - the Galapagos Islands.
I chose this morning, of all mornings, to oversleep and missed my rendezvous with Keilly. Arriving at the airport late and rushed, I bumped straight into an angel from the tour agency who had the sole task of ferrying me from desk to desk to smooth my baggage check and get me sorted for the flight. This nice surprise totally repaired my morning and I sat down to a nice breakfast with Keilly, Mary and her Mum before hopping on the aeroplane to my long-awaited island adventure.
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