Quito

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Quito After my Gap tour finished on the 14th of February I decided to stay in Quito for a while. Quito is the capital of Ecuador it is the second highest capital in Latin America. This city became my home for the next three weeks. While I was there I stayed in the best hostel ever, Central Del Mondu (Centre of the World). Everything about Quito centers about it being right on the equator, a lot of business incorporate this term in their business name. Central Del Mondu is situated in the new part of town in the La Mariscal area. There are quite a number of hostels in this area. This area is perfectly set up for backpackers with internet cafes on most corners, plenty of coffee shops, cheap restaurants and of course the best bars and clubs all within walking distance of your hostel. In Ecuador the currency is America Dollars which makes it easy to calculate. In Quito I also took Spanish lessons at the Amazon Language school which was about 15 minutes walk from my hostel. Central Del Mondu (Centre of the World)

Central del Mondu became my home away from home. The Atmosphere was just perfect. It was a party hostel which suited me right down to the ground. The hostel housed between 60-70 people a night so not too big. It basically was a big old house with lots of hidden rooms. Each room accommodates four people, there is a treasure chest to store your possessions in, the staff make your bed each day which is great. Down stairs there was the common/TV room and Dinning area. There was a staff kitchen where they could cook you breakfast for between 3 and 5 dollars. But not very many people made it out of bed before 10am anyway. The staff were very friendly, they basically were one big family. The hostel was owned and run by French Canadian Man in his mid forties. Out the back was where all the partying was done around the pool table. There also was a small outdoor kitchen for cooking. This kitchen was really only used to boil water for coffee and tea not cooking. For all western visitors South America is extremely cheap and you get reasonable good value for money in Ecuador. Accommodation is around $5 US a night, meal at most restaurants $5 to $10 dollars a meal and drinks around $3 dollars. Being backpackers we always knew where to find cheap alcohol. We found this Mongolian restaurant that sold 99c cocktails. All this meant that you would spend an average of $20 dollars a day and maybe $30 dollars if you had a really big night out.

Rum and Coke Nights

The parties at Central Del Mundo were the Best. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night was Rum and Coke night. The hostel would supply us with 12 liters of Rum and Coke in a big steal tub for free. This tub would last about an hour since there was at least 40 plus people each night at the hostel. All the drinking was done out the back around the pool table. Once the tub of Rum and Coke was finished everyone would put in a dollar and then they would refill the tub so on average we would go through three tubs a night before midnight which is when they would kick us out and we would go and visit the bars and clubs in La Mariscal. So you got drunk on two dollars what a bargain. The pool table was free so we play doubles all night with the winning pair staying on the table. By the end of the three weeks I became very good at pool. Here is also where I made the majority of my traveling friends that I would bump into time and time again as I traveled from the North of South America to the South. Anna, Pete and Anders were my best friends while I was at the hostel. We all arrived at the hostel around the same time and I am sure we all met at first Rum and Coke night. Anna and Pete were travelling together, both from England although not a couple. They both were in there mid twenties. Anna was a very pretty girl with shoulder length dark brown hair and huge smile. Peter was always the life of the party, cracking jokes left, right and centre. Anders was from Sweden very tall and lanky with quite a thing build. I did meet a number of other people while I was there but these three where there the whole time while I was there and we did a number of trips together around Ecuador and later on around South America. Central Del Mundo was full of people from all over the world, mainly Europeans but also some people from other parts of South America. I remember sitting down in the dining area on my first night and just listening to all the different languages I could hear around me. There must have been at least 8 different languages spoken around me French, German, Swedish, English, and Dutch and of course Spanish. Now you would think with all these different languages being spoken it would make it hard to communicate, wrong, fortunately for me the majority of Europeans who stayed at the hostel spoke very good English. Some of them spoke it much better than I did which can be a bit embarrassing at times especially when they ask you what the word for something is in English or else they ask you to explain your own language and you have no idea.

Carnival (Egg and Flour)


One of the adventures that Anna, Pete and I had together was during Carnival week in early February 2007. Anna, Pete, Felix, Myself and some others from the hostel plus some of the staff all went up to Mindo for the day. We all set off in this small mini bus about 10 of us. The staff had organized the day. Carnival in Ecuador isn’t celebrated the same way as in Rio with huge parades and bright colourful clothing. In Ecuador they prefer to throw balloons filled water or bags of flour and squirt foam at each other. There are also a few eggs thrown in for good measure. We were informed of this on the way to the town so he stopped off half way and got some supplies. We bought foam canisters, eggs and flour. However about 10 minutes after buying the supplies someone used their foam canister inside the bus and then it was on for young and old, within seconds everyone in the bus was covered with foam and some of the eggs were crushed too. The foam canisters didn’t last very long so we had to stop at the next town and get some more. Once again 5 minutes out of the town and the war erupted inside the minibus again. Mindo is situated in a cloud forest about three hours drive from Quito. Once we arrived at Mindo, the first thing we heard was “Gringo” this is a word used to describe foreigners. Being Gringos it made us the perfect target, everyone wanted to throw their water bombs and flour concoctions at the bus and at us as soon as we step out side of the bus. The whole of main street was lined up ready to have a go at us, world word three had just started. It didn’t take long before were all out of ammunition and completely covered in foam, flour and eggs. So we retreated back into the bus and behind what ever shelter we could find. The war went on for about an hour then Pier the owner of the hostel called us into the bus and we headed off to the river for a bit of a wash. The other reason we had come to Mindo was to go tubing down the river. Tubing is like whitewater rafting without paddles and twice and dangerous. They tie together about twelve rubber tubes with rope making either a triangle or square shape. About 8 of us sat on the tubes with three guides and just held of for our dear lives and the raft flew down the river at a great rate of knots. The guides were there to make sure we didn’t collide with any rocks. There had been a lot of rain over the last week so the river was very high and flowing quite fast. We were given life vests and helmets, but that did seem like enough protection from rocks, over hanging branches and waterfalls that we kept on going over. The guides would keep jumping off and pushing us away from the rocks. The only part of the raft you could hold onto was the ropes that held it together so by the end of hour long trip down the river you had a fair bit of rope burn on your hands. We flew down the river quite fast, faster than on any raft I had been on before there were only a few lulls where the water was calm. When the raft got down to the bottom of the river we were all completely drenched but amazing all still in one piece with only a few bumps and bruises. After the tube ride we all climbed into the back of this truck to take us back up the river to where our bus was. Someone had left flour bombs and some eggs in the back of the truck, so natural it wasn’t long before we had covered each other with flour and eggs again. When we got back to the top of the stream we had to wash ourselves off again. Of course the only place to do this was in the freezing cold river water. We were going to have lunch in the main part of town in order to do this we had to avoid the main street where all the water and flour bombs were being thrown. So we headed down a back street and through a few alleys we made it to the restaurant unscathed. The locals stood outside the restaurant all lined up with their flour and water bombs. They were all looking inside at us just waiting for us to come out. After we had finished our late lunch it was about four o’clock and none of us felt like getting covered again in flour and eggs as we still had a fair bit in our hair and on our clothes. So Pierre and hostel staff shielded us as we left the restaurant and headed for the mini bus. When we got back to the hostel we all had to have very long showers to get rid of the flour and eggs off our bodies and out of our hair. I am very glad I had short hair and no beard at this stage of my trip. I felt sorry for Anna who had very long hair for she had egg and flour all the way through her hair. We got back to Quito quite late, that night was not a Rum and Coke night so after showering and having a dinner we all just crashed out.

The Gaol

There are a number of different day activities that one can do within Quito. That was another great thing about our hostel, on the walls there are lists of activities that one can do with peoples recommendations. Now I am not sure who spotted this activity, I think it was Anna. Anyway she suggested that we should visit the town gaol and visit some of the inmates from overseas who were in jail for drug related offences. So she relayed together the troops. Eventually five of us decided to do the trip Anna, Pete (another Australian), Felix, Catlin (Canadian girl) and myself. So we all piled into a cab and headed off to the local jail. In South America there are no problems with fitting 5 or six people into a cab it can be just a little cramped in the back of the taxi. It is a good thing that Felix and Pete came with us for both of them are fairly fluent in Spanish and if we got in any tight situation they would be able to explain themselves better than Anna and I could. Prior to leaving we got the name of an inmate off the hostel notice board because apparently you had to say who you wanted to visit to get into the gaol. We got the name of a Swiss German Guy Alex. Also the note on the board said that we should bring the inmates presents like chocolates, toilet paper, chips, soap ect so on the way we asked the driver to stop at the local shop so we could get some things. There were two gaols a men’s and a women’s gaol right next door. We decided to visit the men’s gaol and if we had time we would visit the women’s afterwards. At the door of the men’s gaol we were greeted by two big men dressed in camouflage army uniforms, equipped with huge machine guns and cigarette in their hands. This made us feel a little bit uncomfortable, I pushed Felix to the front to explain why we were there and who we wanted to visit. They pointed us to some other security guards who directed us into different two room’s one room for the girls and one for the boys. This in one thing you will notice a lot of when you travel through third world countries a lot of people are employed in the security industry as either police, security guards or the army and it is clearly on display. We had to present our passports and we were searched thoroughly.
We had to remove our hats and belts. Felix also had to leave his scarf behind in the room. Felix, Pete and I waited for the girls to come out before we went in. We were waiting for a while before the girls reappeared. When they did come out they commented that they virtually had been stripped searched because apparently girls have a lot more hiding places for weapons on their bodies than guys do. The guards also instructed us not to take anything from the prisoners and to only give then the presents we brought. We then got a whole series of stamps on our arms enabling us to go into certain sections of the jail. We were then escorted to the cell were Alex was living. As we opened the door a big puff of smoke came out. Inside the three inmates were having a joint together I could tell this by seeing the colour of Alex’s eyes and the smell coming from the room, also the fact that he has very happy and giggly. They welcomed us into their cramped little cell that housed three of them. One of the in mates had to sleep on the floor there also was little kitchen area and sink in their two by three meter cell. The distance between the top bunk and the roof wasn’t very much either. The inmates did have a TV and video games to entertain themselves. We asked Alex why he was in jail. He explained while traveling around South America like we all where, he began to run low on money so he decided to do some small time dealing and he just happened to be seeing this drug dealer to get some stuff when the drug dealer was raided and he ended up getting busted too. Now Alex is a very well educated man, he was in his mid twenties with a university degree and could speak four languages. The jail system in Ecuador, just like the rest in South America is very corrupt and takes a long time for things to happen. He told us that he had already been in jail for six months and that he had just had his trial only last week were he was sentenced to four years to dealing drugs. So basically he had been in jail for 5 months before his case went to trial. He then explained to us how the jail system worked. It basically revolves around how much money you have. When you are sentenced to jail the type of cell you are put in depends on how much you can afford, for you have to buy the cell you are assigned to if you don’t have enough money then you become the bitch of someone who owns the cell and you sleep on their floor. Which is how the guy who sleeps on the floor ended up there. The inmates could virtually get anything they wanted by bribing the guards, they had access to drugs, prostitutes, alcohol, video games and cigarettes. You even used to be able to out on the town for a night if you paid the guards enough money to escort you into town. But apparently this was stopped because one inmate caused a riot in a local bar and wrecked the place. They also explained to us that the food they got they had to payed for if they didn’t have any money then they would only get soup from gaol kitchen. They would pay the guards to go out and buy food from the local verdures that were outside of the gaol. As he was explaining all this to us he turned to me and said “If you are going to go to gaol while you are here make sure you have plenty of money.” I replied by saying “I don’t plan on going to gaol while I am here.” They also all had hand guns under there beds. All this made us feel a little uncomfortable. He then offered to take us on a tour of the gaol and meet some of the other gringo inmates. He took us out in the court yard. In the court yard there were kids running around everywhere. Apparently if you wanted too and had enough money you could arrange for your family or girlfriends to come and stay with you for a while. He then pointed out to us that the inmates we assigned cells on how much money they had not on the crimes they committed. So all the drug war lords with lots of money were placed together in a nice clean part of the gaol. He then explained to us that the gringo prisoners were treated much better than the locals mainly because they had money. He bought us a coffee at the stand that was set up and run by one of the prisoners. This was probable one of the very few legal businesses operating in the gaol. While we were having coffee a couple of the other gringo prisoners came over and introduced themselves. There was a guy from Canada, Germany and couple of English men. No Australians which I suppose is a good thing. While we were there we also were offered some drugs which we declined. We stayed for another hour or so listening to other stories that he told us about the prison. I remember one quote he told us “Life here is pretty good but we are still I prison”. We left the prison at about 5pm we didn’t have time to visit the women prison afterwards.

Uno, dos, tres.

Yes somewhere in between making visits to the town gaol, seeing the country side of Ecuador and Rum and Coke nights I did have some Spanish lessons. I went to the Amazon Language School which was about 15-20 minutes walk from my hostel. The lessons were reasonable cheap $8 an hour for one-on-one so they were very intense. I was having 4 hours of lessons a day in the afternoons from 1-5pm. When I first enrolled in the classes I thought that it would be best to have the classes in the morning and get them over and done with. But in the end I made the right choice and had the lessons in the afternoon. I clearly remember my first afternoon lesson. I was totally blown away. My Spanish teacher spoke virtually no English, meaning that the whole lesson was conducted in Spanish. This took a fair bit of getting used to as I couldn’t really ask her to explain anything for she wouldn’t understand me. But everyone told me that it was better this way for I would learn more. The lesson structure was two and a half hours straight. Then a short coffee break. In the coffee room everyone continued to speak Spanish. The majority of people were at a more advanced stage, leaving me quite lonely as a beginner not knowing what was going on and not understanding anything. One of the other students Celine who was from Denmark, when I asked her how many languages she could speak she paused for a moment and then replied I think it’s six. I was totally gobsmacked by this answer. She was fluent in all these languages as well. She the languages she spoke Danish (native), German (mothers language), French, Swedish, Italian, English and now she also spoke Spanish. To top this all off she was beautiful and studying medicine. Her parents must be very proud. Some people have all the luck and talent. I sometimes have trouble just speaking English.

After my first day of lessons I walked out of the school with a headache after listening for 4 hours to just Spanish. At this point it just sounded like a bunch of different noises and made no sense at all. I was desperate to find someone who spoke English. As I was walking back to the hostel I spotted Sam, I ran right over to him and just blurted out some English. Sam is from England, he was over here with Sarah both of them are language students and they where spending a year abroad in South America where they were to perfect their Spanish. He understood how I felt. We walked back to the hostel to find Sarah so we could go and get some hot chocolate. The three of us plus Lindsay went down to the local Chocolate café and had some hot chocolate. The waitress came over to take our order. Right I though time to practice my Spanish. “Uno chocolate caliente e agua por vour” (One hot chocolate and water please). The waitress replied by saying “con gas or sin gas” (with or without gas). “Sin gas” I replied. She then said “ Frio or non frio”. I didn’t know what she meant, I understood the word frio (cold), but was unsure why she was asking if I wanted the water cold or not. I just gave her a blank look. Sarah who speaks fluent Spanish for she had just spent the last six months in Argentina jumped in and said “frio”. In South America it is quite common for people to drink water at room temperature. Cold water is mainly only served by request. So not only did I have to learn another language but also the customs and traditions of the country. After my first couple of days at school I decided that it was not a good idea to drink too much on “Rum and Coke” nights, for I was having 5 days of classes a week. It was just too hard to get up and do my homework before I went to class if I had had too much to drink the night before. My usual routine was to get up at about 9am, have breakfast then do about two hours of homework have lunch and then go to classes in the afternoon. However avoiding “Rum and Coke” nights was harder than it sounded for everyone just gets involved and there is no where to hide. What I should have done was just have lessons on “Rum and Coke” nights so I would have had a day to recover in between. However that would have meant staying longer in Quito and Ecuador itself. With one on one lessons there is no where to hide often my teacher would say to me “u consado” (you are tired) when I turned up to class looking very tired with not enough sleep. I got on well with the other students who were having lessons at the same time as me. We often went out to dinner together it was good to get way from the hostel crowd sometimes. Each Friday, all the students and staff would go on excursions together around the city and see different parts of Quito. This I really enjoyed it gave me more of a cultural experience, instead of just being stuck in the classroom all the time. The majority of the other students where living in home stays so they where staying with an Ecuadorian Family. They were all having lessons for a lot longer than I was and really wanted to get a good grasp on the language. I was quite happy to just learn the basics so I could ask questions get directions and know what I was eating. By the end of the three weeks I managed to get a grasp of these things. I really would have liked to learned more but I had a lot of traveling to do and a long way to go if I was going to travel around the world.

Karaoke Ambato

Pete, Anna, Anders I had a number of other trips around Quito and its neighboring towns during my stay in Ecuador. One weekend Pete, Anna, Anders and I went to Ambato for the weekend. This trip was highlighted because we found this great Karaoke bar. When we walk in the bar it seemed quite dead, but we were all quite keen for some Karaoke so we found a table and ordered some drinks. We got hold of the song book and started to look for some songs that we could sing. Now being in Ecuador the majority of the songs were in Spanish not many English songs in the book. We had to wait for a while before it was our turn. Ecuadorians do Karaoke very differently from the way we do. Instead of standing up and making and absolute idiot of yourself and singing at the top of your voice totally out of tune they would remain seated in at their tables and sing with a very serious voice. There was a small stage but nobody was using it. By the time it was our turn we had quite a few beers so we were quite merry and ready to show the crowd how Karaoke was done gringo style. I was first so I stood up and sang Queen’s song “We Will Rock You”. Anders was next he went one step further an got up on the stage and sang “Sandie” putting on a real performance. Anna and Pete then followed by doing a Roxcett duet “It Must Have Been Love”. Everyone in the bar loved our performances and some of then even got up enough courage to sing their songs on the stage as well. We ended up singing about three songs each in various combinations of duets and solo performances. That was one of the most fun nights I had while I was in Ecuador.

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