First few days...

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So i´ve been here in Quito a few days & i´m getting slowly better with my Spanish.
Its supposed to be rainy season but i´ve seen about 10 mins of rain in all the time i´ve been here! Its pretty easy to get about, Taxi´s are only a couple of dollars to travel from one side of the city to the other and local buses are only 25c!!!!

The craziest bus journey by far was when i set off for the day to head for the Centre of the Earth (La Mituad del Mundo) .....better known as the Equator to us gringo´s.
Its about an hour from Quito, so I got an earlyish bus and had to stand as it was morning rush hour. The traffic is crazy over here and no-one seems to give a sh*t about lanes or right of way....the bus i was on must have clipped a motorbike parked beside the traffic lights we had stopped at ....and the owner went ballistic!! He threw his helmet at the bus drivers window then picked it up again and started kicking and hitting the side of the bus! The driver vented back at him, as did most of the passengers on that side....
With that, the bus driver got out a sawn off shotgun and aimed it at the angry bloke!!!! By now the whole bus was shouting ´Vamos Senior!!!!´ (lets go!) So with that the traffic light changed and the bus driver put down the gun and carried on with his route! Mental!!!

The equator visit seemed pretty tame after such a crazy start to the day! But the experiments to show you how water goes down the opposite way either side of the line etc... were pretty amazing.

Otovalo was the next place I decide to visit, its famous for its indiginous Market up in the Mountains. I book a trip this time as there are loads of little villages on the way which are famous for lots of things like Volcanic Crater lakes, biscuits and other touristy type stuff (I also can´t be arsed getting on and off the local buses at the right place). I travel with 2 ladies from Panama who love shopping so i´m in good company!

The market is packed with loads of stalls all selling the most colourful clothes, the most amazing silver jewellery and ceramics,leather, rugs etc... hardly any of which I can fit in my rucksack sadly.
I barter a pair of silver earring down from $15 dollars to $10 and i´m sweating so much from the effort to argue in Spanish that I head off for a beer afterwards to recover!!

I get back to Quito to see the whole place get ready for a big Saturday night.......all of the bars are getting their music pumped up and the whole place is a sea of Neon lights!!!
I decide to head out with my roomate and have no plans on returning til daylight arrives!

We start off in a tiny bar that sells the local alcohol (a bit like a sweet vodka, but stronger) for $1 a glass, its mixed with hot orange juice, sugar and cinnamon.....so easy to drink! I cannot remember how many we had but when we head to the next bar for a beer we are both wanting to dance rather than sit around.
Bungalow 6 (the most well known club) is a bit quiet so we head for a local´s club called ´Marcundo´ its free entry for ladies and $5 for blokes but they get a free drink (pretty fair). Its packed and the DJ is playing a mix of Salsa, Merengue and Dance music......its brilliant! One minute he starts putting a tiesto tune on...then he mixes it into a salsa track and back again. The crowd are going nuts!!!! Every 20 mins or so they yell over the mike....´free booze at the bar for everyone!!!!!´ and the bartenders stand on the bar free pouring bottles of spirits into peoples mouths!!! I have no idea what time we left but... I learnt to Salsa, merengue and move faster than a rat up a drainpipe to the bar that night!!!!!

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