Day 57: Travel day to Quito

South America » Ecuador » North » Quito
June 2nd 2013

Published: June 7th 2013

We got up and in somber moods, packed our gear and headed out for our airport transfer at 8am. We said goodbye to Puerto Ayora and headed north across the island towards Baltra. Before then though, we turned off at a coffee and sugarcane plantation and we had a mini-guided tour of a locally run family farm. They showed us how they press sugarcane to extract the juice to make the alcoholic liqueur Moonshine. This stuff was about 50% concentrate and we got a little taste; geez it burned all the way down my throat and it was only 930am in the morning!! They should us how they traditionally processed coffee brand to using these ancient bloody apparatus to extract the beans from the fruit, roast them and turn it into coffee. We finished off with a cup of black coffee (no milk unfortunately) and we continued into the airport. Was a bizarre little stop but I suppose they add on another little tour so they can say that we were on a '5 day tour'. We got to the dock and sailed across to Baltra, watching the blue footed boobies diving for fish one more time, and passed another sea lion sunbaking, bobbing up and down on a buoy. We both chatted about how we didn't want to leave this place; the Galápagos Islands are just the most magical of places we have been to on Earth. So peaceful yet so wild, the feeling of remoteness as you stand on a volcanic island inhabited by only a few species of lizards and birds for god-knows how many years. One positive thing that human intervention has done for this place recently is the effort into conservation. The way the tours are structured, restrictions on visitors etc.. (And ok, this probably contributed to us not getting to Seymour Island) means that hopefully the wildness of this place is conserved for many years to come. We checked in, went to our gate and shared the most expensive packet of skittles for morning tea ($3!!). What was really annoying was this British guy waiting in the check-in queue behind us had the worst BO ever! How someone could possibly smell like that when all they've done is get up and gone to the airport is beyond me. Worse still, we hopped on the plane and BO guy sat right behind us. This horrific smell just wafted around the cabin and made us both feeling disgusting. Anyway, once we got in the air, and the smell subsided (BO guy put on a jumper masking the smell), it was a pleasant flight firstly to Guayaquil then onto Quito. Unfortunately LAN didn't feed us on either leg (except for a couple of lollies) and we were starving hungry when we landed in Quito at 5pm. We jumped in a cab and headed into Quito. The sprawling city is situated amongst the mountains and it took us a while to navigate our way through to get to the Colonial area where our hostel is. The taxi driver got a bit lost along the way and had to stop a couple of times to ask for directions! We finally found the Community Hostel after over an hour since leaving the airport. We dumped our bags and got directions to the nearest restaurant. The hostel guy told us we'd have to walk up about 400 steps along the way!! Or it was a $1.50 taxi. We'd been sitting down all day so we decided to stretch our legs and do the wander. We found what we thought were the steps to take us up to the restaurant. They were the dodgy-ist, smelliest steps, poorly lit and about half way up we had to step around a couple of homeless bums. After thinking we'd gotten lost, we found the Mosaic Cafe which has an awesome view of the Colonial part of the city. We took a seat out of the balcony and admired the view of the city lit up. We took the opportunity to read our pre-departure information that was delivered to the hostel earlier that day. The first thing we noticed was that we had a luggage limit if only 10 pounds. I don't operate in the old imperial measure but I know enough to know that that is hardly anything!!! The second problem we had is that we are carrying in excess of 40kg with us, so what the hell do we do with the rest of our luggage!! We had our dinner (chicken Parma sandwiches with milk shakes), while I wrote out a list of things I'd need that will hopefully come under the weight limit. We quickly finished up dinner and strolled back down (taking a different staircase, the right ones we were supposed to take on the way up!). We noticed quite a number of police driving around the streets, turning their sirens on every now and then. It made us feel a little safer however we wondered why the patrols were needed in the first place. Once back at the hostel, I called Tropiceco who told us that they could look after the bags until we get back. Problem solved! We also booked into a different (much nicer hotel) for when our Amazon tour finished. Our 'private room' at the Community Hostel didn't have an ensuite, was right next to the common room and the curtains where basically a sheet that didn't block any of the street lights. We got our bags packed and organised, booked the hotel and before we knew it it was 11pm...and our pickup to the Amazon is at 6am tomorrow morning!!

Day 57: Travel day to Quito

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