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Published: February 7th 2007
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An old church
This church looks so impressive it must be of signifigance to someone, so I took a photo My hostal in Quito is called "Posada de Los Maples". From my hostal to the Bus station it is a gentle 10 minute walk through busy urban streets, where cars speed by, la policia stand on most corners and little kioskos promote their magazines and other merchandise with the cheapest form of advertising "shouting".
Yesterday morning the sun was out, and the locals were going about their ways as they always do. I had just left the hostal after having visited "la lavanderia" to pick up my laundry, and stopping by "el supermercado" to gather the ingredients I would craftily mix into sandwiches later on for lunch. I had decided to bring my bak-pak on todays adventures so that I could conceal any purchases I might make inside its worn blue canvas exterior. At this point all that was in it was a jersey incase a "Day After Tomorrow" scenario should jump out from a side-street, and my diary which had a "To-Do" list in it that noted all the important and world changing tasks that I would need to complete to clock the day, and progress to the next level "tomorrow".
I had made it most of the way to
Lunch
For just 1.50US I enjoyed a soup, and main, a juice, and yogurt. Yogurt is becoming a real theme! the bus station and was contemplating "why it is that people dwell in the Andean highlands when they could easily be settled along their tropical coastlines", when a little (quite normal for people here) man tapped me on the shoulder and started rambling on at me about my bak-pak. (I will refer to this particular man as Yougurt Man, although he has no dairy product related super-powers. He is a normal mortal man like you and me and Batman, but not a hero like Batman. Actually forget about Batman).
Anyway...
Yogurt Man (Dadadaaaa) claimed to have spotted someone spill yogurt down my back, and all over my bak-pak and he was offering me his convenient stock of paper napkins. At first I thought "how the hell cold someone here reach high enough to spill yougurt down my back, when they are all Oompa-Loompa sized", and then I thought "this Yougurt man is a good guy". Eventually I decided to remove my bak-pak and place it on the bench seat infront of me to assess the mess, and begin cleaning it up with yougurt mans undeminished desire to help. After having taken off my bak-pak yougurt man exclaimed "Holy sausages Tall
Posada Del Maples
Home for five nights in Quito Man you have yogurt down your back". He prompted me to turn around and started wiping the back of my shirt. At this pont I began to think "wow isn't this suspicious", so I turned back to check my pak was safe...
Sure enough it wasn't. Another even smaller guy had just picked it up and started sprinting off down the street with it. It was a humourous sight to see a man that in all likelyhood could fit himself into the pak he was carrying. I turned with my puzzled and amused expression to find that yogurt man had disappeared (Like a punnet of yougurt at a rugby teams breakfast table).
You don't think perhaps this pak thief was infact an accomplice of yougurt man's??
At this point I decided that the head-start that I had allowed this dwarf like figure was sufficient, and I began to pursue him. Unfortunatley for the short people of this world it is very difficult to outrun a person with a stride length that equates to 3 or 4 of their own. After just 10 metres I was right on yogurt man's understudies heels. At this point he wisely ditched the pack and
Volleyball
Quite the crowd in this park for a social game of volleyball quickly made another 37 paces arond the corner (10m away) and out of the story of my trip to the bus station.
It was a lesson learnt for me, and also a story to tell. Despite the mess of the yogurt on my pak I was grateful to be 10m closer to the bus station, and still with my all important "To-Do-List".
The real effecs of the encounter didn't surface until late last night when I checked my bus ticket and realised I had the wrong one. I must have been caught up in the excitement from 5 minutes before when I was organizing my ticket in spanish.
I did however complete all the tasks on my "To-Do-List", and have fond myself here in tomorrow, which is coincidentally today now. I was supposed to be on the bus on the way to Muisne, but given my ticket fiasco I have been granted an extra day here in Quito to do alot of not much.
"What or where is Muisne?"... I heard you think down a cyber wormhole through which I can sense your every internet engaged thought.
Well Muisne is the coastal town here in Ecuador, where I have
From the Park
Looking through this mini Arch De Triumph (canĀ“t spell it) and down Avenida Amazonas in Quito vowed to serve as a volunteer worker for two months, doing whatever unappealing tasks they should see fit for me to do. There is ofcourse also plenty of beaches, forests, mangroves, surf, and coastal Ecuadorians with whome I hope to find some peace and entertainment. On the other hand I expect to find some of the most savage mosquitos, crabs, and other creepy-crawlies that inhabit our fair world.
I have no doubt I'll find my feet there rather quickly (I know where I keep them), and dive into my spanish with grace, and above all look after myself. So nobody worry...yet.
I'll write again when I come in contact with another computer,
Adios,
Colin
Andrew
Cassels
Ange
Andy
Teeter
Ashton
Cass
or however else you know me.
xxxxx
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king dingaling
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hi
St marks gang for life