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Published: August 26th 2007
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Us on Pichincha mountain
from left to right - me, Sagiv, Dina and Erez. Behind us you can see a small part of Quito. Hi everyone,
Due to many complaints - here I am, writing my first adventures in the big continent.
So - it took 35 hours from the time I left Israel till I got to the hotel in Quito this Monday. I had a whole day in Amsterdam on the way but I was so tired that I hardly dragged myself around the city. I went to an open museum with traditional houses from around Holland, then returned to Amsterdam and took a canal tour in a boat (and hardly stayed awake), and then generally tried to pass the time left until the flight.
On the flight from Amsterdam to Quito (which was composed of three parts - Amsterdam to Bon Aire, a dutch colony in the caribbeans, from there to Guayakil, the biggest shore city in Ecuador, and only then to Quito) I found Dina, another Israeli who came to south america for two months, and we took a cab to the hotel together. In the hotel we found Erez, one of the guys I was about to meet here, who has already learned the first lesson of the trip - apparently when you ask for mineral water here
you get soda, so you have to ask for ¨water without gas¨instead. He found that out after buying 6 liters of soda, and so we found ourselves brushing our teeth with soda for the next two days (it is not recommended to use tap water here). Sagiv, the other guy I was supposed to meet here, arrived that afternoon.
Anyway, the rest of Monday and the beginning of Tuesday were spent on ordering a cruise in the Galapagos (all except Sagiv). Next on Tuesday, we travelled to the old town of Quito, wandered around there, took another taxi up to the ¨Panecillo¨which is a place with a lookout over Quito (this city is SO huge!), and the best part of the day - we took a sky tram (RAKEVEL) up to a mountain called Pichincha that really overlooks Quito and the mountains around, and walked a bit up there. I´m adding some pictures from there. By the way, Quito is very high (2800m) and on Pichincha we were at around 4100m, so we walked very slowly there, but felt quite fine.
On Wednesday we travelled to a place called ¨mitad del mundo¨- middle of the world, and there
The first equator line
Mitad del mundo museum we saw the two lines of the equator (Monty Python...). There are two museums there, and each of them holds an equator line drawn on the floor that you can take pictures with. The second museum was nicer because it included some guidance in English about equatorial phenomena and the indian life here. I´m adding a picture of myself in that museum, trying to shoot an indian arrow using a long tube (I missed).
On Thursday we took an organised tour to volcano Cotopaxi, which is not active and is covered with a glacier. A jeep with a nice English speaking guide took us half way up the mountain (4500m) and we climbed another 300m to the refuge, where we ate lunch. We didn´t reach the glacier itself, but it was pretty close. The climb and the height were a bit hard for me, and I felt a bit dizzy at the refuge, but no more than that. One thing is sure - it was freezing up there. I´m adding pictures from there too.
On Friday we left our hotel (which is very nice and with friendly staff, by the way) and took a bus to Otavalo, which
is a small city about two hours north of Quito. It has very beautiful views, and especially the hotel in which we spent the night, which is located a bit outside of the town. When we got there we intended to visit some places in the city first, but a sudden rain made us take a taxi to the hotel. By the time we got to the hotel the rain stopped, so we walked to a nearby waterfall, through very beautiful views.
The main reason we went to Otavalo is the famous Saturday market, and that´s where we went on Saturday. first we saw the animal market, In which the locals buy and sell pigs, cows, horses, sheep and donkeys. After that we went to the crafts market - the center of the city was filled with stalls selling clothes, hats, bags, necklaces, weeved pictures, arts etc. we bought some stuff and then went on to the second part of the day - an organized tour to laguna Cuicocha, which is a BEAUTIFUL laguna located in the former mouth of a volcano (pictures added). We walked around the laguna with a native guide for about 4 hours, and I
The indian me
To replication team with love could practice my Spanish a lot, which is always fun. After the walk we travelled back to Quito and settled again in our hotel, and this is the end of our story so far - now it´s Sunday morning in the internet cafe.
My Spanish is really paying off here, because I can actually communicate with the people we run into - shop vendors, taxi drivers, tour guides etc. I hope to take a course later on, but in the meantime what I know is enough for simple communication.
For all of you brave readers who actually got that far - I hope you´re happy with the detailed description, and I will try to keep writing in this blog. Note that on Tuesday we´re going to galapagos, so I won´t be available for about a week. I hope you´re all well and having fun back home. In the meantime - goodbye!
Efrat.
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Harel
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Ani rishon ;-)
Hey, what a wonderful blog. I read every word. Keep enjoying yourself and post a lot! The photos really add to the blog experience. Ciao, Harel