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Published: September 11th 2007
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So now the real adventure begins. Our objective was to fly to Santiago (as a guest of Qantas), then fly almost straight away up to Quito (6 hr flight), from which point we will progressively work our way down the west coast of South America back to Santiago over the next 10 weeks.
Again, there was nothing momentous to report about the flight, but again, disappointment at the end, although of a different type to that in Santiago. I decided to keep my electrical adapters, power cords etc in the outside pocket of my main backpack, and somewhere in the flight process, a baggage-handler must have ‘inspected’ the pocket, because on arrival I was missing a special Skype-type phone adapter and our i-pod charge cord, both of which had value to us, but likely none at all to the intruder. This just confirms all the warnings about pilfering here, and needless to say, all items now travel inside a locked backpack. The only consolation is that phone calls back to Oz at internet cafes cost the princely sum of USD1 for 8 minutes, so at that cost, it seems hardly worth finding computer connections and setting up the phone anyway.
Incidentally, the currency of Ecuador is now just the plain USD, making life easier for all of us.
The main story of our stay in Quito can be summarised in two words - altitude sickness. Although Quito only stands at 2,900 metres, which is only 200m higher than the recognised threshold for altitude sickness, it has certainly given both of us a bit of a hiding. It’s really quite scary to walk around 100 metres or up about 10 steps, and be so out of breath that you need to rest for several minutes. Main symptoms have been light-headedness and incredible shortage of breath, with the worst case being my almost fainting on a couple of occasions. Joan has also suffered pins and needles and headaches at times. If this is a preview to getting old, it’s not something to look forward to. However, it still beats negotiating sugar deals with the Koreans, although I must admit it’s now getting marginal!
You might think that this has stopped us getting out and about, but this is not the case at all - it has just slowed our pace considerably. We took off on arrival and spent most of
the day in the Old Town, which centres very much around the Plaza Grande, which is flanked by the very impressive white Presidential Palace on one side and the Quito Cathedral on the other. The long queues discouraged our entry to the former, but Joan was very keen to check out the latter, along with its museum, and they were most impressive (you just can’t take the catholic out of the girl!).
We then basically followed Lonely Planet’s recommended 3km walking tour (albeit taking it slowly), which did not disappoint. Highlights were the impressive Plaza and Monastery of San Francisco, the alley of colonial balconied houses called La Ronda (where we were warned against bag snatchers, but actually saw more police than other citizens!), and Church and Plaza of Santo Domingo. Of interest, we keep being warned of the dangers of pickpockets and bag snatchers (and I’m sure for very good reason), but as noted above, we have been amazed at the massive presence of police and security guards everywhere, so I guess they are at least trying to combat it. The police have many accessories in hand to assist, including a variety of automatic shotguns, a number of
large, mean-looking dogs, and we even saw one with a sword, so choose your weapons!
Tomorrow (Saturday) we take off up north about 120kms to the market town of Otavalo, arguably one of the best known markets in all of South America, for which Saturday is their big day.
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Steve R
non-member comment
Good to see you finally got inside a place of Christian worship Neil. The journey looks fun - keep up the great journalism. Cheers S