Chalet Suisse Quito

... Pauline only to find most things closed, maybe because it was Sunday? Was very, very quiet but at least we felt safe which judging by all reports i had previously heard of Quito was a welcome surprise. Like the previous day, really did nothing but wander around, grabbing some food and drink and headed to a casino at night. This backpacking can be tough some times...

Day 43 - Took a ...

... much stuff in far too little space. We were offered a guide with our entrance fee but once we told her we spoke no spanish she just pointed us in the right direction. The first few rooms were filled with old literature on everything under the sun, a room full of portraits of the 70 some archbishops of the church. Another room contained a bunch of display cases that had the different pieces of clothing that were worn during the ...

... was possible for one to climb up to the top of the bell tower and gain a nice view of the city; a leisurely Sunday stroll followed by a few flights of stairs, we imagined. Not quite.
As an aside: one thing that´s both great and really annoying about the good ol´ USA is the obsession with safety and liability. In the States, a big establishment like this, particularly one that is (I think?) at least partly government-owned, would make sure that safety ...

... good I thought, and if I had any more room and an actual use for it I would have bought a couple of pieces there. This makes me more interested to visit some of the markets in nearby towns as markets are usually not my thing.

After class I found a funky little cafe - the Coffee Bean - in the square of Mariscal Surre (centre of Quito - New). They call this area ´Gringo Land´ - its tourist central! I don´t mind, the square to me (except for ...

Okay there was ONE interesting thing about Lima... they just installed these fountains. And now I think my life might be complete, now that I have seen fountains synchronized with the Ghostbusters theme song.

Anyway.

We got on a plane at 1am and arrived in Quito at 3. So there wasn't a whole lot of sleep that night, but we managed to somewhat explore the La Mariscal area anyway. It's also called Gringoland, and certainly had ...

... red scanner to check we weren´t disease-ridden feverish swine-flu carriers) and then after a hunt for our bags got into our taxi transfer to the hostel. First impressions of Quito´s traffic: mental. Once we arrived we were shown to our room which is pretty good actually, dumped out stuff and went off in search of something to munch, being starving by this point. We wandered down to the New Town (which we´d passed ...

... Yay, entertainment. We all watch the dog show and then afterwards get down to business. By the way, No one knows English, besides one officer out of like a hundred who spoke a little. I use my pathetic espanol to get by. I watch the cops kick the **** out of these men. It was so great, hitting them with sticks and such. Blood coming out of their faces while we all laugh. Kicking and such. I ask if I can hit them, but they denied me ...

... of an impure 8-teated ***** prancing her way before a mural of the holy virgin Mary in the plaza. As I was strolling around the city I was entranced by the beat of drums and music. My ears instinctively guided me up a hill and around a corner where I witnessed a procession of school kids all dressed up in multi-colored uniforms, chaps and goat costumes. It was a very cool tiny little parade! More quito action in my next entry.

... to je jeji posledni hodinka, ale ani Ja jsem si nebyl moc jisty. Kdyby nas taxikar zavezl do nejake ulicky a nechal nas tam tak neprezijeme ani 2 minuty. Ale vsechno dopadlo dobre, taxikar nas vysadil primo pred hostelem a my jsme byli konecne ¨doma¨. Oba dva unaveni jsme spali az do rana. Rano jsme si dali prijemnou snidani na strese hostelu s vyhledem na mesto a stravili prijemnou hodinu povidanim s dalsimi hosty, samozdrejme v anglictine. Na hostelu je ...