Hacienda Chillo-Jijon Quito

... After heading north for a couple of hundred metres I found myself in the middle of some derelict area instead of the historis Old Town of Quito. Hmm... I turned back and got a taxi and about 30 minutes later we arrived at my hotel. Seems a new terminal has been built in the far south since the last Loney Planet was published and it would have been a long walk to the centre from there.

So I got to the hotel about 23:30 and it was locked up. The geezer ...

... up and wait for us whilst we took some happy snaps.

As well as La Virgen de Quito, we spent our days in Quito ticking off all the best tourist destinations - yet somehow seemed to be the only tourists at any of them. We checked out La Plaza de la Indepencia, Palacio del Gabierno, La Merced, La Plaza de San Francisco, Ipiales street market, Parque La Alameda, Parque El Ejido, La Basilica, Mariscal Sucre and La Calle Amazonas ...

... from last year in Mexico...coffee, strong and black like the darkest night while admiring the snow-capped mountains surrounding Quito slowly emerging from the early morning fog, the rising sun promising another mild spring-like day despite the roughly only 25 kilometer to the equator.

The airport lounge is full with colorfull indio women dressed in black long skirts and white shirts laced with blue embroidery and the typical South-American dark felt hats, boiling tea over ...

... the hostel we found the right bus and we were on our way. The buses here are very similar to the LRT in Calgary, they have their own lanes in some spots and stop at preset elevated platforms along the road. As a result they are much faster than the regular buses at home and some of the cheaper options here.

We got dropped off after a transfer at the main north terminal just outside the monument, it is ...

... we met Diego, our naturalist guide for the trip, then a small bus with heaps of overweight Americans (one actually likened the surroundings to Texas!?) then a small boat to Santa Cruz Island, another longer bus ride, followed finally by a trip in small dingies which are called "pangas" that transferred us to our boat for the next five days. It was a two-story boat with cabins with twin bunks and tiny but functional bathrooms, and a nice bar and deck at the back on the top story.
Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador sarzmc

... the girls can make money. It's alot of fun, this past wednesday one of the little girls (first grader) fell asleep, the days are long, and many sleep 4 or 5 to a bed. So after class, I took her outside and let her fall asleep on me. It was somethign so simple, but it was a beautiful moment, just giving the girl some peace and love for 20 minutes. That's the thing about these kids, they dont want matrial things they just want ...

... when we entered and we headed up about 3 flights of stairs to our classroom. She was very nice and the lesson went very well, despite our not being prepared with notebooks.
She taught us for about 2 hours and then the whole school had a meeting in the garden, where they proceeded to tell us about the weeks activities, including a weekend trip that we are going to try to do.
Nothing more of interest to report for today.

... with prawns specifically because I like them.. so sweet) anyway, that night Jerry invited Shannon, Juan and me to have a meal at his house which was directly on the beach (absolutely beautiful) with a fire for a treat. He made this drink which tasted like iced tea with some interesting flavours. He had put this amazon drug in it called Ayahuasca which is an hallucinogen. Luckily I didn't like the drink so I didn't have much of it.. but unsuspecting Shannon and Nicole had quite a few ...

... the security guy had some words with him (Alex can speak Spanish and was translating for me, basically they were trash talking each other) and then went to get the police, who roughed him up a bit and sent him on his way. We felt sorry for him, as the guy was just trying to make a living, and this sort of attitude only makes us foreigners come across as precious and harbours resentment against us. So we ended up buying postcards from him (even though they were pretty ******)

I ...

... enorme omweg moesten maken. De taxirit die ons gister een halfuur kostte duurde daarom nu ineens 2 uur, mede ook door de verkeerschaos die het weer had veroorzaakt!! Rinske was hierdoor nogal sjacherijnig omdat ze bang was de vlucht te missen, en ik kreeg volledig onterecht de schuld :) Op het vliegveld aangekomen bleek dat ook onder water te staan, allerlei mensen aan het vegen om het water weg te ...