Quito - Our first stop in South America

Trip Start Jun 13, 2006
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Trip End Jun 12, 2007


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Flag of Ecuador  ,
Monday, October 23, 2006

Alex: Travelling to Quito took us all day as we changed in Miami (only way we could do it with our tickets) but gave us a chance to do a few things in Miami Airport like update our future flight dates, get a guide book and do a bit of shopping - or so we thought. We managed to update our flights successfully (although the lady at the American Airlines desk looked less than chuffed to have to update 10 OneWorld flights first thing on a Monday morning). However we couldn't find a guidebook anywhere, the only shop to stock them had no South America guidebooks (this is the US hub for South America) but fortunately had an Ecuador one, our next hope is to find an English language bookshop that sells travel guides in Quito... but by the time we had done all that and had some much needed food our 3 hours were up.

The landing in Quito wasn't as bad as we remembered which was nice and the taxi drive to the hostel was all a little familiar. Around the hostel was a different Quito altogether to the one we remembered. We went to a bar around the corner and could have been in a trendy bar in Manchester, the twinkly jazz, the low lighting, vodka selection and slightly uncomfortable seating just screamed Deansgate. We also have a choice of any cuisine we desire - even Ecuadorian (crazy!) We aren't sure if we just missed this bit before or if it is just new. As we wandered around the following day everything just looked a little cleaner and smarter, and generally nice. Our first day we took fairly easy (we had learnt our altitude sickness lessons last time, Quito is 2800m above sea level) and tried (and failed) to find a South American Guide book. Every shop was getting one in or had just sold one, and the one we did find was a 2002 one - far far to old, fingers crossed for Guayaquil. We also booked our trip to the Galapagos, very exciting, very expensive but, we hope, worth it. We are flying out a couple of days before the cruise (not the posh kind!) to have a look around the main island, sit on the beach and so Dean can have a dive or two! We are really looking forward to it. In the evening we found an Indian restaurant - it wasn't quite like it is back home but the tarka dahl was really good, and it fulfilled a craving I have had since the US.

We didn't feel like we had seen much of Quito in our last trip to Ecuador (mainly due to altitude sickness) so we went to the old town to have a look around. We got the bus over and had a wander through the various plazas. It is really pretty, the Virgin de Quito watches over everything from a hill a few miles away, there are plenty of pretty colonial churches and monasteries and generally a nice atmosphere and most shockingly it doesn't seem touristy. Unfortunately we forgot the camera so we can't share it with you, sorry. But we had a nice relaxing day soaking in the atmosphere, good practice for the nice relaxing days in the Galapagos!
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