Quito Mad Dash, The Equator, Calculator Con Man
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
120
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Quito,
Ecuador
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The border cross out of Colombia and into Ecuador was the normal stamp in stamp out affair but Nadine was stitched up by a money changer. The guy offered US dollars for our Colombian pesos at a fairly standard rate. Next he gave us his calculator to work out the exchange but had pre recorded a trick into the memory of the calculator which meant that Nadine worked hers out wrong on his calendar and ended up with less money. I nearly got done too but caught it out at the last minute and we sprung him. The con men do not care at all to be caught out. It is their job to con. The borders are always the places to be most awake and aware because there are so many sketchy characters around. Ecuadorians, whilst friendly are rumoured to steal anything left unattended and have no bad feelings about doing it
Cartagena to Cali early morning flight
. People are hungry. When our collectivo turned up at the Tulcan terminal about 8 guys latched onto the back of our van while we were still driving and tried to grab our backpacks and run with them to each of their companyīs buses in the hope that we would buy our tickets to Quito from them. This fierce competition worked to our advantage because we could let them negotiate a price down for us. We got the deal for US$4 which is less than US$1 an hour for bus travel. Great value. Most things are cheap in Ecuador. especially food and buses.
Anti-narcotics police boarded the bus a couple of times so we had to give up all the cocaine w had helped make and bought on the Lost City Trek. Some people were taken off the bus and lined up. A thorough check was done on a few of them, the ones without ID or paperwork i think. Hair, socks and shoes were checked and sniffer dogs run then they were allowed back on the bus. breakfast was had on the bus thanks to the constant flow of food items waved in front of us from bus food vendors. We ate banana chips, choclo con queso (corn on the cob with cheese) and i had three coconut ice cream treats because i love them and i love ice-cream for breakfast. Preachers were on the bus doing their spiel about viagra and useless vitamins.
Once in Quito we checked into the Chicago Hostel and were given a room that had a great view of the gothic looking Basilica church, even more gothic looking when a lightning show commenced over the top of it
Avianca air planes
. The heavens broke open and some hardcore South American style rain pounded the city. We decided to put on the daggy rain ponchos and see the church anyway. The interior was impressive with stained glass windows and many different rooms with shrines and alters and seatinfg for prayer. We had to hold ourselves back from taking flash photography of us sitting in one of the many confessional booths. There were some impressive spiral staircases and a room filled with gold. A stand out church noted for itīs differences compared to the other hundreds we have seen. It is possible to climb up into the clock towers but the rain kept us on the ground today. The clocks were working two and chimed the time out all night. This happened to be useful for us considering our alarm clock was broken, a vital piece of travel equipment. We had our first hot shower in a very long time.After a good breakfast on the rooftop the next day we went out to the official Equator at Mitad del Mundo, the middle of the world, about 40 minutes on a local bus. After hopping back and forth between hemispheres we got ourselves out of denial because we knew that the commemorative statue you pay to go and see is not situated at the real equator line. The big Equator lie. We took some photos and had an ice-cream from the middle of the world then legged it around the corner to the real equator line which is marked by a fun place called Museo Solar Inti Nan, not everybody knows it is there. The real equator has been measured by GPS
People leaving the plan out of the arse
. We stayed for over an hour taking in the attractions with an English speaking guide. There are some things to do there that can only be done at the equator like observing the water draining from a sink in opposite directions in different hemispheres and balancing an egg on a nail. There is some totem poles, some good indigenous huts and a tomb demonstration and a very cool guy dressed in ceremonial costume and some of the hairy pants i tried on in Otavalo who dances around to a big drum made from dog skin. There is a genuine shrunken head that they keep in a revolving glass cabinet and visual DIY instructions on how to shrink a head, a practise that was still done up until 15 years ago. Now they only shrink sloth heads. Weird? We shot a blow dart from a pipe to try to shoot a cactus, Nadine hit it first time. I hit an Israeli tourist. There was ocelot and jaguar skins, a giant anaconda skin and a life size figure of a naked tribesman with an erect penis. There were shadow clocks and different contraptions. We loved the museum, it reminded me of a freaky attraction you might find in the middle of the United States. We went back into the city of Quito and Nadine got an eyebrow shave??In the afternoon we did a walking tour of the city taking in many of the best sites. Ecuadorīs capital is cradled in a high Andean valley 2850m above sea level. We went to some plazas and then to the excellent Museo del Banco Central in the cultural centre that also houses the surprisingly good contemporary art gallery
Welcome to Ecuador- on the border cross
. The museum is a great archeology museum and had many pieces well preserved and maintained like ceramics and gold items. The art gallery had some fabulous pieces, my favourites was a painting of a modern day city park square with trees and park benches. However, the city folk were not sitting on the benches but up in the trees enjoying themselves. Another was a display of small found objects presented in matchboxes of various sizes. We went to the Monastery of San Francisco that had lots of religious art pieces and a few monks and nuns around the place. We bought a really good coffee table style book there that is about a primitive Ecuadorian jungle tribe called the Wuorani people. We wandered around the main streets that were made up of nice pastry shops, colonial architecture, bustling plazas, yelling street vendors, quitenos (people from Quito) pedestrians, belching buses, traffic and whistle blowing traffic police trying to keep the narrow, congested one way streets orderly. We checked ou the strange shops including the wedding dress shops selling horrendous dresses that looked like pink meringues. We had a drama trying to find a safe ATM then our taxi driver could not find our hostel address and we refused to get out of the taxi in the dark until he found it. Back out to the highlands tomorrow. 
