Will Work for Beer

• Shawnsmith's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Quito

Trip Start Jul 06, 2005 Previous
Entry Trip End Mar 10, 2006 Next
Entry

  Quito, Ecuador
Monday, July 25, 2005

So we´ve survived our adventures and find ourselves settling into Quito for our month of "work" - I don´t know, any job involving hanging out on a terrace drinking while meeting tons of cool people is alright by me. I´m ahead of myself though...

The Devil´s Nose

The train ride was definitely an experience. Arrive at the station just before 6 am to clambour onto the roof with 400 other gringos - definitely the highest gringo per square foot ration in South America - and head out of the city around sunrise in the frigid cold. Rolled through some beautiful terrain as the sun climbed higher and it became quite warm, definitely glad I went with so many layers! After you get over the novelty of riding on the roof of the train its essentially hanging out with travellers and watching the scenery go by for 6 hours. The grand finally is descending into this steep canyon via a set of crazy switchbacks - with no room to turn for the descent the train essentialy traverses the slope like a bad snowboarder, first forwards, then switching tracks and backwards, forwards, backwards. Pretty cool, but the track is washed out beyond that so the just flip the engine around to the other side and pull you back about half an hour to a small town where you grab a bus back to Riobamba.

Oh yeah, there was the derailment. At luckily a fairly safe part of the track one of the cars jumped the rails - nothing major, but lots of excitement for the becoming bored "gringo train" while they got it back on the tracks.

01 - Ready to roll,

Check the pics above.

Baños

Baños is just a really confortable little town down towards the jungle (although still well removed). Well set up for travellers with tons of hostels, bars, restaurants and tour companies. Despite all that its really pleasant little place and doesn´t feel overrun with tourists at all, maybe because tons of the tourists are also Ecuadorian. Essentially rained on us for 5 days, but still had a blast. Hit the bars a couple nights for some impromptu salsa lessons from the local chicas.

Went to a local indoor soccer game on Sunday night which was apparently the place to be -cheered for the team our section seemed to be for, played some soccer with the kiddies at half time to entertain the locals. Hit up the concession stand, not much to be had - some burgers, candy, water - Oh, and an entire bottle of scotch for $8. Now THAT entertained the locals; apparently its been there on display for months but it took two bored gringos to buy the damn thing. Ended the night with some local kids hanging out on the street corner as the bars were closed, swapping scotch for some strange purple alcohol and generally being up to no good.

Otherwise a lot of wandering, a couple of very wet hikes, hanging out at this great little cafe/restaurant, some spanish practice and catching up with the hostel DVD collection. On to Quitos and...work?

Quito

So here we are again! Started work on Friday - 7am breakfast shifts for the entire weekend seemed it might put a damper on things but oh no! Friday night was a staff member´s birthday party so the entire hostel seemingly went out, probably 15 of us and had a blast.

02 - Kids

Home at 5:30, work at 7am serving breakfast to those same sorry souls that had been out. Saturday, scratched together those that could still move and repeated the endeavour, worked at 7am serving breakfast again. Total sleep - 2 hours in two days. Spent a lot of time with a group that were travelling loosely together, it seems we´re going to meet a ton of cool people in this job. The work you ask? Hmmm, as far as I can tell it involves serving food and drinks, a little cleaning, and a LOT of hanging out on the beautiful terrace with cool people, taking in the view, and having a few drinks. Rough life! Only downside is this dumpy hole of an apartment we stay in, essentially a room with three matresses and a bathroom. Have to wander three doors up to the hostel for showers. We figure we´re going to pimp the place out into a proper bachelor pad, but then again its already been four days and we figure a lot of things.

Mark and I signed up today for proper Salsa lessons, and will also be hitting up the Capoeira classes at the same school, so that should be fun. I think we´ve gotten over the 24/7 staff open bar at the hostel and will settle into a somewhat saner schedule - no promises though. I guess that is about that, hope everyone is well and appreciate the comments/e-mails! Talk soon,

--Shawn_in_Ecuador

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

03 - Off the tracks	04 - Gringo excitement	05 - ¿Que hora es?	07 - Lunch fit for a king (BIGGEST sandwich ever!)
07- Highest gringo concentration per sq foot in SA	08 - Crazy cliff-hanging train	09 - Overlooking Baños	10 - Angel overlooking Quito

Slideshow Print this entry Share Quito hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry