Rebecca:
We love Quito!!!
We love the quarter Quito Tenis, where we were enjoying Ecuadorian hospitality at its best. We loved the beautiful old churches, cobblestone streets and old mansions in the centre. We even loved the shopping centres where were desperately trying to find a replacement for Thomas' hiking boots (quite impossible with size 46). We also love the view on Quito we have from our room - on good days as far as the snow covered Cotopaxi mountain.
In the first days, we did the tourist thing, exploring the old city center with Carmen Ines, riding the Teleferico up with Carmen and Cesar, we even got a guided tour through the center by night. We also had a cool night out in Quito's "zona".
Oh, and not to forget our amazing half day trip to the Mitad del Mundo, the center of the world. Here, at the intersection of 90 and 0 degrees, Ecuador gives in to its namesake and displays a variety of monuments, museums and lunar parks celebrating the Ecuator. The monument is not really exciting, but one museum was really fun, with many funny pseudo scientific experiments (hands on!), including one on the famous toilet flushing in one direction in the Northern hemisphere and and in the other in the Southern.
On MOnday, we went on a day trip to Otavalo, famous for its alledgedly indegenious market - not really exciting when you've seen Sacisili before. But we did soem souvenir shopping, and then went to a beautiful deep blue lagoon about an hour from Otavalo. With the late afternoon sun it was a most wonderful sight!
Tuesday morning, we finally set off to the beach, something we had been looking forward to, especially because all Ecuadorians we met highly recommended their beaches.
So, off we went to the bus station, just with our small backpacks. As usual, we were very cautious within the station, but when we got on the bus, I took off my moneybelt - it's just too uncomfortable for a long bus ride. We were the only ones on the bus except for an elderly couple and a boy who was first sitting behind and then next to us. This boy seemed to be very friendly, smiling and "helping" us to stuff our packs under our seats in order to make it more comfortable. We usually keep them between our legs for safetuy reasons, but we didn't want to offfend this guy, so we played along - but the whole situation did feel strange. When the boy then suddenly sat on another seat again, I got attentive and said to Thomas: "We better watch this guy, it's all to strange with him changing the seats all the time and our packs out of sight. As soon as sits behind us again, we better pick up our bags and put them between our legs again." Thomas looked behind him in just that moment and saw the guy crouching on the ground behind me. So up he jumped, blocking the aisle while I checked my backpack - my moneybelt was missing! When we requested our stuff back, the woman who had been sitting on the other side of the aisle behind us, got up as if she wanted to get away from trouble she apparently had nothing to do with. But this agin felt strange (don't all pickpockets work in couples?), so we pushed her back into her seat and yelled to the conductor to call the police. With us getting noisy and nasty, the two seemed to yield in - suddenly there was my belt on the floor, empty except for my passport. We got more aggressive and demanded our money back. The woman pointed to the floor as if I hadn't seen everything that was there - 80$ lay on th eground. "And the other 20$?" I said, and these appeared on the floor in the same fashion. What an weird situtation!
At the moment, the conductor finally appeared, but just shrudded when I tried to explain the pickpocket in pidgin' Spanish - I had my thinsg back, so there was nothing to be done.
Now, this attitude really is nothing for our understanding og right and worng, we were just too perplexed to react when both boy and woman left the bus and disappeared in the same direction (strange for two persons not knowing each other, no?). The conductor made no move to hold them up or anything.
Then, jsut to make sure, I checked my bag again, felt deep deep down - and realized my camera was missing! "Follow them!" I shouted to Thomas and off we ran, trying to find the thugs between busses and passengers, this time loudly shouting "Policia!" across the platform. and this time we did get the attention of the Seguridad people around. While they announced the personal desriptions over their walkie-talkies we walked back to the bus. While I explained to these 5 heavy guys what had happened and abused the conductor for not helping us at all, Thomas continued walking up and down the platform. When, in the corner of my eye, I saw him start running I started running too, with our Seguridad friends following us. Again, we shouted for the police - successfully. The woman that Thomas had spotted far away on the platform was held up by the Seguridad guarding the entrance, people pointed at her and were much more helpful this time. The woman still pretended she didn't know the boy and that she had nothing to do with him. She even still had her luggage on the bus, she would show us - and started running towards the bus. But this time, the Seguridad guys were right behind her. By the time we arrived at the bus, two of them were inside with the woman - probably she was again pointing to the floor as if we were all just too blind to see all the valuables down there. And in fact, suddenly one of the heavy guys handed my camera out asking if it was mine.
Then, everything went very quickly: I confirmed, the conductor said "So we can finally leave", the woman went off with the security guys and we boarded. Within 2 min, we had left the bus station, without reporting to the real police or questioning further the conductor.
We were stunned. Probably, the woman would be let go and that would be it. We had our thinsg back, so no reason for action. This really feels strange to people from a country with a functioning executive system.
Later, Cesar jr. told us the story about the horse they once got stolen from their hacienda. After a few weeks, someone they knew called and told them he knew who had stolen the horse. So they went there with the police and in fact, the horse was in this guy's stable. He pretended it was his and not theirs, but they could prove, so he was taken to the police station for interrogation. There, it was established that the horse belonged to the Leon family - upon which he suddenly demanded money because he had been feeding the horse for weeks! The Leons said, no, we will not give you any money, but the police thought it was a good idea because he had indeed been feeding the horse. Now, isn't that crazy to pay a guy who steals from you???!!!
In the end, when it looked like he wouldn't get away with any of this, then man even said that his old mother had stolen the horse and that she should go to prison.
So much about the Ecuadorian legal system. Miriam, you would go bananas.
But back to our bus ride, which wasn't over yet. Actually, it had just started. The scenery we drove through was beautiful, first soft hills surrounded by the high peaks of the Quito region, agriculture and little villages where joghurt was sold. Then, we got into the more mountainious region where the cliffs were covered with thick jungle, waterfalls were crushing down deep into the canyons. For a long time we followed a lively brown stream until we came to Santo Domingo. From there on, teh scenery changed into flat and typically tropical: red earth, stilt houses, banana plantations, even a different type of cattle - and, of course, the people were black now, mostly descendants of the African slaves.
About an hour before the coast, I was sleeping, the window right next to me suddenly burst. It just broke into pieces, imagine that! Thomas and particularly I were covered with glass fragments what a shock! I turned pale and could hardly utter a syllable, just thought "My face, my eyes!" I stood up, trying to clean myseld off the glass without causing any major damages - even my underwear was full of glass. I was bleeding on the tip of my nose and slightly in a few other places, but on the whole I was surprisingly well. The other passengers were really concerned about me, but not so our strange conductor.
Well, the bleeding stopped, but I continued to feel bad with surely many fragments remaining in my clothes and this did not change until we finally came to Sua (with several hours delay), found ourselves a nice hotel on the beach and had a long shower and a dip in the pool.
The next 3 days were simply amazing, full of relaxing, sunbathing, sleeping and eating. Every evening before dinner we went to the same beach bar for a cocktail, then we ate some fantastic fish and went back to the beach bar for a cocktail and some Gentleman Reggae. The village was sooooooooo quiet and peaceful, with men walking home barfoot with their day's catch thrown over their shoulders and kids playing murmels on the Malecon, the beachfront mainroad. All were black, Reaggea and Salsa were played and many people often just hang around - it all felt truely Carribean or African. Our Bougainvilla Hostel was a great treat too, for just 13$.
Well, on our way back we used a different and much better bus company. If you ever happen to travel to the Ecuadorian North coast, DO NOT GO WITH ESMERALDAS. Their buses may be the most luxurous ones, but they are slow, unreliable and their conductors cooperate with pickpockets.
So, after another two nights out in Quito (Cesar jr., thanks again for that lovely evening in the winery!!!), we left. For a last time, Ecuadorain transport tried to trick us when our 7am plane to Lima was depalyed so that we could not get the connection to Buenos Aires. But we were generously refunded by Taca for taking the 3pm flight via Santiago de Chile, so we didn't mind THAT much arriving in BA at 2am in the morning.
But about Argentina, we will tell you more next time.
Take care and don't forget mailing us (normal mail is just fine, no need to log on to Travelpod and use the Comment function - although we like that, too).
Thomas-who-finally-has-new-hiking-boots and Rebecca
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