Dead body on the streets of Quito...check
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2006
1
35
90
Trip End
Dec 25, 2007
Quito,
Ecuador
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Never one to do things by halfs (man that has got to change!) I have now managed to establish a travelpod page thanks to Niamh´s advice whilst trekking Tierradentro. And Niamh you were right, posting 5 photo´s at a time does your head scratchy eyes roll back inside my head I can finally say it has been done, 350 photos later, all the way to the Colombian and Ecuadorian border. The word entries are just me cutting and pasting from the emails I have sent on my journey and the pictures can now shed light on some of the great people I have met, the placesand stories from the first five months of what on the google map looks like a small little trek.
The journey down from border into Quito was pretty uneventful, although as per usual the DVD had something for everyone. From nuns smuggling cocaine onto planes in bibles (who would have thought?), tabletop sex not involving the nuns, copious amounts of gunfire, followed by rivers of blood, and usually followed by death. And didn´t the kiddies on the bus just love it!
As was becoming a habit, our first choice accommmodation was all booked so after grabbing something up the road we hived it to the new town, otherwise known as Gringolandia, to grab some sought after food. And who could go past the family meal deal on offer from Pizza Hut. 2 discs, chicken wings, cinnamon rolls, salad (for nutrition) and some fizzy drink. All shared between Rob and myself as Ollie headed off to an all you can eat joint. And just as we were up to our elbows in pizza who should storm into Pizza Hut, armed and all....my worst nightmare about to happen....locals dressed in ponchos, brandishing panpipes and belting out El Condor Paso quickly followed by Sounds of Silence with a My Heart Will Go On encore. At which time I wished I was on the Titanic sinking rapidly into the ocean. As tempting as it was I could not be persuaded to purchase a CD as my clapping through gritted teeth was enough. And then as became the case over the following week the night finished up at The Coffee Tree drinking beers by "de barrill"....translation is big beers.
Quito, nestled in the Andes sits high at 2850m above sea level and literally takes your breath away as you stumble your way through the colonial old town. And when you have had enough old it is a quick jump onto El Trole which is really a fancy way of saying a bus with its own dedicated lane, and head across to new, Gringolandia. That is if you can squeeze your way onto the bus which is usually jam packed with locals who insist on standing in the doorways. Easy to get out but hard work to get on. And if you are not prepared for your exit you will be equally screwed as you have to give yourself at least two stops to negotiate your way through the people and out of the packed throng onto the platform, usually dragging a couple of unsuspecting locals out with you. Momentum is a wonderful thing!
Quito´s other claim to fame (if you have any idea what their first claim to fame is please let me know) is that it is damn close to the Equator, or the middle of the world (Mitad Del Mundo) and like any great capitalist city expoits the hell out of it. Sure you can jump from one hemisphere to the other and as the Lonely Planet says "freak yourself out", although my guess was the writer was on some halluconagenic substance when they wrote that. As it turns out the Disneyland version is not the real equtor anyway as it sits about 250m north of the painted red Mitad Del Mundo line. So much for freaking yourself out. After heading there with Rob and Ollie I headed back with Niamh a couple of days later and hit the Museo Solar Inti Ñan which is where you can witness experiments that will freak you out. Old staples such as water going down drains opposite ways in north and south hemispheres (read: they pull the plug out in the direction they want the water to flow), balancing eggs on the heads of nails and trying to walk in a straight line with your eyes shut (bloody hard whether its the Equator or not). The highlight was definately seeing the shrunken head which had nothing to do with the equator.
Rob and Ollie´s last night in Quito was eventful and involved our failed attempt to find the bar El Pobre Diablo, ending up at a student alternative where the beers were cheap (student bar, cheap beers, who would have thought!) and the company was interesting to say the least. Ollie with his great grasp of Spanish attracted a Colombian man, who has fled his country owing to the fact he is a paramilitary and kills people for a living...and he also happens to be gay! So as we went to leave the bar and the local kids were telling us "to be careful of this guy as he wants to have realtions with your friend" we opted to grab a taxi and get out of the area, only to have the man who knows his way around an AK-47 jump in the back of the taxi with us. It then seemed to turn into a Scooby Doo cartoon as we told the taxi driver to not go to our hostel in case he follows, saw him locked out of the taxi as the taxi driver took off not in a cloud of dust, but as slow as humanly possible. We could have pushed him faster off the line. And with the hitman lurking suspiciously close to where we were staying we then got out of the taxi and on foot using really crap shrubs as cover, finally made it back to the relative safety of Hostal Chicago. Never a dull moment with these guys...as they fled Quito for Baños and some sanity after the past 6 days travelling from Colombia. Was great fun lads and I finally learnt how to play shithead!
And to bookend this incident at the start of the Quito trip, on my last day in Quito Tiffany and I came across a large crowd standing around a very dead body! The kiddies enjoying the spectacle from the front row, including lots of blood and the occassional exposed arm and head from under the sheet. Weekend at Bernies Ecuador style, or should that be Weekend at Pedro´s, finished with the body being picked up in a sheet and flung into the back of a silver refridgerated truck, they call an ambulance we refer to as a morgue on wheels. People ask were police in attendence, yes to that but they were concerned in giving their helmet and gloves to the kids rather than keep them AWAY FROM THE BODY! And as for crime scene tape, not required due to the tight knit circle of locals huddling around the body and trying not to get blood on the shoes. Fashion don´t!! We are still none the wiser how the guy ended up in this rather unfortunate position, so we are sticking with the obvious hit by a car theory. No-one, especially the authorities appeared too concerned by what they saw. Death on the street seemed no more unlikely an event as buskers with pan-pipes on the streets back home in Australia. So another tick on the list of travel things to see....dead body...check.
