Quito

Day 1 – Back in thte Clouds – Elevation 2,850 Metres

We woke up at a reasonable hour and went for breakfast which wasn’t too bad apart from the teeth achingly sweet fruit juice, after which we had most of the day to kill until we caught our flight to Quito, Ecuador’s capital, later in the day.

The remaining part of the morning was spent researching, reading and blogging until it was time to get packed for check-out time at 12.  When I put our bags in reception and asked the owner (Shelley pronounced Chelley) about booking a cab for 2.30, kindly she said we could keep our room on until 2 as the cleaner would do our room last.

Returning to the room I had noticed that the TV had some sports channels on it and as luck would have it they were showing the West Ham v Man United game live albeit in Spanish) – result.  Whilst I screamed and shouted at the TV, Shell continued to read.  As it turned out, due to some very dodgy referee decisions (honestly) West Ham lost 2-0 but I wasn’t too disappointed as they had played well.

It was then time to wait for a taxi to take us to the airport, we had left plenty of time as we thought we would draw out some cash and get a bite to eat there.  We were picked up and driven about 15 minutes to the airport, but when we arrived we thought we had been taken to the wrong place as it seemed tiny and also a bit shut!

After our driver had a word with one of the staff, he told us we were indeed at the right place which was a bit of a shock as the terminal was little more than a marquee tent.  On entering the tent/terminal we noted that there were a few benches and nothing else, no ATM or food place.

Therefore we had to kill the next 2 ½ hours just reading until check-in opened and we went through to another part of the tent (where we did manage to score an ice-cream) until we boarded our flight.

 

 

The flight was only a short one of 50 minutes and we were soon arriving in the capital where we were supposed to be meeting someone to transfer us to our hostel.  After not seeing anyone we wandered over to international arrivals where we found the guy with our names on a board.

I quickly got some cash out of an ATM (we had read that it was pretty dodgy using the ATM’s in the city, with stories of people getting followed and mugged) and then we got inside the taxi to take us to the centre, we noted that it was quite a few degrees colder in Quito than it had been on the coast. 

 

 

The taxi journey was longer than expected, it must have taken 45 minutes until we pulled up outside our hostel.  The hostel itself seemed very nice, if highly gated, we checked in, made our bags safe and then headed out to find some food.

Getting directions from the hostel guy we walked a short way up the road and found a square/area that was full of bars and restaurants, which we thought was handy (well done Shell for putting us in the right location).  We checked out some menu’s and noticed with horror that the beers were more than 3 times more expensive than where we came from, I think we had found the equivalent of Leicester Square!!

As it was getting late and with Quito having the reputation of being a bit dodgy at night we thought we would suck it up and just go into one of these establishments.

We got a couple of large beers and ordered some pretty bland food (Pizza – Glenn, Wrap – Shell) which fed us but nothing else.  Whilst we sat there, the square was descended on by the Quito police force which did nothing to alleviate our concerns about safety in Quito.

After we finished our food and drink, with it being fairly quiet as it was a bank holiday we thought it would be safer to call it a day and have an early night, so we went back to the hostel to hit the hay.

Day 2 – Ill

Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling too clever and had been coughing, tossing and turning all night, which didn’t make for a great night’s sleep for me or Shelley (tiny bed).  We decided to miss breakfast and try to get some more sleep, but it wasn’t happening so we got up, showered and then just relaxed for the morning.

Neither of us were feeling particularly great but we had to go out to sort out our booking for a 4 day jungle adventure, which we had provisionally booked with a company in town.  First off though we decided to head for an English bookshop where we hoped to buy/trade a guidebook for Central America.

Wandering round for a bit we found the bookshop and when we entered we were greeted by a nice guy from Essex, Mark, who had lived in Ecuador for 27 years (he even offered us a cup of Yorkshire Tea – how English!!).  We quickly saw that he had the guide we were after, but he seemed keen to chat to some fellow Brits and give us some useful tips whilst in Ecuador/Quito.  After a while we asked him to keep the book for us and we would collect it later and then headed out to sort out our trip.

We had taken Mark’s advice as he told us we could most probably get the trip cheaper if we checked out the local agencies and he had recommended one for us to try.  After walking round in the sun for some time (still feeling tired and unwell) we could not locate the agency that he recommended, so we decided just to check one out at random.

The guy at the agency was very helpful and pointed out some issues that had not been pointed out to us by other agency, he also gave us a cheaper price than what we had been quoted.  We told him we would need to think about it and headed to a nearby cafe where we got a drink to cool off.  After chatting together we had slight reservations about the agencies itinerary as there were a couple of points we did not like.

Whilst having our drink Shell tried to connect to the bar’s wifi so we could do some google research on the agency/trip.  However she could not connect, but  on checking the connections available the agency that Mark had recommended came up which meant it was very close, on looking around I noticed its name on the second floor of the building opposite.

After finishing our drinks, we headed for the agency across the square and had to negotiate two security doors we had to be buzzed through to get in. We had a chat with them about what they had to offer.  Most of the trips have the same itinerary but different types of accommodation, the one this agency was representing looked nicer than other ones we had seen and it was in the location we wanted to go to.  We decided that we would book with this one and after some good negotiation from Shell we ended up getting the trip for about $60 cheaper than the one we had provisionally booked with.

That sorted we went to a nearby bar to get a bite to eat whilst we decided what to do.  I was still feeling ropey though so we decided go back to the bookshop and then go back to the hostel for a kip.

Book sorted with a promise to come back and visit Mark to trade our South America book against a Columbia book (Our next and final destination in South America) we then got back to the hostel to try and get some much needed sleep.  However it wasn’t to be and I continued coughing which led to vomiting which was not ideal.

As I was feeling so rough and Shell not that great also we ended up feeling sorry for ourselves and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching TV with a brief trip out to buy some plain subway sandwiches for our dinner, before trying to get some sleep.

Day 3 – Still not Great!

Waking up after another rough night we popped down for breakfast and made an executive decision not to do the Quito walking tour but extend our room instead so we could relax for the day.

So, the rest of the day was spent in our room watching films on TV, a bit of blogging and trying to get some more sleep.  Although we had not really done anything in Quito we knew we were returning after our jungle adventure for a couple of days so we could explore Quito then.

We were due to get an overnight bus to our jungle adventure at 11pm so around 9 we ventured out to get an evening meal to kill the time before we left.  Searching around for a bit we found a café/restaurant and ordered some food and a couple of drinks, which were very cheap compared to the fodder we had got in the main square.

Doing our best to try and stay there until we caught our bus we took our time, but were pretty much kicked out as they cleaned and stacked chairs around us.  As it was raining we had no option but to go across the road to what seemed like (and was!) a hideous karaoke bar.  Once again, we did our best to eek out a beer whilst listening to ear splitting awful Latin American karaoke singers.

Finally, it was time to catch our coach from what seemed quite a vague pick up point, but we were reassured by a random bloke that the coach did go from here.  Ten minutes later and the coach turned up, which was good as it was tipping it down.

Boarding the coach we were joined by a German guy called Sebastian that we got chatting to, apparently he’s fallen in love with a Ecuadorian lady and he is considering moving to Quito.  We chatted for a bit until the bus started off, it didn’t seem like the most comfortable of coaches and was freezing cold (no full/semi cama with blankets here!) and we were very dubious of how much sleep we would be getting tonight!