Quito
Following a surpringly easy 26 hour journey, helped by a sleeping pill and Steigg Larsson’s ridiculously entertaining book ‘The Girl who played with Fire’ (srsly this book makes Harry Potter read like a washing machine manual) I (Francis) arrived in Quito on New years eve. Grabbing a taxi at the airport I went to meet Paul at our hostel. My initial sense of euphoria at arriving without any untoward incidents was somewhat tempered by meeting Paul. This is not due to the fact he is a douche or anything (this factor is merey incidental) but because he was feeling totally shitty, within an hour he was vomiting due to picking up jungle AIDS or some shit whilst volunteering in the Amazon. To make matters worse he was also sporting a beard which made him look like the love child of Brian Blessed and an ugly wolf. This is not how I imagined the noughties (apologies for bullshit word) would end for me.
Paul somehow managed to raise the energy to head out and show me around Quito, where he had spent around 6 weeks living and learning Spanish. Happily, these weeks were well spent and Paul is pretty damn compentant at the language now, this is good for us as left to my own devices I would be travelling for 4 months ordering nothing but beer accompanied by unspecified meat.
New years in Quito is somewhat strange, from reading our guidebook we were expecting something pretty special. What we got were lots of men dressed as women crying and attempting to stop cars in order to demand money. Apparently this is not normal for Ecuador but is instead related to them being married to the ending year and are consequently becoming widows. This was not however readily apparent and I thought that Ecuador was a nation inhabited by destitute transvestites.
Accompanying this was a bizarre parade, but Paul was in the process of throwing up, somewhat spoiling the vibe, so we headed back to the hostel for serious nap time. Heading out at about 10.30pm, the sort of time you´d expect to see some serious multi coloured vomit occuring in the UK, we were surprised to find the streets almost empty. We later found out that Ecuadorian´s tend to New years with their families, doing wholesome things as opposed to drinking so much you cry (or is that just me?). This meant that the streets were pretty empty save for the odd burning effigy (a reference to the death of the old year) and a number of gringos vainly attempting to find ‘the party.’ This scene was somewhat unsettling being erily reminscent of the apolcalypse or something like 28 days later but with white people replacing the zombies. It was actually lucky there wasn´t too much going on, by midnight Paul`s face was looking like he´d been repeatedly kicked in the balls, (you had to look closely though – his thick mane made illness detection sketchy at best.) Due to this we had a pretty early night, hoping that all would be well for 2010.
Luckily it was and we spent the next 6 days hitting up Quito. Highlights included the botanic gardens, where we pretended to eat dead butterflies and dared each other to put our wangs in the carniverous flowers (UK reprazent). We also went up a mad high cable car to 4100m above sea level to get some shit hot views over the city and the andes. We spent a couple of days in the company of some of Paul´s Ecuadorian ladies, despite looking like a bear he sure knows how to charm. He has a lot of them. They were all really lovely and seemed genuinly sad to see him leave – there were even tears.
View over Quito from 4100mts.
Whilst the lady population of Quito was lamenting the loss of a homeless man I was also lucky enough to be given a tour round the city by my cousin´s new wife´s family, who were incredibly generous. What particularly impressed was the Iglesia Compania de Jesus, a Jesuit church which my cousin recently married in. Located amidst the colonial splendour of old town it was unlike any church I´d seen in featuring enough gold to put Bangkok`s buddhist temples to shame and as much geometric patterning as the blue mosque in Istanbul. Stunning.
Leaving on the 7th we flew at the ungodly time of 6am to Colombia, where we are now, to a beach resort by the Carribean sea called Santa Marta where temperatures seem to be a steady 33 degrees. Anyway, I’m off back to my dorm room which includes the much desired feature of a blocked up toilet. The smell is so bad that if Dante were alive today he´d have to rewrite Inferno in order to incorprate the nasel Hiroshima that is our bathroom. Will try and write again in a week or so. Chau.
