Guide books detail what it is like landing in Quito, however no matter how may books you read it never quite prepares you for when you land in the middle of the city which sits in a valley surrounded by volcanos, and the runway actually passes peoples backyards.
First impressions of Quito. It smells a mixture of popcorn and diesel fumes. A little tease as you smell the sweet aroma you almost go to take a deep breath when your throat starts to sting from a nearby blue bus spewing out fumes.
There are two main parts that most visitors will see which is Centro Historico (Old Town) and New Town (New Town). Old town is very colonial and very beautiful, the photos of the buildings are in Old town. New Town you may as well be anywhere, apartment blocks, shops, large pavements and huge shopping malls.
Part of New Town called the Mariscal Sucre or affectionately known to the locals as gringolandia. Pretty much dedicated to the traveller, though the resources I later heard can be quiet frustrating. The house I stayed in was a mansion, and I did get lost a couple of times, thank goodness the bathroom was next to my room. And the security was very tight. You had four doors to unlock pass through and then lock again, all repaeated again on the way out. Staying in such a beautiful home, put my thoughts to the large divide in the classes. Sixty percent of the population was living below the poverty line.
Old Town is pretty impressive. The buildings are impressive, and like most Sth American cities I have now been to a strong European feel and you could as well be in Toledo in Spain or Florence in Italy. The people are what made Quito different. I have read somewhere that they have cleaned up the crime in Old Town and what is very noticeable is the presence of police including mini or white or black combat vehicles, was all a bit weird, guys on walkie talkies which drew a slight giggle when I pictured Trigger Happy TV skit yelling Hola into the phones. The indigenous people roam the streets and you notice they wear particular outfits, like puffy dresses, felt hats, and long white shirts with designs on them, children strapped to backs or goods purchased that day.
I took a few photos discreetly of the buildings and made my way to the convent and chapel of San Fransisco which was an interesting place. The chapel was a bit old and was being repaired, again with peligro signs everywhere, scaffolding and braces, but people were freely raoming about or taking prayer ( I was told if a person was hurt somehow then it was considered to be their fortune). So I made my way through the bottom of the chapel with floor boards sagging and creaking beneath my feet. I had a guide tour through the musuem section of the convent by a student. She studied art at the convent, and you well know that important artists were commissioned to produce works of religious factors in history and is considered still so today to be important in Quito. Well I hope not to put people off but I was slightly pale after going through this place, with gruesome statues of stigmatas, different versions of the jesus on the cross. The top part of the chapel was decidely sturdy to my surprise after the bottom, and the artwork was indeed impressive showing 8 planets, not the nine we are taught today (well that is another argument for the atronomers). I was shown a particaular structure where two people stand at opposite ends of this little square block and whisper to each other, and can hear each other...though I was not told of the tales that were in secret! Also if a student was late they were placed in an object that was used to create scriptures on a turntable type structure, the late student was placed in the inside and spun around.
Altitude sickness. Well it wasnt what I expected. I had been at a level of around 4000m once before for about 15 mintues, and I was slightly short of breath. Quito sits at 2820 M (9252 feet). There was no breathless feeling, but the first few days I had trouble holding the all important morning cup of tea, suddenly having a nose bleed, or having an urgent need to sit down after running 50m to catch a bus. Daily naps or siestas were a must I seemed to be quiet tired all of the time. It in fact took me a week to adjust not the one or two days.
Now the picture of the lady sitting on the chickens was taken by Monica and was our class excursion of the week to Saquisili. It was a local town which becomes a market on each Thursday around one hour out of Quito. We caught two buses and onto a back of a utility van for the remainder. Was to become a mode of transport used a few times. The markets are held each Thursday and the local people who live in the mountains come into town and buy and sell goods. This time only the smell of maize, corn and popcorn was wafting in the air, together with a person half my size carrying a 50kg bag of potatoes, babies sleeping next to butcher shops, it is a family affair.
On our way back from Saquisili we only had to take one bus, and another story about bus trips later it was undertaken in true Ecuadorian style whereby you have vendors boarding the buses to sell bits and pieces including food, pens and juices, direct marketing at its best. The juicer I was in fact so impressed by that I purchased a couple. They are quiet small little devices and the girl could have probably sold anything to anybody, she was a great marketer. These devices you push into a fruit and after a couple of twists juice is extracted through a little funnel at the top of the object. Now the fruit in Ecuador is amazing and I miss it dearly so this was an ingenious idea and I was sold.
My Spanish school is fantastic without a shadow of doubt the best over the three countries I have studied. I loved our weekly excursions. One excursion took us to the Equator which was loads of fun. A large monument was constructed on what they thought was the actual equator until nine years ago when they decided to check out using up to date technology if it actually was. Can you imagine the look on peoples faces when they had it wrong. So now about 200m from the monument they have constructed an outside musuem with all sorts of experiements to show you the different things that occur on the equator, on the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere. You have the well known direction of water when it is drained from say a sink. We were shown with a sink on a trolley that on the equator it went straight down, and when moved to either hemisphere it will change direction. Some people are skeptical that it is a trick but I thought it was actually quite fun. It is a novelty jumping between hemispheres, and each side I felt a little closer to both of my homes, one being Australia, and the other England.
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