Ecuador

After much hemming and hawing in Buenos Aires, I finally left to go up to Quito to begin my slow desent down through Ecuador Peru and hopefully over to Bolivia.

I didn´t get to my hostel until 1:30 in the morning which felt more like 3:30 am to my still Buenos Aires oriented body. I collapsed into bed and enjoyed being able to lie in until 10 am the next day without a worry. I am staying in the New City side of Quito, otherwise known as gringo city - and for good reasons. I´m staying right in the center at Crossroads hostel, located at Foch and Juan Leon Mera. There are restaurants as far as the eye can see as well as travel agency after travel agency.

After a quick breakfast, I began my quest for a reasonably priced trip to the Galapagos as well as some ideas on trips out to the Amazon. Well after about the 8th travel brochure prominently featuring anacondas, I begin to realize that perhaps the Amazon was not for me. ¨Do you have any trips to the Amazon that don´t include snakes?¨I innocently asked one of the travel agents. The look on his face was priceless and spoke volumes more than his ¨Well, it is the Amazon . . . but don´t worry, the snakes won´t hurt you.¨

With dreams of the Amazon dashed, I was able to focus on trips to the Galapagos. Unfortunately, this is high season so most trips were booked, but I was able to find a somewhat reasonably priced land trip that left in a few days. With my trip booked, I went and had a relaxing lunch and spent more time exploring around the new city.

The next day it was shopping, shopping, shopping! After calling my parents to wish my father a Happy Father´s Day, I was on the bus to Otavalo. A rather long 2.5 hours later and I was finally there. I headed first to the vegetable market to be consumed by produce. Amazing looking eggplant, tomatoes, and corn were everywhere for sale. From there I headed over to the artisians market which contained more alpaca products than any one city should ever have. There were also the typical silver crafts as well as some great paintings and pottery. I lunched nearby and then hit the market again. Silly me, I had forgotten to bring a sweater and I knew as the sun start to set it would get cold. I looked around at sweaters, ponchos and scarfs and finally decided on a soft green poncho. It was unlike any other sweater I had bought, and I thought it would be nice to have an extra layer for when I head into Peru.

Before it got dark, I went over to the bus stop and somehow scored the seat next to the driver. I was a little concerned that it would be a horrifying ride, but actually it wasn´t scarry at all. It was also very interesting to watch the interaction between the driver and the guy who hangs out the bus getting people on and off of it. it was quite a symbiosis they had going with each of them communicating with each other through very little talking. 2.5 hours later I was back in Quito and not too long after that, back at the hostel.

My last full day in Quito was spent in the old city. One of my friend´s had given me the name of a family friend who was living in Quito, so I met up with Linda for lunch and then she gave me a lovely walking tour of the old city. We walked around for a while until it started to pour. There is a huge cathedral that we only got to see from a distance, but she explained that it had all the different animals from the galapagos sculted around it.

The next morning I was off early for a trip to the galapagos!