Monday 22/11/04

I slept through to 8am this morning, beating the jetlag in one foul swoop. Our hotel, the appropriately titled ‘Hotel Vagabundo’, is very clean, safe and quiet. The proprietors are friendly and speak English, although I do attempt to communicate in Spanish as often as possible. There’s not too many gringos staying here, but the restaurant is definitely “international” with pizzas and stuff. We have a private bathroom with no cucarachas, just a friendly family of ants. It’s hard to remember to put used TP in the basket not in the bowl.

First impressions of Quito, a typical Latin American city: chaotic. I think every car’s accelerator and brake is connected to the horn. Red lights mean nothing. Pedestrians mean nothing. You need your wits all around you when walking. There are huge holes in the pavement everywhere, you’d break a leg or fall into a cellar if you don’t look where you’re going.

The city setting is beautiful. It’s a long city from North to South nestled between two Volcano ranges on an Andea plateau. The number of parks, plazas and open spaces would put a European city to shame. It’s very sunny today – it’s 12 noon and the sun is almost directly straight up in the middle of the sky.

Today we walked through the old colonial part of town and saw many many plazas and churches. Catholicism was – and still is – very important here.

The people here are very friendly, smiley and quite small. Most could be described as mestizo. Young and old alike stare at Jenn’s purple hair and my height and both of our white skin. It’s perfectly safe to walk around the central parts of the city during the day, but it’s best to be home by dark. Dark is 6pm year round.