Spanish Is The Loving Tongue

We had a five hour stop over at Bogota airport on our way to Quito, but weren't able to go through security, so unfortunately we didn't get to see any of beautiful Bogata (sorry Bryony). I can only report that Bogota has a relatively nice if simple airport. Following a local beer, I started to feel dizzy and light headed and aware that I couldn't breath. It turns out Bogata is the third highest city in the world, and some people can feel unwell due to the altitude -only Quito and La Paz are higher.

Needless to say we spent the first few days in Quito, not drinking, sleeping a lot, and getting out of breath when we walked up the stairs!

We had just under a week in Quito, and spent that time in the lovely and homely Tutamandu hostel. The hostel is part of Cristobol Colon Spanish School, where you can do one to one lessons in Spanish. Both Luke and I took lessons, and both our teachers, Solange and Roxanna, were fantastic. Though we were only able to do five days, but both our Spanish has improved and I was able to read a whole Dora the exploradora book.

In between lessons, doing homework and and sleeping Luke and I did manage to get out and explore a bit of Quito. The old town is old colonial grandeur at its best, with streets of colourful buildings, laced with extravagant balconies, and an array of European style squares each with a more magnificent church. The grandest of the squares was the Grande Plazza, with impressive buildings all around, including the Palacio del Gobierno (a government building used by the President) and the Cathedral. The Cathedral was vast and empty and very beautiful -a highlight of which was the painting of the last supper, where the meal is guinea pig (a local dish).

Other church highlights in Quito include La Compañia de Jesus, which is literally dripping in gold, and many claim is the most beautiful church in Quito. I have to disagree, and say the most beautiful church is the more mordern Basilica del Voto Nacional. This vast gothic edifice, with enchanting stained glass stands on a hill and the views from the towers are impressive. I'm proud to say I managed to clamber across the rickety wooden plank in the Cathedral roof, and up the first ladder, to the souther tower and was delighted to find myself looking out across the roof, and out at a beautiful view of Quito. I was, however horrified to find that the next step was t climb two ladders which stuck out off the building, where one wrong step, would definitely result in death -I'm sad to say I chickened out of that bit.

Anyone who knows Luke will know that he feared the much talked about crime in Quito. His fears were not alleviated by the warnings plastered all over the hostel to be careful, or the stories of increased knife crime, muggings and bag slashing that were rife amongst travellers there. It also didn't help that the president was kidknapped by the police a few days before we arrived and had to be rescued by the military. Ecuador had declared a state of emergency. The hostel owner emailed to say “don't worry whilst yesterday was bad everything's fine again today.” We were told “these things happen in South America.” More worrying still when we arrived in Quito we were told there was no need to worry, because it wasn't political it was just a pay dispute. A dispute which resulted in lootings and tourists being robbed at banks, mainly because the police were too busy kidnapping a President to arrest anyone.

During our week in Quito we heard a variety of stories as to what really happened. One version is that the police are all right wing crooks, not supported by the nation, in their money grabbing criminal ways and the other end of the scale, is the version in which the president staged the whole thing to increase is popularity. Who knows where the truth lie -but we should thankful for our stable (if comparatively boring) democracy.

One afternoon we were eating chicken and rice in a chicken restaurant by the Grande Plazza, when the restaurant suddenly appeared to be surround by military (some of whom were also eating chicken), all of whom had very large guns. As we were walking out, men speaking into their sleaves appeared. Having worked in politics I knew this could only mean one thing, Hero or fraud I was still very excited when the President walked past.

Whilst on the subject of chicken and rice, it is impossible to be in Quito and not have a meal involving rice and chicken. The best we had was in the small cafe opposite our hostel, where chicken and rice soup followed by fried chicken, rice and lentils, with a fresh fruit juice was $1.65 -about £1.10. The fresh juices in Ecuador are amazing, and I never tire of them, though it's fair to say after a couple of weeks you can tire of rice and chicken.

We spent our last couple of nights in the Mariscal, which is the main tourist area,and known locally as Gringolandia. Gringolandia has an array of nice bars and restaurants, but my advice to anyone planning on visiting Quito would be to stay elsewhere and if you go out in Mariscal pay the two dollars to get a cab home. A lot of people seem to find comfort in its Western feel, but it is more expensive than everywhere else in Quito and is actually very dangerous at night, being a tourist mugging hotspot.

On our last day in Quito we got a cab out to the Equator. There are two places you can visited at the Equator, the official equator where the big statue marking the equator is. This is the spot where, over 200 years ago they “found” the equator. You can have your photo taken on the line, and have a very reasonably priced burger. Then you can go 10 minutes up the road to the real equator, which was found years later-using GPS. We did both, and the real equator was more fun. Dave and Zara, two lovely fellow travellers from Northern Ireland who came with us, would agree. Those people who shell out for the fake one and think they've seen the equator - but actually haven't - probably wouldn't...

Did you know?

1. You can balance an egg on a nail on the equator.
2. It's really hard to walk along the equator with your eyes shut without falling over, because of the gravitational pull
3. You're weaker when you stand on the equator.

And of course we did the exciting water experiment, and the water really does go straight down on the equator, and in opposite ways North and South.

Lots of love,

Louise and Luke

(Posted by Louise)