Ecuador Part 3: Quito

NADAL IS OUT OF ROLAND GARROS. ITS NOW OR NEVER FOR THE FED. My next blog entry will probably confirm which of the two it was to be. I had many ways to start this blog, but that leapt out at me from the pages of the bbc website. Thrilling stuff and all the more so, because I only had 10,000 pesos on me. Enough to pay for four hours of time wasting but no more. And Soderling took it to the tie break with three hours and fifty minutes on the clock. Could he beat Nadal and the machinations of Colombian bus station internet attendants. He did it with one minute to spare. Enough time even for the bbc to sluggishly confirm what the Roland Garros site had already confirmed. Hmm the Fed needs this, but its wide open and more interesting now. It will probably be some unknown from the remotest parts of clayland in Spain that will win it though. I know what you are thinking? Besides the earth shattering news that Nadal is not afterall Jesus on Clay, but what was I doing in an internet cafe for 4 hours. Funny story. Though not for me and not really for you either. Before I begin I just want to drop two things in. Dom is on a Galapagos Tour with a bunch of Dutch people and the youngest is 65. Makes for sprightly company. Also when I got into Hostel Sue yesterday, Larry and the Frenchman were playing table tennis, while the usual woman was on the desk. It was like Bogota had been frozen in time for a month. Well I asked for a ticket for 7am today. She gave me one for 6am. I did not look at it. Got up today after 2 hours sleep, missed the 6am bus by 10 minutes and the next one is at 3.30pm. So I am tired and bored. The perfect mood to write up Quito as nothing much happened there. Then this transition bit of Colombia will be short as well. Welcome rest for those subjected to the recent entries.

I used Quito mainly for writing so nothing spectacular happened here. Dom wanted a hostel for some alternative company in Quito, but we were so fucked from Cotopaxi that I said we should move to a hostel and just sleep in the old hotel for this night. It made sense. We passed some green alien statues, as you do and checked in. The guy did not remember us, but he did give us the same room as last time. I did remember the hot showers though. We were both mullered and turned in for a lot of sleep.

We got up late, mildly less fucked. In fact I felt quite good. I recover fast. I finished up 'Innocent's Abroad' and its a really good book. I bounded out of bed and destroyed my right calf muscle in the most innocuous of ways. I hate those injuries. They are a little serious, but its ridiculous when you tell people in all seriousness, that you injured it stepping over a sock. I have not mentioned this heinous Ecuador fact yet. I missed it from the rant. Their cashpoints don't let you draw more than $100. I mean seriously. Thats shit. And when you need to draw money for here and also about $900 for Venezuela its ridiculous. You have to use one cash machine more than once to get $300 and then inevitably your bank stops your card for fraud. I had to phone nationwide and tell them that my card was not stolen and no I am not mentally retarded or have a kind of cash machine tourettes where I must keep reinserting my card. Ecuador is just shit and Chavez is a bastard. The official exchange rate is 2:1 with the Bolivar, but on the black market you get 4-6:1. Fuck that fat bastard, even if he is quite funny at times. We set off that morning and within half an hour we were in possession of an embarssing secret. We took a taxi to McDonalds. Its like an alcoholic's anonymous confession. I had had a hankering for the shit stuff for some time. We told the taxi driver to take us there. Dom would not ask the question for shame. Luckily I have no shame. Even I was a little embarassed whn he plonked us down right in front of the door. Bollocks. Now everyone can see. Dom backed away. I went in. After we ate, God must have decided we needed some punishment for it, but in a half hearted way. We were privy to the shittest attempt at robbery I have ever seen. We are walking down the road and suddenly this liquid hits my hand. I look down. Its orangey in colour. A man rushes up with some tissues. I take them before he can wipe me and he explains it came from a bird. My first thought was 'what bird shits orange?'. I smelt it. It smelt like burger sauce. Dom had been caught as well. Someone must have sprayed us. The tissue man was persistant and some woman had my little rucksack. Bitch. I said thanks and took it off her. She mumbled something about the bird shit and left. I can only assume they figured we were stupid enough to let a stranger rub us down, unobservant enough to miss someone lifting a rucksack and ignorant enough to know birdshit is not orange. Maybe they planned to take the small rucksack and while I got it back, someone else would take the big one. I don't know what they planned. Dom was incredulous that they had sprayed him with burger sauce, I just felt sorry for the fuckwits. They are so stupid in this country that even the master criminals can come up with something as good as spraying orange burger sauce as shit. Then again the locals are so dense they would probably believe it and erect a cathedral to the 'Divine intervention of the orange shitting bird'. Pathetic. Did more writing. We moved into the hostel Crossroads. They have a lot of rooms, so they stick everyone in their own dorm. Kind of undermined our aim in getting a hostel room. We went to a weird Aladinesque bar for drinks. It was ok and then we gave up on Quito nightlife. The people are just not good looking enough and the bars not good enough to care. Dom decided to do the Galapagos and then fly to meet me in Caracas to do the east side of Venezuela. It seemed a simple enough plan. These things never are.

I wrote some more. Was quite far behind and Dom sorted out his stuff after a lot of hassle. He booked the Galapagos just before the final, but it was going to be moe difficult to do the flight as expedia were fucking him about. He did not sort that out until much later that day. I was in no hurry to do anything here as I could do the few things I wanted the next morning. We got down to watch the final. Would I be going to Rio or Salvador. I suspected Salvador. Four litres and two hours later (just like the semi final I made the right calls for substitutions) I was off to Rio in 2011. For those not paying attention or not caring, that means that Barcelona won. I phoned my nan for her birthday. Line was rubbish and I was a little merry. Seven pints in two hours (even of pisswater) is a little excessive. All the hassles with booking stuff took all the edge out of us for that night though. I just can't get motivated here. When Dom goes to the Galapagos he never has to set foot in Ecuador again. Sadly I am not so lucky. We managed to pick up some weird local bint in a hot dog place who followed Dom everywhere. It was hard to get rid of her. We met some Canadians who thought we were from Ecuador. That was a double stake through the heart for Dom. Then we gave up on Quito again.

We got up. I spent the morning investigating Pacific Island plane tickets and how to get to New Zealand. i had given up caring so much that I was starting to plan Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea if I could. We went down to the old town. It was very pretty. I resolved to leave at 2.30pm and bought a ticket. Old town Quito is so nice, you can almost stop hating Ecuador. Then the taxi driver tells you the fayre is $3 when the metre says $2.40 and scrambles to turn it off so you can't see it. I said "actually its $2.40" and he replied "ok $2.50". Fuck the lot of them. We went up Basilica Volo or some such. They say its a hair raising climb. Its not easy for a vertigo sufferer. They said there was a plank across the rafters. I imagined like a tightrope. It was not so bad as that. It ran over the inside roof and was reasonably harmless. It did howevere lead to some rickety metal stairs up the side of the building. These were genuinely scary and difficult for me. Dom had no problems. The basilica itself is stunning. Reminded both of us of Notre Dame and that's one of my favourite buildings. The main plaza is also stunning to look at. We were trying to find the monastery afterwards when a local girl and I caught each others eye. We smiled and laughed and then Dom got us to stop and exchange e-mails. It was 1.30pm. I was off in an hour. Ah bugger it, I went and changed my bus, after agreeing to meet her and her twin later. I changed it for 3.15am so I could still make Cali and booked into our old hotel next to the station. The idiot still did not remember me. "de donde eres?" "ingles." "ah holandia." Idiot. Only 3 days earlier he had thought I was from the States when I said Great Britain. We did not bother with the monastery in the end. Dom had been stung with a fake $10 note earlier. Really bad version as well. Some guy tried to sell him a stolen 16GB memory stick and so he paid for it with the fake note. He was concerned that the packet was open and it would only be 1GB. He cursed the bastard, while I reminded him he had done the guy for $10 anyway. The memory stick was actually legit.

The girl could not actually meet us in the end, but e-mailed me and may see her in August when I get back from the Galapagos on the way back to Bogota. My online test says my nationality is Spanish. Always suspected it. Noone over here believes I am English anyway. We played some pointless games of pool on a wonky table we had to try to even out with a broom. I lost 7-6. Dom ended up having his Galapagos trip changed. He got a boat upgrade, but ended up with the old Dutch people he has for company now. Oh well. See what Helen and I get given in August. The area near the station is quite intimidating at 2.30pm and I had 230,000 pesos and $900 on me. Way more than I want to carry. $125 should be my maximum. I dashed past the vagabonds and made it for the bus. I slept until the border, had no problems there. I was out of this shithole for a while. Back to Colombia for only a brief sojourn.