A Weekend in Quito

March 16th, 2008 by cfukushima

So much to say about the past three days … I’ll start at the beginning. Arrived Thursday night in Quito after a long day of travelling – or, I should say, after a long day of waiting and being transported around. I did very little travelling myself. But whoosh, 20 hours later, and I found myself in Ecuador. Had a lesson in Norwegian from a girl on the plane … also, talking about how many flights we’d had, we both predicted that our luggage would be lost somewhere along the way. And we were both right. So I spent the next couple days in a battle with Delta Airlines … but the Ides of March passed without disaster and I finally got my bag last night, and had a faaantastic shower. By the way, for all who chirped me for escaping winter, it´s actually quite chilly here, believe it or not – more clothes was much appreciated, as the rain is fairly reliable.

I did a lot of walking in the past few days, and I’ve decided that Quito is quite the charming city. It´s really an interesting combination of Old World and New. A real sense of history pervades every street … cultural identity and memory are abound, very much a la Europe, with monuments of war heroes, cathedrals (very catholic here), museums, etc. I found an artist´s depiction of the history of the Ecuadorian nation that was very moving. But there´s a colour, a vulgarity, a sense of excitement here that is very distinct; an admirable amount of pride and activity in the city. Graffiti of the fun, kindly, nasty, and/or political commentary sort on the walls, stray dogs, kids running aimlessly, performers in the streets, cacophonies of horns, sirens, whistles, monotonous hawkers selling a ridiculous variety of things – and the traffic! I learned that buses don´t actually stop, they just slow down, and God help you if you lack hand-eye. With buses going everywhere, narrow streets, speeding cabbies, and everybody and their dog weaving through on foot, it’s truly amazing that I haven´t seen an accident yet. Resourceful people. And my new friend from Guayaquil assures me that Quiteños are way more cautious than coastal folk. ¡Loco!

Yesterday I made a field trip to La Mitad del Mundo, which is, ironically, about as far from the middle of the planet as you can possibly get. But it´s at latitude zero, so I had to see the monument. Lots to see there, and there was live music, dancing, and grande cervezas, so all was right in the universe. It was also fun to watch the sun trace across the sky almost precisely the same line as the red one on the ground marking the equator (it being almost the vernal equinox and all).

Travelling compacts your world so much … the experiences just pile on each other, and if I tried to tell all I´d like to now it would take far too long and you would certainly stop reading. Enough to say that I´ve already met many remarkable people, learned and felt much history, seen impressive landscapes, been seriously fearful of getting mugged, had many an “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” sound reach my ears (and just assumed it started with ‘g’ and ended with ‘l’), considered asking a girl to marry me, had terribly cute children beg me for one thing or another, watched a bike race down several hundred meters of sketchy, sketchy stairs – no joke -, experienced “AC Slater toilets” (even with the shortest legs in NATO, nearly impossible to sit down without hitting your face and knees on the wall in front of you, so some people have simply taken to turning around) and other joyful things. First thing tomorrow morning, though, I´m off to La Hesperia to do what I came here to do, and I am very excited to get started.