Rucu Pichincha

You guys are going to be amazed! Well you´d better be anyway! We went up the Teleferiqo on Sunday, it´s like a cable car type thing which takes you up the closest active volcano in Quito, Volcán Pichincha. Quito is already at 2500m above sea level (I´ve heard 2200m and 2800m, so I´m taking the middle point), the cable car takes you up the side of the volcano, and arrives at 4100m! It was so awesome! The view was amazing! Here we are on top.

And here´s the view without the people. This is the view to the south, and below is the view to the north. Quito is a very long city built alongside the Andes. Everything north of the Virgin is considered north, and vice versa.So I had the bright idea of hiking to Rucu Pichincha, where you can peer into the volcano´s crater. The summit of Ruch Pichincha is 4680m, so it´s a 580m hike to the top. Sound ok right? Well, no. Take into account it was a 580m ascent, the low oxygen levels at higher altitudes, and the fact that I had a blocked nose, it was not a good combination. I was generally unfit anyway, which did not help. It was 10 times harder than the walk in Baños! The walk alternated from very steep to steep to uphill slope. I had to take rest stops every few metres, but at least I could appreciate the view while I waited for my breathe to catch up. The other 2 ended up being about 15 minutes ahead of me. Luckily I eventually caught up (they stopped to rest), because after that point it was even harder. We had to boulder across some rocks (almost a cliff face), after which we hit sand. The sand was as thick as that on the beach, except softer, so our feet kept sinking. Plus it was an uphill climb. I gave up walking at that stage. I was almost on all fours trying to scramble up the slope. We got up in the end, and we reached a point where we could see most of the view. The path ahead was all sand (the same scrambling type, which would continue for another hour or so, according to an american guy we walked past), so I suggested we stop there and walk back. Thankfully, the others agreed. I think we got to the base of the summit, if that makes sense. In other words, we got to the base of the crater.

I managed to take my hands out of my pockets to take some photos in order to commemorate the hike. It was absolutely FREEZING up there! I can´t believe the other 2 had considered wearing shorts! I told them it was going to be cold at 4500m (from the Tasmanian experience, which wasn´t that high, I think, but was alpine nonetheless!!).

We were above the clouds! It was amazing!

Obviously, you had to be there. A camera will never do the vistas any justice. But it can try...below is the path. It´s rather rugged. And you can see how far we walked. Actually you can´t. You can´t even see where we started from, it´s too far, and hidden by the mountain. Take my word for it, it was far. It took us 3 hours to hike up, and 2 hours to slide down.

You can see the path slightly better in the photo below. And a bit of the sandy bit we had to scramble up. This photo was taken where we eventually stopped.

Here´s Rucu Pichincha from the Teleferiqo station (at 4100m). I can´t believe we walked so far. Needless to say, when we got back to the Teleferiqo, we were completely exhausted, and my feet were killing me! They were getting blistered because as we were running downhill (it was too steep to walk), my toes were being pushed to the ends of my shoes, and were rubbing against it. In the end, it got painful to walk. No wonder, because when I took my boots off, I found that the skin had been rubbed off my toe! Ugh! Here´s the photo. I had to commemorate that too! Thank you Stacy for the med kit. I needed the band aid and alcohol swab!
Oh, before I go, I have to say, on our hike up, we met an old couple, (74 and 80 years old), and they hike up everyday! I don´t know how far they go (probably not to the sandy, scrambling part), but that is seriously impressive! It´s quite humbling. I was all puffed out, and they seemed like they were totally fine! Granted they were walking slowly, but at that age, it´s pretty cool to still be walking without assistance, let alone hiking up a friggin volcano above 4100m!

La Mitad del Mundo

On Saturday, we went to La Mitad del Mundo (aka the middle of the world). There are actually 2 monuments in Ecuador, one large stone monument built by the French or the Spanish, and one museum. They are about 250m apart, and the museum is actually the one on the ecuator line, where it is 0 degrees latitude. The location of the stone monument, calculated by the Europeans, was either wrong, or has moved since 400 years ago. Here´s the obligatory tourist photo you´ve all been waiting for. I don´t know if you can read it, but at the bottom of the sign, it says "calculated with GPS" in spanish. The people in the photo are me, an Israeli guy we met there who´s travelling through Latin America, Nour (the Canadian volunteer) and Nele (the German volunteer).

The museum was ok, really really touristy. They fully exploited the equator line thing, as they did some "experiments" that proved that we were on the equator line. For example, I don´t know how many of you know of the coriolis force? It´s a gravitational pull (affected by the earth´s rotation), and it´s why the winds and ocean currents move counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere, and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. It´s a bit hard to explain on a blog, it can be easily wikipedia-ed, so I won´t go on about it. Anyway, there´s this theory that all water moves clockwise in the southern hemisphere, and counter-clockwise in the north (this was also in The Simpsons, remember the episode where Bart rings Australia to check if it was true because Lisa told him about it, and the whole family have to go to Australia to apologise to the people). The theory is, of course, bullshit, because the coriolis force only works on large bodies of water (like the ocean!).

Anyway, enough background. At the museum, one of the demonstrations they performed was the coriolis force. They placed a sink right on the ecuator line, and when they drained it, the water flowed straight down. It didn´t spin. This was due to it being on the ecuator line, no gravitational pulls in either direction (so they say). The guide picks up the sink and the bucket of water and moves it 2 metres to the south. She pours the water in, and drains the sink. This time, the water spins clockwise! Wow! The tourists are all amazed. She picks it up and moves it 2m to the north, and pours the water in again. The water spins counter-clockwise! OMG!! The American tourists we were with were absolutely amazed, it was very funny. So anyway, yes, it spun like it was supposed to, HOWEVER, it was not because of the coriolis force. It was because she poured the water in from different directions. When we were in the south, she poured the water in from the left hand side, causing the water to spin around the sink as it filled. When she drained it 2 seconds later, the water was still spinning, hence causing it so spin as it went down the hole. Vice versa in the north. After the "experiment", she placed the sink back on the ecuator line with the water in it, allowing it to settle (so it was still) so it wouldn´t spin for the next group. Are you all following me? I´ve been telling everyone my theory (which I think is true), and I think they don´t know whether to believe me or not.

Ok, I´d better move on from the coriolis force. I only went on about it because it would seem like such an amazing phenomenon, were it not in reality a crock of shit! Not only is the body of water too small, moving 2m from the ecuator line is never going to make a difference in gravitational pull! There were other "experiments" as well, but I didn´t understand their significance. There was one where we had to try to balance an egg on a nail, which can apparently only be done on the ecuator line (because it´s not being pulled in one direction or another). I couldn´t do it, but I´m sure you´d be able to balance an egg on a nail anywhere.

We also went to El Panecillo, where the Virgin of Quito is. Here she is in all her glory. She is standing on a dragon because a dragon symbolises evil, or the devil. So by putting her foot on it, and having it on a chain, it symbolises the triumph of good over evil. A very common theme. She was a gift from Italy, I don´t remember how long ago. She was apparently going to be the Venus de Milo, except the sculptor didn´t want to do it or something, I didn´t quite understand that part of the story (it was all in spanish!). I´ll update it when I find more info.

Here we are on top of the Panecillo. You can just see the view of Quito behind us.

That´s pretty much all I did on Saturday, went touristing around the city. It was ok I suppose, apart from the exploitation of the ecuator line. What was cool though, was that the Indigenous people got it right (they were the ones who worked out where the actual ecuator line was), and the Europeans with all their fancy instruments were 250m off! Haha!

Colonial Quito

Quito has 2 main areas which tourists visit, the new town and the old town. The old town is also called Colonial Quito. The new town (an area called Mariscal Sucre) is also known as Gringolandia, roughly translated as ´foreigner land´. I went to Colonial Quito on Wednesday, here´s a photo I took of one of the main streets in the old town. You can see the Virgin at the back.

This is the Plaza Grande. It´s a big square in the middle of the city. The buildings surround the Plaza are the President´s house (like the White House, but Ecuadorian), a church, and parliament (I think...).
Quito has heaps of churches, museums and parks, which I didn´t expect. Here´s one of the churches I visited, it´s called Church of La Merced. It´s quite old, and everything inside is wooden. Apologies for the bad quality and the shakiness. I don´t think you´re allowed to take photos inside churches, thus I was trying to be inconspicuous and didn´t really have time to check it. I thought this church had a really strange feel to it, it´s not a really spectacular church; it seems like it´s trying to give off the feeling of grandeur but not quite succeding. Perhaps it´s the pink and white walls, the coarse, unpolished wooden floorboards and the rough wood carvings.

I also walked to a gothic church (the Basilica del Voto Nacional). I really liked the gothic architecture; the church was built with stone, there are lots of large stained glass windows and I think the floor is marble. It looked pretty cool, and I was trying to take a photo of it outside, but got told off by a cleaning lady! She said that I wasn´t allowed to take photos of the church, but when I asked my spanish teacher (because I thought that was really strange), she said that you can take all the photos you want outside the church, but just not inside. Which makes sense. So pft, cleaning lady!

Anyway, what was really frustrating was that I wanted to climb up to the top of the church (you get awesome views of the city), and it costs $2. Which is not a problem, but I only had a $20 note, and the people selling the tickets refused to give me change, and they weren´t at all helpful when I asked them where I can get change. So I ended up walking around town for an hour trying to find somewhere to change my money! I eventually found a supermarket, where I bought some biscuits and a lime (the lime was $0.04!). But after I had changed my money, I didn´t really have time to go back to the Basilica. It was ridiculous. Now I´m really paranoid about notes of big denominations. Apparently, $10 is already pushing it for change because things here are in such small numbers. I think I need to carry $1 notes all the time, it is so annoying!! Anyway, I went to Govindas that day, and felt a little better afterwards.

I was going to go back to the city to visit the Basilica yesterday, but I got sick, so it´ll have to wait until some time next week, there will be more photos then! It was really odd, I blame the glandular fever. I woke up with a slight fever and a really bad sorethroat, and felt really dizzy and lethargic. So I slept for most of the morning, and then went out to buy ginger. In the market, the lady gave me a whole heap (about 2 handfuls) of ginger, she wouldn´t give me any less, which was really annoying! It only cost $1, but seriously, what am I going to do with so much ginger?! I´ll be eating it for 3 weeks! Anyway, I went home and cooked rice porridge with ginger, and Virginia made me ginger tea, which is essentially ginger boiled in water, with sugar or honey. It was really nice. I felt infinitely better after my meal. My sorethroat went away after I ate the porridge, yay! By dinner, I could eat normal food again. I´ve still got a runny nose though, which is really annoying, but at least I don´t feel like sleeping all day. It´s funny, everyone kept offering me medication. I had to keep refusing them and explain that I don´t like medication, and besides, I wasn´t THAT sick.

Oh, one thing I have to say, Quito has bad air pollution problems. Most of the cars here are quite old, so the exhaust is really dirty. The buses and trucks emit thick, black fumes. In the city, it´s especially bad. When I was walkling to the Basilica, I was trying not to breathe too much (I already had a sorethroat, and didn´t want to make it worse), but because I was walking uphill and was slightly puffed, I had to take deeper breathes. So essentially, I was trying to breathe and not breathe at the same time. Needless to say, it didn´t work particularly well. I wonder how it will be in Mexico City, the most polluted city in the world (for air pollution).

Food glorious food

Ecuador has heaps and heaps of different fruits! We have a different fruit juice every morning for breakfast, it´s really cool. In the shops, it´s common to have pineapple, passionfruit, raspberry/blackberry, banana (they have 3 different names for bananas- platan, banana and verde platano) and papaya. I think that´s all the common ones that all the shops have.

I took photos of some fruits that we have. I don´t know what the yellow one is, but the small red ones are called tomate de arbol (literally translated as tomato from the tree). It´s really nice, and apparently has medicinal properties. It doesn´t taste like conventional tomato juice, it´s only got a little bit of a tomato taste, I quite like it. I´ll take more photos of Ecuadorian fruits as I come across them. Apparently, a lot of these fruits only grow in Ecuador, which is pretty cool!

This is the backyard of the house I live in. The tree on the right hand side (just under the yellow plastic bag) is the tree that the tomate de arbol grows on.

Today, I went into downtown Quito to the colonial district, so named due to the architecture of the buildings. Anyway, I shall relate that story later, the point I wanted to make here was that I went to Govindas for lunch! Yes, Quito has Hare Krishnas! It was pretty good, and only cost $1.50! The lunch consisted of popcorn and soup for entree (I´m not sure what, but was just glad it was vego. Ecuadorians always have soup for lunch and dinner), rice with black beans, pickled radish, lettuce & celery, a potato (yes, just one), some curried and salted vegies (tastes a bit like chinese salted mustard (the vegie, not the sauce) and a piece of soy meat. The meal also came with juice (not sure what either. It wasn´t the best, but was drinkable) and some sweet rice pudding. I liked it!

Random vistas

Here are some views of the mountains. The landscape here is so beautiful (the highlands anyway. I will be going to the coast next week, so will let you know about that then). I could live here and grow my vegies (Stacy?)! It rains nearly everyday, and the soils seem fertile (there are lots of people growing stuff on the mountain side). These photos were taken on the bus from Baños to Quito, just as we were leaving Baños. We´re pretty high up, about 1800m above sea level (not as high as Quito though). Most of the mountains have summits in the clouds! The mountains are part of the Andes.

Baños: part 3

Yes, I actually did touristy stuff when I was here. We got there Friday evening about 5.30pm, and walked around the town a little. It doesn´t take long to see all the interesting places. Anyway, on Saturday morning, we went rafting! It was really awesome! I thought it would be a lot rougher than it actually was, but it was good anyway (they were class 3 rapids, I have no idea what that means, but I think they´re beginner rapids). This is the river where we went rafting. It´s not a very good photo, but I obviously couldn´t take any others. This is where we ended up.

On the way there though, we drove past a dam, and beyond the dam lay the saddest and most miserable looking river I had ever seen! I didn´t manage to take a photo of the actual river, but here´s a photo of another river (possibly a different part of the same river?). It serves the purpose to illustrate its misery. I imagined that the river would´ve once been great and mighty (as evidenced by the location of the river banks and markings on the sides of the mountain), but has now been reduced to a trickle (relatively). It looked so depressed! I think the rapids may also have been stronger had the river not been dammed!

There are some thermo-springs in Baños, they´re hot springs naturally heated by the volcano. We went swimming on Saturday night (actually it´s not really swimming, more sitting around in a hot pool). It was really good, they had small cold water pools around as well, so you can dip in and out. It really opens up your pores (especially when switching between hot and cold). I guess it´s like a sauna, but natural.

We went to the pools twice, once on Saturday night and again on Sunday afternoon (just before we had to get the bus back to Quito). There was such a big difference in atmosphere and experience between the two! On Saturday night, the pools were full of foreigners, as well as old local men (in their 30s and 40s) trying to pick up young foreign women. And they weren´t at all subtle about it (it was really ewww). I suppose if you´re trying to pick up, you´re not usually subtle about it, but that´s not the point. There were also lots of couples around (generally local), but that´s no problem. It was just the older guys chatting up younger women that was gross! It´s like the ultimate pick-up spot in town! I don´t think they would´ve had that much luck though. Most of the foreign women were in groups, and had no interest in the guys, although they chatted rather amicably (read: politely).

On Sunday when we went, it was totally different. We were the only foreigners there (it was 3.30pm). The whole place was full of families, everyone brought their kids, and there were lots of little children splashing around with floaties. It was ok, not as relaxing as Saturday with all the children around, and the water wasn´t as hot either (I have no idea why). But there were no seedy old men, which was good.

We also went clubbing on Friday night, to see what it was like. It was....interesting. There were about 2 or 3 clubs which had a reasonable amount of people in them, the rest were embarrasingly empty. We walked around the whole town (the touristy part) and in the end, found only 2 that were ok. Of the 2, one was full of foreigners (with a few locals, not as many seedy old men as the baths, which was good), and the other was full of locals (it played only spanish songs). It was alright, I wasn´t particularly interested in the club scene, in fact I was quite bored most of the night. Plus it was really hetero, and like any other straight clubbing experience, I felt a bit like a fish out of water. Or maybe I´m just getting old...

On Sunday, we went hiking up the mountain (I was going to go rock climbing in some place 2 hours away, but I didn´t end up doing it. LONG story which will probably have to wait till I get back. If you can´t wait that long, ask Stacy!). We were hiking to a lookout place called Bellavista, and it was a lot steeper than we thought it would be! Oh my god I´m so unfit! It was a good walk though, and it was nice at the top. The photo I posted in part 1 was taken here. Here I am with the other 2 German volunteers (Christophe and Nele).
Something which urked me, we asked 2 people to take photos for us, and seriously, these people don´t know how to take photos (they were also tourists. You would think tourists would know what kind of photos we would want)! This photo could´ve been way better (views of the mountains and everything). Oh well, it´s alright, considering the first guy we asked just took a full length photo of us, without the view!

Oh, I also bought street food for the first time! And it didn´t make me sick! Yay! It´s roasted corn (the top one. It was crunchy) with some sort of other bean/legume. I asked the vendor what it was, but I´ve forgotten what she said. It was in Spanish. At first I thought it was soy, but I don´t think so now. Ecuador doesn´t have many soy crops (soy milk was USD $3.80 in the supermarket!!). It was pretty good (plus it came with lime, and tomato and onion salad sprinkled on top. You can just see it in the photo). It´s just the right amount too, because my jaw got tired towards the end from having to chew so much. It was only $0.50 (all prices are in USD because Ecuador uses US currency. Very handy)! Oh, they also have lots of sugar cane juice here (jugo de caña in spanish), it´s so awesome! There are heaps of people selling it on the street, both the juice and the stick which you can chew. I bought a glass of juice, it was sooo good. I haven´t had sugar cane juice in so long! How nostalgic (Malaysia has lots of sugar cane juice vendors).

p.s. I´m in the internet cafe and thy have the radio on. The radio is playing the Shakira song (the sexy one about the hips) and it´s in spanish. There are lots of english songs playing here which have been translated into spanish. It´s cool!

Baños: part 2

I was also going to say, there´s a big church in town, and they have so many services! Practically one every hour. We wanted to visit the church (apparently there´s a church museum of things people have donated to the church because they´ve experienced some miracle and were healed after years of being incapacitated), and when we got there, the church was actually full! And people looked like they were in serious prayer/having a religious moment! Not that I expected all the people in a tourist town to be heretics, but I didn´t expect them to be THAT religious (to have mass every hour and for the church to be reasonably full every time). Anyway, here´s a picture of the church. The funny thing is, at night, the church is all lit up, and it looks like a disco from far away. So we called it the disco church. Church by day, disco by night, where you can get down with Jesus! Here´s a photo. Sorry if it´s not very clear, but you get the idea (it took me a while to work out the appropriate lighting required, and in the end I sort of got it. I could´ve taken a better picture but after standing there for 10 minutes, I couldn´t be bothered anymore).Oh, there´s also a volcano near Baños (it´s called Tungurahua, and it´s active). Here´s a map of the town.
As you can see, it´s really close to the town, and if it erupted, it would probably be devastating. But the people of Baños have thought of everything. In case of an eruption, they´ve marked on the roads the direction in which to run. I thought it was awesome! (In a lonely planet book (or some other travel book) that one of the german volunteers had, it also said which direction to run in order to get the best view of the volcano while running away from it! The ultimate touristy gesture!) I´m not sure where we´re supposed to run to though, because from the map above, it looks like the whole town is within the volcano´s eruption range. Maybe the town has some sort of shelter or something...

Baños: part 1

I was in Baños for the weekend. It´s about 4 hours south of Quito by bus, and it is the ultimate tourist town! I have never been anywhere more touristy in my life! There are probably 8000 inhabitants in this town, and I would say that a great majority of them exist solely for the tourists. In the main streets, every second building is a hostel/hotel, and the other buildings are tour operators. They all offer the same things- horse riding, quad biking, white water rafting, canyoning, bicycle hire, mountain climbing and trekking. The trekking varies from operator to operator, and you can go to the jungle or to the mountains. Most offer visits to the Quichua and/or Shuar Indigenous villages (how exotic!). Quichua is the other major language in Ecuador, they´re the predominant Indigenous peoples.

Baños is really different from Quito. For one thing, the streets are actually clean! The buildings in the main tourist streets are really colourful, clean and generally attractive. But once you move away from the tourist area (even a few streets away), the houses and buildings start looking a bit shabby and drab.

Here´s some street vendors, selling random touristy stuff (in the tourist strip)

And this is outside the tourist strip (about 2 streets away). The houses are more ´normal´ looking here (normal for Ecuador).

Baños is so touristy there´s even several of these train thingys running around town. I was surprised to see one, let alone three! The other ones were Flintstones and a strange caterpillar.

Ok, I´m going to create another post, lest this one gets too long and cumbersome.

Observations...

Wow, people here are really religious! In the middle of the city, there´s a statue of the virgin mary on top of a mountain, and practically every car and shop has some sort of reference to christianity. Either a cross, or jesus, of the fish sign, or all of the above. Below is a photo of jesus displayed in the house i´m staying. It´s rather gory, with all the blood and bruises shown! The vertical bit of the cross is about 80cm long, so it´s pretty big! i´m not really taking much notice of it; not being religious, it´s like another piece of furniture to me. People don´t impose their religion, so it´s good.

Food-wise, I have been eating a lot of white carbs (ie white bread for breakfast and white rice for dinner). Being vegan, it´s REALLY hard to go out and buy stuff to eat in cafes and restaurants, because most things have some sort of meat or eggs in it, which you can´t remove. So I´ve been eating my meals at the house, at least until my spanish is good enough that I can confidently go out and order something and make sure it´s vegan!

Interesting foods I have seen thus far:

• Fig dessert- I don´t know what it´s called, but it´s an Ecuadorian specialty. The fig is marinated overnight in sauce consisting of sugarcane juice, cloves, cinnamon, and another spice (I´m not sure what it is, although it smelt really familiar. Virginia didn´t know the name in english). The longer you marinate it, the sweeter it is. It turns the fig black. It was quite nice. Not something I´d eat everyday (it´s really sweet), but once in a while is ok.

• On the streets, there are people selling these orange balls. They´re made of flour, water, butter, eggs and sugar. It´s sweet and deep fried, so immensely unhealthy. I would try one were it not for my vegan-ness (unfortunately i don´t have a photo of it).
  
• Ecuadorians eat a LOT of rice and beans (and chilli sauce, like tabasco. It´s an Indian trait). One of the meals KFC sells is a plate of rice, beans, and fried chicken!

Ok, time for some vistas.

The photo above is a view of the mountains to the east from my street. As you can see, houses are built all over the mountains. The photo below is the view towards the west. The mountains aren´t really clear, but you can see it´s all been cleared. Most mountains have very little trees, it looks like it´s all been turned to pasture or agricultural land. But you can see the streetscape, is "back home" a fitting description?


Also, pedestrians have no right of way here. There are no designated pedestrian crossings (where you push a button and wait for the little green person to come on), but there are zebra crossings. However, in line with most countries in the world, zebra crossings are really meaningless. To cross the road (especially a main road), you have to know how to pick the right time to run across. Cars will slow down, but do so quite reluctantly and blaring their horns in the process. It´s rather amusing! I haven´t had to do too many main road crossings yet (sometimes they have overhead pedestrian bridges for that, which is good).

Oh, and people here are really short! I don´t feel short because most people are my height! In my house, I´m the tallest female, yay! What a nice change! It´s probably because of the altitude. The Ecuadorian highlands range from 1500m to 4500m above sea level. The average height of people living at higher altitudes is shorter than those at sea level, because it´s easier to send oxygen around a shorter body than a tall body.

Quito (officially)

So I arrived yesterday afternoon. Got slightly worried because the cab driver couldn´t find the place, but it was alright because it turns out that the streets here are strangely numbered (very confusing). We found it in the end. I´m staying at a house in a residential area (I think). It´s a newly built house, with minimal furnishings at the moment, but it´s ok as it has the basic necessities. I´m getting spanish lessons today, so hopefully they´ll fare better than my previous attempts to learn in Brisbane. I´ll have to get better as people are going to stop speaking english to me in a couple of days :( yes, they´re forcing me to learn...

I´m living with another girl, she´s from Germany and she´s been here for a week. She´s working with street kids or something like that, so she´s not here to hug trees. She´s quite nice, she´s been taking me around today and yesterday, which is good. Plus she speaks spanish. as well as english, which is handy.

Um, Quito itself is ok. It really reminds me of Asia, the less developed part. It´s very "back home", shall I say? There is litter all over the streets, all the houses have metal gates and front doors, which are either locked twice or dead-locked. The houses and apartments all look old (old isn´t the right word for it, I´m just going to stick with "back home". If you don´t understand what I mean, let me know and I´ll try to clarify). Opposite this internet cafe, there´s a house (or apartment complex, I´m not sure) with a big metal gate built into a high cement wall, and all along the wall are bits of broken bottles, a cheaper version of barbed wire I presume.

Quito is about 2000m in altitude, so it´s really cool here (weather-wise). I´m wearing 3 layers of clothing at the moment, and it´s 9.45am. But that´s only because I get cold easily. The house is really warm though, which is good. The city is built all along the mountains (Andes), and people have also developed on the mountains. It looks really interesting. I´ll try and take some photos and post it, but no promises. I´m trying to look inconspicous, and a camera would totally ruin that.

Things here are cheap. They use US currency, but the coinage is Ecuadorian. Internet access is usually $0.60 per hour! Cheap! So the cab I caught to the house I´m staying at yesterday was really expensive, being $10. But that was ok cos it´s pretty far from the airport, and I double checked with the info desk so I didn´t get ripped off. Food is quite cheap too. I have to change my money to $1 notes, cos anything notes above $10 US is difficult to find change for (unless I go to a big supermarket, where they keep lots of change in the registers). Well, it´s good that things are cheap. I´m not complaining!

Love and miss you all!

To backtrack a little...

ok, I´m sitting in Quito writing this, obviously, but I should backtrack a little. Back to LA (I didn´t have internet access in LA).

I arrived in LA almost hassle free. It just took me about 5 hours to get out of the airport! It was so ridiculous! First, it took 2.5 or 3 hours to clear immigration. They had about 5 or 6 flights landing at the same time, so a LOT of people to get through. and the line I picked only had 2 immigration officers (instead of 4), something I didn´t notice until I got halfway through and realised all the other lines were moving twice as fast! Ugh. Anyway, when I got to the end finally, I had to suffer the indignation of being fingerprinted and getting my photo taken, even though a sign had announced that only those requiring visas would have their privacy rights violated. I would have questioned it, but I was too tired by that stage, and really just wanted to get out as fast as possible. Plus the immigration officer was grumpy and not courteous as the sign had promised.

Anyway, after making my way out of the airport, I rang the backpacker place for them to pick me up, only to wait another 2 hours for them to do so! I kept calling them back every half hous, just to see what the hell had happened, cos the 1st time I rang, the person said the shuttle would be there in 15 minutes! So to cut a long story short, they eventually came, but were trying to hint that it was my fault because I kept ringing them back instead of waiting in the 1 spot. Well how the hell was I supposed to know that? Plus I needed some sort of confirmation that they were actually coming! Anyway, getting over it now. I got to the hostel in one piece.

I had a shower the next day, which was the first clean experience since leaving Brisbane (possibly 2 days ago)! It was soooo good! I won´t go on about it, but something else I will go on about is the atrocity of American English. Let me provide some examples:

• Carrousel (this was at LAX, where we picked up our bags!)

  Chicken cordon blue (the rest is from a menu from a restaurant at the place
  where I stayed)

  Garden quich

  Cole Slaw

  Chardonnay

  Grasshopper- creme de Menthe, Cream de Cacao and Creame

  Cabernet Savigion

  Choice of rice french fries or baked potato or mashed potato (it took me a
  while to realise that their french fries were not made of rice)

  California favorite

I think that is enough evidence. Seriously, do people not spell check?! Anyway, I´ll stop ranting about America now. Although, just before I completely stop, I have to say that LAX needs a serious upgrade. For an international airport, it´s really in te backwaters. It´s in an embarassingly bad state, and still living in the era of 70s architecture. They don´t even provide free internet access! The internet kiosks provided cost $15/hr. Maybe I´m too used to the services in Asian airports (well, Taipei and Singapore really, I can´t remember any others). Ok, now I´m stopping about America.

Quito

Ok, just a quick update. I´ve arrived in Quito, about 55 hours after leaving Brisbane! Anyway, I am well. Don´t really have time for lengthy descriptions right now, but I promise this will be updated within the next few days.

Lots of love...

More Taiwan stuff

I forgot to add this to my previous post, so I'll say it now. I think I quite like Taiwan (from the air anyway). When we flew in to Taipei, it seemed like the totally urban areas were separated from the more rural areas by a set of mountains. The division between the two was actually quite amazing! Well, at first I was merely amazed that there are actual green mountains left near Taipei, I thought they would've been all logged and then developed by now! Then I was amazed by the great divide. It looked cool. Needless to say, I would love to explore the mountain areas. There's a huge mountain, I think it was on an island next to the ocean. I have no idea where or what it was, but it looked interesting. I'll try to take a photo of it next time (my camera was in my bag in the overhead storage compartment, unfortunately). Oh well, Taiwan explorations will have to wait until at least next year.


The photo to the left was taken at the airport. It´s some disney promotional display and you can take photos in front of it. There were actually people doing cute poses in front of it. Someone was pretending to sit on the slide (but was too big, so they stood over it instead), and lots of people had the peace sign. It´s so asian! :D

p.s. as we were landing, they showed ads of Taiwan, and how it's such a cool place to explore and meet other young people. They were trying to appeal to the caucasian backpackers. It did seem like an interesting place on the ad, but nothing is ever as it seems, especially when advertised!

1st trip to Taiwan!

Yay! I've arrived in Taiwan, 8 hours down, who knows how many more to go!

Taipei airport is kind of quiet, not as busy as I thought it would be...however it could just be the time of day. There aren't many flights departing at the moment, I suppose (it's 6pm). Which is good, because it means I don't have to fight with people to get free internet! Yay for free internet at the airport :o)

Anyway, I quite literally just arrived, so I have to find something to entertain myself with for the next 4 and a half hours until the next leg of the journey to LA. So here's to blogging!

So the story so far...um, I watched 2 movies on the plane? Curse of the Golden Flower and Narnia. One thing though, I don't see what the fuss is about with Curse of the golden Flower. It's quite sad, and in the end, everything that happend was a bit pointless. A bit like a Shakespearian tragedy, really. The set and costume was very elaborate though. All I kept thinking about was how it was such a waste (of resources). Oh, and another thing! Since when did people in the Tang dynasty (or any dynasty in China, for that matter) display such copious amounts of cleavage? I always thought the Chinese dressed conservatively? Wow! I have never seen so much cleavage in a period piece before!

Oh, I should also say, China Airlines is not too bad. I was impressed with the food (I get impressed easily, as long as it's vegan!). Anyway, it was Asian(obviously), and it came with vego meat (the kind that I don't mind i.e. doesn't taste or look much like real meat). I think it was made with dried bean curd, and it came with mushroom sauce (Asian mushroom sauce i.e. shitake mushroom stock, pretty much). It was good, I liked it. And they gave me soy milk and nuttelex margarine! And some kind of rice pudding with pistachios for dessert (made with soy milk). I was quite impressed, so I ate it with gratitude.

And just a cute note to finish off, on the flight map (while we were leaving Brisbane), they displayed some names of nearby cities. They had labelled Brisbane, Gold Coast, and Tawoomba. Yes, that is how they spelt it. I kid you not ;)

Blog Blog Blog

Hrm, how surreal. I've finally succumbed to the blog...