Arriving In Quito (Ecuador)

Hostal With A View

I knew my flights to Ecuador might be hassle but I didn’t perhaps realise how much hassle. I somewhat rashly booked flights to Quito via New York and Atlanta in the States. There wasn’t much time between the connections and I knew that I would be running around several airports for most of the time. In the end it didn’t actually matter. Through some combination of the cockpit window playing up at JFK and bad weather in Atlanta, I had already missed my flight to Ecuador before I had even left New York. It resulted in me staying in a seedy motel room in Atlanta, just around the corner from the airport and catching my flight to Ecuador the next day. Eventually I had made it to South America.

The capital of Ecuador, Quito, and my home for the next year is situated in the northern highlands of the country, within the Guayllabamba river basin. The city has been built along a plateau lying in the heart of the Andes Mountain Range. I flew into Quito at night. The landing was precarious to say the least, as it appeared to most passengers that we must of at least scraped a couple of mountains along the way, which resulted in a particularly hair-raising landing (the worst I had ever experienced). For many griping the arms of their chairs, you could tell from their faces that most thought we weren’t going to get of this plane in one piece. We did however, and I have since found out that most landings into Quito are like that.

I didn´t start work for a few days and so I thought it a good idea to quickly make friends with a few backpackers in my hostel, known as the Secret Garden and head off with them to check out the town. The central or main part of Quito is divided into two broad sections. The New Town is located towards the north. At the northern end are high rise buildings, shopping centres and all other modern accessories that you would expect to find in a capital city. However, for some reason or another, it just doesn´t feel right driving past McDonald´s in this part of the world and when you eventually broaden out to the rest of the country, it makes even less sense. At the southern sections of the New Town, is La Mariscal or known locally (and very affectionately) as Gringoland. This is the backpacker region, taken up by bars and clubs, tourist travel shops, hostels and some hippy markets. Local Ecuadorians do love to spend their time mixing in with the backpackers and so when you walk La Mariscal, it isn´t all gringo´s, yet it doesn´t have a particularly South American feel to it. For that, you head south to the Old Town, with it´s narrow streets, restored colonial architecture and lively plazas. Quito´s Centro Historico is a whole different side of the city. This is the real South America that you would come to see, with old churches, chapels and monasteries built centuries ago by indigenous artisans and labourers - it´s where I spend most of my weekends. It doesn´t matter what time you visit, during any day of the week the whole of the Old Town is packed with local people going about their daily routine.

The Secret Garden Hostel, where I have been living, is a popular backpacker spot located pretty much between the Old and New Towns but is a closer walk to the historical sections of the city. The hostel is great for meeting people and every backpacker is keen on meeting. I´m currently staying in a dorm, sharing with 7 others but I´ll have to move out eventually - I can´t live in this hostel for a year. It does have some nice features though, with it´s most appealing being the roof-top terrace. Its also a bar and restaurant and at night they light a fire in the wheel-barrow and people sit around it chatting, drinking and admiring the spectacular view of Quito´s Old Town.

It´s difficult to get too lost in Quito, as the whole city is built in a valley between the Andean Mountains, which happen to run North-South. It means that the town is long but narrow. and when your not sure where you are you just look for the mountains either side which point out where East and West are and the rest you can work out for yourself.

Not all of the mountains that surround Quito are mountains, however. Some of them are volcanoes, with the main one being Volcan Pinchincha. The volcano is situated just on the western end of the city and takes just a few minutes by taxi to get to its base. Quito has built a long cable car, known as the TeleferiQo, that takes you up most of the height of this volcano. From there you can continue to walk or scramble up to the top. I went with a few friends that I had made during my first few days here. When you get off the cable car, there is a large restaurant and shop (of course) and also a weird (science experiment) looking machine. You then pay to suck pure oxygen out of the tubes as the altitude up here is high. You really notice the effects. We didn´t climb to the top of the volcano as some in our group were feeling the altitude a little too much. I guess I´ll head back one day to climb it. We did however bypass the cable car down and decided to walk. If we had known how long it would take we may have reconsidered. Two hours later, of spiralling around farms and local villages we decide to ask a local how much further to Quito. She explains it´s another two hours but you can get a bus about 30 minutes down the road. The bus wiggled down the narrow dirt track. Never at one point where all four wheels on the ground as it rocked back from side to side. We eventually make it back to our hostel in one piece.

I could tell from my first few days that I was going to like this country. I mean sure, health and saftey for one is not so high on ther priority, I found that out quickly enough. But for most part, the town has some charm, it is very different from home, but in a kind of fun, new exploring sense and as I would soon find out - there were more volcanoes here than a volcanologist could dream of. It was time to head to work, where I would find out all about them................