Quito, Quito, Quito

Santiago And I

Life continues to roll on in Quito. Everythings pretty much settled and I'm now back to some form of vague routine. My Spanish continues to improve, if very slowly, and mostly thanks to the completion of my eight week course in the language. In the last few weeks of the course, we were treated to a trip away. We headed west of Quito for the day, to a small town, Tulipe, out near the cloud forests. We visited some ancient archeological sites, mainly huge deep pits in the ground of different shapes which were representative of something or other. I can't say I learnt or spoke much Spanish, but the expedition was interesting nonetheless. It wasn't just my class that went too, but all the classes of Spanish, from levels one (that was me) up to level seven. It was a bit weird being in the junior group but what can you do.

I haven't yet bothered to check, but I believe I passed the course with flying colours and I should really get off my arse and collect my certificate, if nothing else to make my mother proud.

Im still living in the hostal, although I do have my own room, en-suite bathroom,TV and my recently purchased DVD player, so I can't complain. I guess I should move into a flat at some point but I can't do anything until my work contract comes through..........and now the clock's ticking. I am getting paid for the work that I have done, but it's all technically off the books. The problem I have is the University are stalling over my contract and until that arrives I can't obtain my work visa. That isn't a problem except the fact that if the contract doesn't get sorted in the next few months then my current visa expires and I will be on the first plane home. As I say, the clock's now ticking!!! Of course I have faith that it will get sorted in time, and I can at least see out my year here - I mean a few months to sort out a contract, surely..........oh wait, this is South America!!! I guess i'll have to rely soley on faith for now, or make my way to a travel agent.

Apart from those dramas, the work is very interesting and continually keeps me busy. More volcanic monitoring equipment has arrived from far away shores and that hopefully means i'll get to head out in the field soon, a little more than I have done so far at least. Still, the office work is entertaining and i'm always learning new things, especially with Tunguragua Volcano constantly changing it's mind on whether it wants to erupt or not, so no complaints here.

Friends have been coming and going. Unfortunately, in one sudden week, many people decided to go all at the same time. We held a huge party on the La Guayunga terrace in their honour, a party of booze and music, where many a drunken person could be found - mostly on the floor. Actually some of those people have now returned and i'm continually making new friends from all parts of my life, be it in the hostal, at work, at Spanish School etc etc, so i'm never short of an amigo to hang out with. I also have my Ecuadorian hermanos (brothers), Jefferson and Santiago who love to party as much as the next man.

I now play football twice a week and with climbing 140 stairs twice a day (our lift at work is broken), at this altitude - i'm getting fit fast. I have been to two Ecuadorian football matches also. The first time I supported Barcelona (Ecuadorian team) but this time I went to watch La Liga. I have now decided to only support La Liga as they are from Quito and it would be wrong of me to support Barcelona, a team from Guayaquil - where I have never actually been. I now currently own the La Liga home shirt (fake of course - it cost me $5) and a giant flag for waving around purposes. La Liga and Barcelona are currently fighting it out for top spot in the top division - Come On You La Liga (doesn't quite have the same ring to it but anyway)!!!

Unfortunately, I have come to grow a huge hatred of three things in Quito and I believe they need a mention, just so anyone thinking of coming to this part of the world is fully prepared for them. One; the smog. Quito is a pretty busy city, with cars filling every road at all times of the day and although the city is high in altitude, it sits, nestled in a valley where the smog just hangs. You notice that your never quite well in Quito and I put it down to that. Little can be done about it, so i'll just move on to point two.

The second; is the change monster. When you go to a cash machine, it well generally give you $20, $10 or $5 bills. However, all of them are impossible to brake. Things are cheap in Ecuador. There's not many things that would cost you more than $5 and so spending these notes is a pure nightmare. No-one appears to have change, even for the smallest amounts. But here's my problem. For example, you will queue in a line for a burger. There are 14 people in front of you. Burgers are say $1. No-one is allowed to give anything but the exact $1 as with anything else. So when I order, $14 behind and hand over a $5 note how do they not have change for me?!? They must I tell you, they simply must. This happens with everything of all amounts of course. Everyone is giving the exact change, yet no vendor has any change to give back out. It's a frustrating conundrum only explainable by some change eating monster, and when I find him - there will be a serious showdown.

The final frustration; is the Ecuadorians - walking. Walking is a simple thing, we learn to do it at just a few years old. Most of us in the world have learnt to walk, and walk faster than a stoned tortoise, but, the Ecuadorians have not. They walk so unbelievably slowly that one time, I kid you not, I actually watched as an ant passed three students walking on the street. It is perhaps a little cruel, but I think it would make a great television show, if you took a random Ecuadorian and placed them on Oxford Street in central London and then just watched. They wouldn't last 30 seconds. It's not just the fact that they walk slowly though, they also believe it to be perfectly normal to take 6 of their friends and all walk in unison, in a line, across the entire pavement. It thus means that walking the streets of Ecuador often involves darting on and off the road like some sort of stunt man. It's not just me who has this issue. All backpackers that I have spoken to have vented their frustration at this. Some have nearly broken down in some sort of compulsive fit while a few have just blown their tops, to the despair and confusion of the poor Ecuadorians who believed they were doing nothing wrong but simply 'walking'. I think the greatest thing about all this (and google it now if you don't believe me), is that the only event that Ecuador has ever won at the Olympic Games - was for speed walking.....................the word 'irony' somehow doesn't quite do it justice. Apart from these three flaws, living in Quito is a joy and it's people are some of the friendliest I have ever met!!!

As life rolled on in Quito, week's passed by with work and weekend parties, so I decided it was time for another trip out of the city. So one weekend, myself and some companions headed west..................for Mindo.