Two hemispheres but one hive mind

The original title of this post was going to be `Quito : not so neat-o´ but today has been fantastic fun after a rather draining day yesterday.

My ambivalence about Quito started at about 10.01 yesterday morning when we left the luxurious confines of Casa Foch and were sent on our way to find somewhat cheaper accomodation. No cockroaches have been spotted at Hostel Camena but there may be some lurking under our beautiful navy loo! As natural social beings we do like being where the action is, but not necessarily right outside our window until 2am. It turns out that the hostal is more-or-less in between two of Quito´s busiest clubs and yesterday being a Friday night... Luckily the police arrived at 2am and it quitened down after that*

(* note to concerned parents = we are fine so don´t inundate us with concerned emails. Unless you want to of course. We like emails. Hint hint)

Yesterday morning was spent to find the Peruvian Embassy due to Milla´s sudden realisation that she might not in fact be allowed into Peru due to a short period of illegal immigration 6 years ago. Claire conceded that this might cause problems in getting to Guatemala. A short trip across town with a rather chatty taxi driver later, and the airline confirmed that this shouldn´t be a problem. They also told us that we hadn´t paid for the tickets so I guess we´ll see whether Milla is persona non grata amongst Paddington´s friends and relations.

The Old Town in Quito is stunning. With its colonial architecture and snowy walls, the main square is a tourist destination in itself. After a quick nod to culture we headed there for a well earned rest and managed to shake off the numerous shoe shine boys. Feeling rather jaded we headed off to meet Peng, Rosanne and John (who share nothing with some of our other fellow Galapageans - see Claire´s previous post) and from thence to the TeleferiQo which is a cable car that goes up one of the mountains behind Quito. We were very excited about it.

We managed to get there to watch the evening sun over the city and then watch as the sun set over the snow capped mountains behind. Just stunningly beautiful. What wasn´t so nice was the bitter cold up there at 4150m!

Today has been somewhat more enjoyable. After a quick fact finding mission to Happy Gringo, a misonomer if ever, Claire and I decided not to follow the well trodded tourist route to El Mediad del Mundo and to make our own way by local bus which was an experience in itself.

The Mediad del Mundo is a massive monument and associated tourist trappy shops on the Equator itself. Today´s main attraction there? Claire and I taking monumentally silly photos and generally making idiots of ourselves. All good fun though. After having saved $29.20 on getting there (Tour company - $30. Local bus - $0.80. Getting one over on Happy Gringo - priceless) we decided to go on a trip to the nearly volcano crater and the cloud forest. Having picked up a lone American in Quito, the three of us set off with the guide, through a barbed wire fence, through a field of cows and down an inpenetrable path. What we hadn´t expected to see was the largest inhabited volcanic crater in the world. We got there just in time before the clouds closed over it. Photos will follow!

Our guide was very into spiritual stuff and told us loads of interesting stuff before playing his ocarina into the winds and praying to Pacha Mama and asking us to keep quiet and offer our prayers and thanks to Mother Earth.

Claire and I were struck by a sudden feeling of awah-ness of the awesome power of Mother Nature. It was, like, almost enough to make us forget about the awesome lash of the Sloaney Pony. I looked into our guide´s eyes and felt an immediate connection with his Quechua forebears. Then Claire chundered everywhere* (*Apologies to The Unexpected Items)

Back to Quito and planning to head to Cuenca tomorrow. A 13hr bus journey awaits us....

And just to make you jealous.....