Wow sorry I've been really lazy the past few days and haven't written
anything, but in actually fact I've been really busy doing stuff and
having the time of my life doing it. First of all the flight from Mexico
City to Ecuador was great, only one stop over in San Jose, Costa Rica
but we didn't even leave the airport and it was only 30 minutes. When we
arrived in Ecuador it was really cold; like 10 degrees or something, we
got a tax and headed to a hostel in the center of the new part of the
city. Turned out that the hostel we wanted didn't have and rooms
available so we went to one that was pretty much next door. It was
nothing special but we didn't know what to expect from Ecuador so we
said we'd stay there. Then we went to get some food because we were
starving, and on the way back we saw a better hostel that we wanted to
stay at. We went back to the first one and told them that we wanted to
leave and had to argue about how much we should pay them for leaving our
bags there for only a couple of hours...it wasn't pleasant, but we just
wanted to leave that place. We didn't have very good first impressions
of Quito because as soon as we walked out of the hostel looking for a
bank we saw this young guy getting chased down the street. We had been
told that Quito was a dangerous city, but we didn't expect to see that.
Also the city seemed like a ghost town; there were hardly any people
anywhere and we had no idea why. But since then I have really grown to
love this place and its not that dangerous at all. And we realized that
we arrived on the first day of a 3 day public holiday in Ecuador which
explains the lack of people.
The restaurants in New Town are really great and the food is
amazing!! A little more expensive than Mexico though, but still cheap
(considering how well the Aussie dollar is at the moment). And one of
the best things is at almost every restaurant they offer 2 for 1
cocktails!!!YAY The second day in Ecuador we visited the Old Town which
is a World Heritage listed city. It's full of old churches and
government buildings and the plaza is really beautiful. There were also
heaps of people around which was nice to see. We walked around the town
for a bit and took everything in, then went to one of Quito's
attractions...the sky tram. In the valley that Quito lies in it is about
2800m above sea level, when you take the sky tram up to the top of the
surrounding mountain you are at an altitude of 4100m above sea level!!! Surprisingly it didn't take long to reach the top and the views up were absolutely amazing. We were lucky that when we got up there were clear
skies, because about 20 minutes later the clouds set in and it was like
you were at the snow; total white-out. And it was freezing up the top; i
definitely miss that jungle heat!
The next day we had booked a white water rafting trip and we were all so
excited. We almost missed the 6:30am bus because Amy's alarm didn't go
off, but somehow April woke up just in time and we made it. It took
about 3 hours to get there by bus but that was ok because the view on
the way was incredible! We saw the countryside of Ecuador and I just
fell in love with it...snow capped mountains, huge waterfalls coming out
of the side of the mountains, and lush green hills all made for an
awesome sight. There was also a group of 5 Venezuelan guys and an
American couple on their honeymoon with us plus the rafting guides so we
took two rafts. The guides were great, really funny and nice. The whole
rafting trip took about 3 hours and it was so much fun! The river was
about a class 4 (there are 5 classes), so it was pretty intense, but no
one was scared at all. There were a few incidents in the guys raft with
them falling out going down the rapids, but in we all stayed in ours
except when the guide pushed you out when you were unaware. It was fun
though, but the funniest thing was how you got back in the raft. The
person in the water had a rope to pull on, and the person in the raft
had to grab the straps of your life vest and pull you up, but the result
was the person pulling you in just gets squashed under the person being
rescued. It was the funniest sight to see and everyone got very close
and personal!lol We had really nice sunny day to begin with but in the
last hour the dark gray clouds set in and the rain started. And this
wasn't just like little rain....it was like jungle rain. It poured down
and was freezing, but we were already wet and it was such a surreal
experience that I didn't even care. Oh and I almost forgot...there was
this point in the trip that we got to jump off this ledge that was 8
meters high into the river. First of all we had to scale the cliff side,
I was first and I didn't even know if I was going the right way, but
eventually I saw the ledge. It was so high, but surprisingly I wasn't
scared at all; I was so pumped full of adrenaline that I don't think
anything could have sacred me. It was the weirdest feeling...when I
jumped it felt like i was in slow motion, but at the same time it all
went really quickly. Definitely the biggest rush that I have ever
experienced and would gladly do it a thousand times more.
So that was yesterday and today we are headed for the equator
which is about an hour out of the city by bus. Not sure if we will make
it as we haven't used the buses before, but we'll see. I'll keep you all
updated on our adventures.xoxo
