Work schmork. I’m too busy thinking about going to the Galapagos tomorrow!! I’m a little excited. I’d be awesomely excited if I wasn’t so damn tired. Where’s a coke when you need one?? I’m lying on my hotel bed in Quito whilst Snuffy goes off on the ticket adventure. What’s a ticket adventure I hear you ask? Well, it’s a story, that’s what it is (which will explain my facebook status for all you fb junkies out there). So you all know that Snuffy’s passport got stolen with his bag of goodies, and he’s had it replaced with an emergency passport. However, we had both gotten a visa for Brazil, which he went to replace yesterday. Unfortunately we found out that he couldn’t get it replaced, but has to get an entire new one. Sigh. That’s another $35. But wait, there’s more. To get the visa he needs a certificate of proof of vaccination against yellow fever (also stolen), proof of flight out of Brazil (also stolen) and proof of financial ability (e.g. credit cards…..also stolen). Okay, well he’s been in contact with people and he can get a faxed copy of the certificate….which is no good because they only want originals. #%$@! Okay, so he needs to go and get another vaccination (this took him 2 hours this morning because of inefficient doctors). He also needs to get his tickets replaced, which he did need to do anyway, but we were hoping to do in Brazil. So, a couple of phone calls later and he’s trotted down to an office to see how long they are going to take, and it will probably cost him $100. If everything goes well, they will arrive when we get back to Quito and we will only be stuck here for another 3 days whilst the visa is being processed. If not….well, Quito is a nice city. Unfortunately this means that we don’t have time anymore to do the Amazon, at least not the justice it deserves, so we’ll have to save that for another time. So…to Ecuador. It is a cheaper country yet again, on average you can get a good meal for a couple of dollars – I had a ridiculously expensive dinner last night for $7.50. We only spent a night in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, but it was enough. It was a fairly dirty city (the part we were in at least) and wasn’t really somewhere I’d like to be walking around at night. We went for a small walk around where we were staying and were INUNDATED by children. Turns out that it was Children’s Day. To quote my mother ‘Every day is Children’s Day’, and I fail to see the point of having an official day. But, they were EVERYWHERE. This made walking and finding a place to eat quite difficult (we ended up eating at our hotel). There were a few pretty parts – it had a reasonable park and a nice boulevard next the river, what I could see through the kids anyway. We shuffled off the bus station the next morning to catch a bus to Quito, and as we walked over to the company we were told had the nicest buses, we found one was leaving in about 5 minutes! We couldn’t believe our luck. We were even escorted by the bus driver….to a very NOT first class bus. Our hearts sank, but we had already paid for it and were being shoved on. No food, only slightly reclining seats, no air-con…bar the nice breeze coming through the window…and the f**ker kept stopping at random places to let people on. A bus to Quito is supposed to take 7 hours….ours took 11. Mind you, 1 hour of this was because of an accident just outside Quito which halted traffic for a long while. By the time we got in we were tired, grumpy, and to top it off I was feeling quite ill. Thankfully we just caught the hostel before it closed doors for the night. We were pleased to discover the hostel had piping hot water and a decent breakfast included. Hurray!! However, I was feeling less than ordinary. Let’s just say I spent a LOT of time yesterday in the bathroom. Despite this, we got to explore Quito quite a bit. As I mentioned earlier, we went to the Brazilian embassy and explored the section of Quito named ‘New Town’, the modernised business section of the city. Everything you need is in this section – internet cafes, restaurants, hotels, pharmacies…you name it. You could almost think you were in a 1st world country, but for the beggars, the indigenous women selling their crafts and people trying to sell you mobile phones, remotes and other strange things on the street. After Andrew had lunch (yep, I was sick – I couldn’t eat) we went to explore ‘Old Town’, which is a beautiful tapestry of colonial style buildings with wrought-iron balconies and cobblestone streets. The dichotomy is really quite remarkable. Useful stores are harder to come by in Old Town, but it is much lovelier to stroll down. Our hostel was on the border of Old and New Town, which was quite useful (we have since moved into the hotel for our tour, which is in New Town). I started to feel better, and even had a go at dying my hair, which didn’t turn out exactly as planned. When you looked at the box, it was about 2 shades darker than what my hair had faded to, so I presumed it would take me back to the original colour I had (plus cover up the 2 greys that Andrew has gleefully found). But apparently 2 shades darker than my hair colour actually means about 2 shades lighter than black. Frick!! So….let’s hope it fades quickly. C’mon the power of anti-dandruff shampoo. Well, it’s a change I guess. Plus I had several inches taken off my hair, so I feel a lot lighter. They only charge $2 for a full hair cut. It’s a crime. I gave her $5 though – I figured $3 is not a lot to me. Well good news – Andrew was able to get the tickets replaced on the spot! Hurrah! So it will be only 3 more days in Quito after we return! Yay!! Bad news is Andrew has just caught whatever I had yesterday, so the poor bugger is now lying down. Pouty McPouty Pants. Peace out – I’m going to the Galapagos Islands!! Woohoo!!!!!!
Ecuador photos
