Hola from Ecuador!

Posted on September 27th, 2006 by Jess.
Categories: South America.

Well, after potentially the worst flight either of us has ever has ever taken (eleven long hours of no drinks, no peanuts and the same rubbish film repeated three times for our viewing pleasure…) Alice and I arrived safely (if slightly frazzled) in Quito. But it’s all been worth it! First impressions are of how clean the city is - or at least the parts we’ve seen so far). From previous experiences of traveling in the developing world we’d expected dog carcasses to be littering the road, massive amounts of street hawking and dirty concrete as far as the eye can see! Not so, in fact the only hawkers we’ve really seen are street performers who leap into the middle of the road as soon as the traffic lights change to make dare devilish human pyramids and back flip around the waiting cars!

We were collected and brought to our hostel to meet the rest of the group who have made us feel really welcome and clearly made it their mission to give us a baptism of fire into the seedy world of Ecuadorian nightlife! Two hours after we arrived we found ourselves hopping around energetically to jungle beats in a salsa lesson. Though it should be stated that major physical exertion is not the best activity after a 11 hour flight, two days of minimal nappage and altitude sickness - I had to be frogmarched home through the streets to avoid vomiting on the pavement!

Last night, to celebrate our final night in the big smoke (read ’smoke’ literally, it’s very smoggy in Quito!), we got dressed up in a colourful array of tacky fashion jewelery (all the rage in these parts), visors with sunglasses attached to them and gangster gear and danced into the wee smalls… in fact, I don’t actually think the boys have been to bed yet and it’s midday!

In about 20 minutes we’re off to the Rainforest to start breeding piranhas… woohoo! We’ll be in touch soon!

Love Jess x

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