Monday 28th October 2013
Having spent five days in Lisbon with Ismael’s family and noting the largely accurate BBC weather prediction of heavy rainstorms, we were pretty apprehensive about Quito where it was apparently raining heavy all day every day. Thankfully weather predictions were wrong. Although it has rained everyday since our arrival, the rain has been in short heavy bursts and in between it has been mostly sunny and warm. Today we were blessed with a warm and sunny day which we spent wandering around Quito soaking up some of the historical sites in the Old Town; our first real touristy day since arriving three nights ago. Although the days are reasonably warm, Quito is the second highest capital city in the world (after La Paz in Bolivia) at 2850m so the nights here are cold and we’ve both already got our base-layers out.
We arrived at Hotel Joremis in the New Town at 11pm on Monday, shattered after a 25 hour journey. Taking into account our web research and advice from friends, Ismael and I opted to travel relatively light which my swankle (further inflated by the long flight) was grateful for. We both have 46 litre MEI voyager back packs which are carry-on luggage size. I have to say, even that has been a bit much for me and I have not enjoyed our escapades through airports so far at all. I am slowly getting used to the weight but am thankful we didn’t go crazy and get 70 litre beasts.
Hotel Joremis is probably the second or third most budget accommodation I’ve ever experienced after, one night in a shared room in a hostel in Dublin when I was in my first year of undergrad and, one week in a two star hotel in Crete where the toilet seat was too small for the toilet. Over the course of that holiday, I learned that the mismatched toilet and toilet seat was pretty standard on the island but managed to have a great holiday nevertheless :). Despite being a bit rough around the edges the hotel was clean and somehow homely, the people were friendly and the food was tasty and cheap.
We spent the best part of our first two days organising our trip to Galapagos which was a little tedious but worth it as we managed to get a six night first class cruise on a much nicer boat for less than the price STA were offering a three night cruise. We’re flying to the Galapagos one day before the cruise and leave three days after so we’ll have time to do some island hoping too while we’re there.
After two nights at Hotel Joremis we booked 2 nights at Colonial House, a hostel in San Blas (Old Town) which was 25% cheaper than our previous budget abode. It’s a colourful student style building with everything you’d expect in a student house. Friendly, young people who still feel invincible (including a 25 year old girl who hitch-hiked alone through Chile), rubbish showers (you can have pressure or heat but not both), lots of social spaces, cheap booze, lots of smokers and a pool table.
Central Quito is a city of two parts, the Old Town and the New Town. The Old Town is filled with pretty colonial squares, churches and lots of tourists. The roads are narrow and the buses wide and loud, chuffing out black fumes as they go. Between the altitude and the fumes I had a headache the whole day we spent walking around. The New Town is very different, it’s not pretty but the roads are bigger and so the traffic less aggressive. It also contains Mariscal which is the most ‘happening’ place in the evenings, filled with bars, restaurants, clubs and hostels etc. also known as Gringolandia. After our day walking around the Old Town, we were looking forward to spending time in calmer, quieter places.
Ramblers Rumblings 