Quito, Ecuador

Kara says:

Quito. Really lovely colonial city (I haven't said that before have I?) surrounded by green hills with the suburbs climbing up them. In the new part of town the hills seem particularly close and covered in wild jungle that no-one's ever got into 'cause of the monsters. Especially when the afternoon clouds and thunderstorms roll over the mountaintops. So Quito - Pizarro, 154_, you know the story. For a big city it's got a great, quietish but busy, really well preserved old centre full of plazas, churches and pleasant streets. And it's real! The plazas are surrounded by real shops for real people not tourist restaurants and souvenir shops. We had to get a new transformer (stupid 110V sockets) and went to a fabulous little electrical shop with every possible plug, wire, switch, capacitor, thingymagigy that you played with in physics class and now can't remember what they're for. If you lived here I think there would always be at least one domestic appliance in pieces on the coffee table being "repaired". See photo of Karl (like a kid with a new lego set on Christmas morning) fixing the computer cable wearing the latest addition to his collection of cheap, maggot-breeding, south american futbol shirts.

And people here sing. Walking down the street, setting the tables for breakfast, wherever. The restaurant in our hotel also has an organ in the corner that a man plays during lunch sounding like the evil penguin's music in Wallace & Gromit.

Gorgeous old monastary on one of the main plazas, see photos cloisters (Karl practising his priest-walk) and outside on plaza. It has a collection of colonial religious art, mainly wooden sculptures, including a sculpture of monks falling asleep - see photo.

There's a particular kind of shop here that's very strange - while appearing to sell everything under the sun in one (relatively small) shop it actually sells nothing that you actually want. Is it really neccessary to be able to buy a hat and a washing machine in the same shop? Or a motorbike, a drumkit and some vodka?

Popped over to the northern hemisphere today briefly, just for a look, hung around the equator for a while. Turns out it's a bright orange line. Who knew? See photo of us in opposite hemispheres. Then Karl ruined the fun by producing his GPS and demonstrating that this was not in fact the equator. So armed only with our wits and the GPS we set out to find the real equator. Just as we were getting tantalisingly close we came to a wall. So, like all good explorers, we took some photos at the wall pointing to where the equator probably is.

Highlight of Karl's time here (and possibly life) was a visit to the still-under-construction basilica. He got to climb the bell tower ("steps, yay!" says Karl) and as we've come to expect was allowed to ramble all over without warning signs (warning, death possible at any moment) or helpful guides (careful there love, you could fall to your death) or safety fences or roped-off areas. I was very proud of myself for overcoming the spiral staircases to get to the floor above the clock for a scary, open-air view of the city. From there on up there were only ladders, so I let Karl explore alone. See photo of american tourist sitting at the edge of the top of the tower - unfortunately there's no photo of Karl doing this 'cause HE WAS TOO CHICKEN. See photo of view directly down from way too high up. Also, funniest looking dog in the world, with sort of fat, wobbly fur, he was keeping the builders on the roof company.

Other photos - a high-altitude head of beer, Karl in a fantastic english pub that really felt like an english pub complete with that wonderful smell of a carpet with several years worth of cigarette smoke and spilled beer, and Karl's hat proudly on the hat-stand in our room! This hotel is cleary far too good for us.