Sylvie was the first amiga to arrive in South America. She arrived from San Diego, and proceeded to enjoy cervezas on the roof of our first hostel, the Secret Garden. Later that night, after a hellish 26-hour journey, complete with damaged baggage and diving headfirst into broken Spanish explanations to the airport staff, Stacey and Claire stumbled in, embraced Sylvie with relief and flopped down on their beds. Exhausted but excited!
We had the next day to explore the city. First task; to buy botas de caucho (gumboots) for our volunteering work. The Andean Bear Foundation recommended that we buy the boots from a hardware store called Kiwi which was about a 15 minute taxi ride ($2) away to the south of the city. We were a novelty in the hardware store, with our huge Kiwi feet getting stuck in the Ecuadorian-sized gumboots. Kiwi gumboots are not made for kiwis, apparently.
One day looking around Quito was enough. It is very smoggy and dirty, and it doesn´t have the best vibe for tourists. In saying that, there was a beautiful big church there and we did have a very cheap lunch from a Hare Krishna cafe. It cost around $1.80 for drink, soup and main, so can´t complain!
We have found that when you speak Spanish in proper sentences (more than just a few random words) the locals here become very amicable, especially taxi drivers. Some funny conversations have included one with a taxi driver, who after enquiring about New Zealand´s cold weather, asked if we partake in dog sledding.
Later that nighk we had a few drinks at the hostel and met lots of travellers who were staying at the hostel including an awesome kiwi girl called Esther.
In terms of safety, none of us has really felt threatened yet. However, we did get the loudest and slowest wolf whistle in the world yesterday which almost deafened us! People do stare at us but it's probably because we look like slobs in our jandals and baggy tshirts, compared to the tiny, ultra-tight-pant-wearing girls (not for the faint at heart). We are also complete giants compared to the locals!
Back to Quito tomorrow to get ready before we start the Andean Bear project on Monday. Five weeks chasing after bears in the Andes Mountain ranges!
Stay tuned...
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love it, very entertaining.. especially liked the dog sledding comment, have had many of these convos with taxi drivers, they are some of the best jajajaja (reirse en español)
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