Quito

ihana.com - big trip - diary - ecuador - july 2003

Thursday 10 - Sunday 13 July

Quito confused us a bit as we entered the old town first and found the main road in was closed due to road works. After a few loops we were on track and drove into the historic streets, colonial buildings lining steep streets and lots of people about gave us a good first impression. We headed through to the new town where there are more hotels and wider streets and found a decent place to sleep and park the landy. Thursday nightlife wasn't bad but still the girls aren't as good as in Peru, maybe at the weekend it'll improve.

To get from the new part of town to the old part there is a special modern bus with its own part of the road and bus stops like tubes where you pay on entry, a bit like the ones in Curitiba, South Brazil. Many of the old buildings are undergoing restoration work, we saw groups of masons busy carving new stones for a church and lots of guys repainting facades. Quito centre is tranquil, clean and there's lots to see. Unfortunately, like most of Ecuador, the government run tourist things like museums and national parks are very expensive to get into to.

La Basilica	Inside, looking down at the seats
Great views all around	Inside the clock

One attraction that's definitely worth the entrance fee is the Basilica cathedral. From a distance it looks like the usual church but close up you can see its made of concrete with the reinforcing steel sticking out in certain places high up. The pope visited here but its doubtful that he took advantage of the fact that you can explore every nook and cranny, walk over the roof of the main hall, go up the towers and even inside the clocks. The views from up the rickety tower ladders are fantastic.

Laughable fake winch...it is a Chevrolet though	Tubey bus stop with sexy armed guard
Sad family of drunks	Double vision!

Friday night had been a disaster, we'd asked a local couple where to go and we shared their taxi to Milk, a big house in a posh area turned into a disco with thumping tunes. While the tunes were good and some of the girls inside were pretty stunning, the typical attitude of the better-off white classes who frequent these electronic music places was too much for us and we called it a night. This bad attitude is prevalent in all of latin america, the rich, mainly european descent class are ridiculously snobbish and unfriendly. The worst of them tend to congregate in these types of discos. Maybe having an old BMW 3 series, clear lens sunglasses and a blond girlie is dead cool in Ecuador but you don't impress us.

Saturday night was very different. On the advice of the 7 foot tall bouncer of No! bar we headed to 7th heaven. The girls seemed to be excessively friendly and turned out to be colombian. When asked what they were doing in Quito the stock reply was 'I do what all the Colombian girls do here'. Right. It was nice to see the extreme curves of the girls but there's no way we're going where hundreds of guys have been before.

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