Am at the airport wasting time til my flight to Lima, peru. Had a not so good return to Quito, picked up a stomach infection which made life miserable, no food, cramps, and the rest.... Went to celebrate a friends birthday and could not keep my chicken soup down and had to leave a nice resturant with folk music and dance and lovely food.
The next day went to the centre of the earth, the Mitad del Mundo and caught local buses crammed with people. My friend Emma was the tour guide as I was in no state to navigate out of my hotel let alone the centre of the earth.. We walked the equatorial line twice, first the wrong one which is a few degrees off and the new one caluclated by GPS and only a few hundred metres away from the original. It was weird, if you closed your eyes you could feel the magnetic forces pulling you north and south. The water thing is real, on the equatorial line water goes straight down, a few metres to the south it goes anti clockwise and to the north, clockwise, or is that vice verca? Then I balanced an egg on a nail and got a certificate... woo hoo! At least I am well balanced! We went to a mexican restaurant for dinner and met Sergio who had the walls and menus plastered with magazine covers of him with big 70s hair and moustache, apparently a big soap star in ol Mehico. He talked to us soooo much we were ready to tear him apart for FOOD! We heard his life story and finally got our food and the heater turned on after several requests, which was good coz the nights get cold, even on the equator. I had a plain tortilla with chicken which was all I could stomach. Emma did not like her dish as she described it as sponge cake with cheese, so he did not charge her, also forgot to charge for my bottle of water, so don't know how he makes any profit at all... too busy reliving his past!!!!
The next day feeling worse, I met my guide to Cotopaxi volcano, and after taking one look at me suggested we went for a drive instead of climbing the volcano. I was so looking forward to this hike. However, I knew i would not make it and so we drove for seven hours along backroads, into valleys and saw indiginous people farming, animals like the protected vicunas, a brown llamaish animal with shorter hair, llamas and alpacas. I saw the highest volcano Chimborazo in the clouds, peaking at 5300m. I was sick twice, and my poor tour guide Freddy looked after me so well. The locals farm on such steep, high hills and hike up and down with tools, must be so fit and at such altitudes. We hit 4200m at one point on the road before heading to Riobamba, 3rd largest city in the country, to my hotel for the night. Such excitement, I slept from 4pm til the next morning when I got a wake up call at the ungodly hour of 5am.
I caught the train (or more like a bus on wheels to my disappointment) to Aluisi, where Freddy met me and checked up on me, then i went to the Devil's nose, a bloody steep rail journey zig zagging down a mountain, then up again! Such views, all of Ecuador has the best views, the land of volcanoes. Oh and also the land of ice cream, pity i was sick, there is icecream everywhere and people buy it off the street vendors with dry ice buckets and in shops all day and night, we even drove thru a town known as the ice cream town which was cool.... yummy!
Today took it easy and went up a chairlift to see Quito from the air, the Teleferico. Then my first meal at Hussans back in the new town, and he was quite famous in the US with all the newspaper clippings and awards up on the wall, but I ate lentil soup and falafel and it stayed down. Best meal ever... after 4 days of bread, dry bikkies, tea and soup.
My flight departs for Lima soon and I arrive around 10.45pm, so that is all for this report... the next adventure starts Sunday, Amazon, the Inca trail and more. Stay tuned... over and out...
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