to middle earth...wonder if i'll see frodo...

So we´re in Quito!  Took us a few hours from bus station to host family as a family friend picked us up and took us for a traditional ecuadorian drink called checha made from fermented maize, and ecuadorian epanadas. This restaurant was essentially in the front of someone´s house and to get to the loo we had to go past a bedroom (!) Loved it though and the fermented maize was actually really tasty.

So in Quito we´ve been staying with a host family, an adorable ecuadorian couple where the wife reminds me of my tiny mumita, and the husband is like an ecuadorian father christmass. Every day we come home he says "hola chicas" :D And we get breakfast, lunch if we want and dinner every day which is so nice to have to think about cooking.

And so the spanish classes begin again! Average day is rise at 7.15am, breaka at 7.30, leave house at 8.00am then half hour walk to school. Well the walk can be and has been a tad longer on the occasions we  got lost, one too many left turns :P

My teacher was so lovely, she was always encouraging me and saying that i was doing really well. I think she spoke too soon as in the final lesson i had to practice two different past tenses and it was the most painfully slow spoken spanish of my, and probably her, life as well. Oh, and yes! i know the past tense now! two even! one is when things have definitely ended and for dead people :p the other one is for indefinitely ending actions and things you often used to do. Deciding what past actions go in which tense is more like philosophy than learning a language. Think i´m going to stick with with definitely ending one and hope that no south american person thinks all my friends have died...

I was a bit worried about coming to Quito as it was our first south american city where we´d be independent and exploring by ourselves but knowing our homestay family were only a phone call away was such a comfort and though anisha and i look young and naive, we´re not, and we´re not stupid and won´t allow people to take us for a ride (unless they´re the yellow taxis with a number in the window, in that case it´s fine)

We´ve visited the museo de guayasamin and the sister museum capilla del hombre here in Quito. Guyasamin is this ecuadorian artist who was obsessed with suffering and depression and decided to make the world a better place through perpetuating this sadness in his art. Great. Not my cup of tea really, I´m more up for the "if the world is sad then try and make it better and paint happy things" type of approach though i realise raising  awareness through of art obviously is important and must be done too.

On tuesday (i think ) we visited quito old town using the ecovia (kind of liek the tube but with buses and above ground) for 25 cents one way, so cheap! Our favourite quotes for being out n about are "constant vigilance" and "is it secret, is it safe" (yes they are quotes from hazzer p and LOTRs respectively ) This meant on arrival in the old town we were of red alert, did not feel immediately safe. And when guide books say "such and such a place in ecuador is touristy" what they really mean is it´s fully  of ecuadorians! so for us it doesn´t feel touristy like we know it at all. We also expect there to be amazing signs to the local attractions but there aren´t and we often have to take a sneaky duck into a shop to check our trusty lonely planet guide.

But all was well in the end! We visited the government palace where an ecuadorian family we met in the queue thought it was amazing that we were from london and the souvenir photo they give for free at the palace, the family asked to be it with us and took it for themselves! very odd. :P We then went to a real working monastary called Monasteria de Santa Catalina. Here nuns hidden behind a revolving wooden door sell all different types of medical remedies and foods too, so I bought some skin streatment majig including almond cream, rose smelling cleanser and a tonic water all for under $4 (those nuns are raking it in !) Thinking was that if the nuns can´t help me, with God on their side, then no one can :P

On wednesday night we went to a salsatec with another girl staying with the family, and we met up with her ecuadorian friends. It was so much fun there! They played funky salsa all night and everyone was dancing: the girls were twirling and the men commanding the dance floor with firm hand placements and dominating footwork. And later strictly come dancing esque dancers got on stage and showed us commoners how it was really done. Clubing would be so much more sophisticated and enjoyable if everyone danced salsa :P

Hmm what else have we done...oh! we climed up this basillica (name escapes mw now) that is billed as the most hair raising site of Quito in the lonely planet guide. We climed up 3 floors stone steps and about 4 floors of thin iron bar ladders to get to the top of the basiilica with views over Quito. Was so scary! The health and safety reguations in britain would have had you in hard hat and harness from the ground floor. We had a delicious liquor coffee on the 4th floor overlooking the city before ascending the ladders to the bellfry tower (a     delapadated wooden ladder by the side of the stairwell was a comforting sight :P)

And finally yesterday we went to mitad el mundo, the middle of the earth! Bless the french, they put a monument in "the middle of the earth" in the 1700s but then recent GPS revelations have shown that they were in fact about 100ms off. Silly old school frenchmen using pythagorous instaead of google maps. Well anyway, to mark the real middle of the earth there is a museum hidden around the corner from the main middle of the world city.

Here we were told about some traditional eucadorian customs including the act of making shrunken heads. Important people or enemies would have their heads cut off, the skull removed, the skin boiled in water with a stone inside to keep the shape, for 40mins, then left to dry for about 10days. They also would sew up the mouth so that the soul would not escape. THese wud then we worn as necklaces or at the end of spears to show people what would happen to them should they cross that warrior. Brixton eat your heart out. And to our delight, the guide brought out a real shrunken head, 160yrs old hair and lashes still in tact.

So the the middle of the earth! I thought i would literally feel different but i felt exactly the same. Or in fact i did feel different, i felt bloody wet coz it decided to rain that day on the equator. Good to know i bring the rain. It was quite a novelty though to be able to stand in 2 hemispheres at the same time. The guide told us that at the equinox your shadow disappears completely when you stand on the equator as the sun is directly overhead. He also told us that the days are always 6am/6pm everyday, never longer never shorter. This meant that the old school native sunclocks they had only went from these hours, reality seemed to cease otherwise .

He showed us some awesome physicsey tricks that the equator exerts. Number one is water flows directly downwards on the equator, absolutely no vortex is seen. If the experiment is moved simply 50cm to the southern hemisphere the water drains clockwise, and 50cm into the northern hemisphere and the water vortexes anticlockwise. Couldn't believe that the earth's gravitional effects could be so evident over such tiny distances.

The second trick, sorry "experiment" was that balancing an egg on a nail on the equator is much easier than anywhere else in the world as the forces acting on the egg are exactly equally. So channelling the force of the chicken ovulation, I become the egg master and managed to balance the holy egg and recieved my certificate of mastership. Yes. The last trick was to show that apprantly humans are weaker on the equator than in either hemisphere. Something to do with forces again, (you physics people can write explanatory comments if you so desire). Not sure if this was true or just psychological, but then again i did balance and egg on a nail and water doesn't swirl here...*cue xfiles music, duh nah nuh nah duh nah nuh nah*

The same day we also went to see the ultima pequila of harry potter *wipes tear*. Despite missing the first few minutes and sitting so close to the screen that we were practically inside the film, nothing could detract from the harry potter magic. Freaking amazing. I had my furrowed brow look of sadness and concern throughout. Totes throughing a harry potter DVD release party, all are invited. Only outrage was to do with the subtitles: the spanish subtitles had not only translated all the english speech but the parcel tongue as well!! spanish speakers get to understand parceltongue! outrage i say : P

Anyhooz, Saturday we fly out in the eve for Lima, Peru. So our ecuadorian adventure is almost at a close...

xxxxxxxxxx

we´re going to Bath! :D

After much confused discussion with my Chilean-Guayas family, Anisha and I decided to hit up a popular tourist stop, Baños (literally bathrooms), on the way to Quito. A town nestled in the Ecuadorian mountain famous for adventure sports and its thermal waters.

The bus ride there was fantastic, especially when we were ascending through the mountains. At points we were on the same level as the clouds and it felt as though we were driving through the sky. I felt completely safe on the bus ride despite the fear mongering that many had instilled in Anisha and I. A quick evening change over of bus and we arrive in Baños at about 9pm on Saturday. A little bit disorientated arriving at nightime as we could literally see nothing of our surroundings.

However when our kindly hostel worker showed us around and up to the breakfast bar area, we stepped outside and out of the darkness loomed the sheer face of a mountain, with a silver thread of white running through indicating the presence of a waterfall. Literally breathtaking. I felt completely dwarfed and quite terrified of this dark giant slumbering so close to me. Awesome.

In the morning we woke up muy temprano (very early) about 6.45am to go to the local thermal bathes. These are waters that have heated by volcanic temperatures and that have been chanelled into public baths for people to enjoy. So apparantly the whole of Baños had had the same early morning idea as us and already the baths were full of families and screaming children. Funz.

I have been a little pushed to my limit on what i can handle nature and hygeine wise on this trip. Montañita tested my nature and now these baths were testing my hygeine standards: the water was  strange murky yellow colour and I was sure there was no chlorine used as disinfectant. All i could picture was children peeing in there and me then swimming in there. But i figured the worst thing that as long as i didn´t drink the water it´d be fine.

And it was fine, more than fine in fact! After a scolding few toe dips we finally fully submerged our bodies in the mineral rich water and took up camp on a little ledge in the "tranquilo" pool with all the oldies. It was so lovely and relaxing, especially as it was freezing outside of the pool: it had started to rain and the floor around the pool felt comparitively like ice. But it was so amazing to sit there, rubbing all the goodness into my skin, while looking up at a the sheer mountain face and waterfall running down, only metres away.

After our relaxed start we decided to do one of the activities that draws all us gringos to Baños: canyoning. This essentially involved us doning on oversized wetsuits, helmets that didn´t fit our heads and "special climbing shoes" aka plimsols, to go stand at the stop of some waterfalls and abseil down them in the crappy cold Baños weather. To add to the excitement our guide also did not speak any english and explained all the safety in spanish: unfortuneately knot tying was not something covered on my spanish course (!) But it wasn´t as treacherous as I make it seem, it was so exhilarating and crap scarry at the same time but totally safe (although there were a couple of times where anisha and i and the other girl who we were with, were standing at the top of tonnes of cascading water, unattached to anything and looking perplexedly at the rope and harnesses as our guide decided to climb down ahead of us. all good :P).

We did 3 waterfalls in total: the 1st was a simple climb down beside an ickle waterfall, the 2nd we had to sit in the waterfall and let the water push us down and the guide lowered us into the 1m depth of freezing moutain water below, and the ultima (last) was a terrifing kneel of faith (he shouted at us to "get on your knees, get on your knees!) over the lip of a waterfall from where we then free abseiled down behind the 15m waterfall.

Baños was such great fun, and I could´ve stayed to do loads of adventure activites money and weather permitting. We then got a 2.50pm bus from Baños and headed on up to Quito. I was really looking forward to being dry as in Baños it had rained constantly and those who know me well will know how cold i get :P

bexxxxx

the poor man´s galapagos and other delights

sorry for the delay in updates! so let me now conclude Montañita.

so two weekends ago we decided to visit Isla de la Plata aka the poor man´s galapagos. For a smidgen of the price to visit the galapogas you can take a day trip to an island 1hr off shore of Puerto Lopez (about 1hr from Monta´ñita) and you can go see nature such as the blue footed booby (hehe) and frigate birds (crazy birds that have red necks which they balloon out when they´re on the pull.

While there we also saw a turtle/tortoise (zoologists can tell me which is correct!) and we snorkelled with tropical fish. Pretty sure I saw ursula from the little mermaid down there too... Any way that was all fun and games despite my complete lack of preparation for the trip: I had no water, forgot to put suncream on the one area that was exposed, brought no food so had to rely on the snacks provided, and finally while on the boat got so wet with boat spray that i looked like i´d pissed myself. Not such a great way to start the day.

We also got to do whale watching on the way there and back so I saw freakin humpback whales! I always thought that whales were a bit gross but in reality they were actually quite majestic and beautiful, and so tranquil. It was really amazing to have seen them, I have a video and will try and upload at some point!

The only bad thing about the trip was the boat ride of nauseating death on the way there. The guide said before we left shore that if you wanted to sick to please be sick over the side of the boat and not in the toilet. How funny i thought, that´ll never happen. Oh but how wrong I was. About 30mins in the speeding across open water in a glorified engine, every second bumping up and down like i was in a washing machine. I literally have never put so much will power into not being sick. I was green. I wanted to die. I tied my hair up in preparation for chundering and was looking for the best place to lean out of the boat without falling out of the boat. Luckily made it to the island without being sick over the whales, and on the way back i sat at the back of the boat, facing forwards and took a sea sickness tablet off a german. Much better return journey.

On that Sunday we had a mexican dinner with the school and the nomz was so good and I finally washed my clothes :P how nice it is to have clean pants and clothes.

The following week nothing major happened really. Same old same old with spanish classes and surfing, although this week I had individual classes 8am-12. And i thought this was supposed to be a holiday :P on the upside I think my spanish is coming along, i can understand a fair bit and my present tense is quite good. as for my future tense "i´m going to do..." a lot of things as that´s the only way i know how to talk about the future. the past is still a non event for me though, i hope that in quito I´ll get that one down so i can have a bit more a 3 dimensional life.

Oh the most exciting thing for me that happened that week was that I got promoted to a smaller, lighter surfboard! this did result in some days where my own body rode the waves instead of me riding the waves while on the surfboard as it was so lite and the waves so strong often i couldn´´t stand up in time and the wave would just catch me and carry me to shore. A skill i did not know i had :P My favourite phrase from surfing is "un olo mas y despues descanso" (one more one and then i rest) By friday though i was surfing that baby to shore and very excited to organise some sort of surf trip to cornwall :D

On Saturday morning we left montañita for Quito via guayaquil and got the 5.45am bus to Guayaquil. Buses here have so far been reliable and so cheap! for that 3hr journey it was like $5 I think (and that was "expensive" ) Was sad to leave the great people in montañita but hopefully will see them again in the future as most were european :P

muchos besos

xxxxxxx