ECUADOR: Deportivo Quito 5 - Liga de Quito 1

I'M AT: Hostal Oasis, Quito. It's a knocking shop. You can get a room for one hour, there are all sorts of unsavoury types hanging around, and things go bump in the night. But it's a good room for $5 a night and the Secret Garden's full.

I've got a sunburnt nose for persistent suncream avoidance but otherwise things are cool in Ecuador.

 

I've been doing Spanish for four hours a day, wiped out by the end.  Too much really.  But I did learn a bit, I think.  I'm going to do more but not until I get to Cuenca.

 

Was in Otavalo at the weekend, a place with one of the biggest markets in South America - it's a couple of hours North from Quito by bus, bought a couple of hammocks, I don't quite know why, but they were only six quid each.  Really beautiful.  I spent this morning shipping them home to my folks.

 

Also got up at six in the morning to go the 'big animal' market.  There were goats for sale... the Otavalenos wear their hair in braids and dress beautifully, but they're so poor, unbelievable.  Saw a woman dressed to the nines grappling in the organic waste bin for a bit of dirty watermelon.  There were loads of women begging, faces the colour of mahogany, sharing a tooth between them.  No men begging, though.

 

I'm now in Quito again sorting a couple of things out before moving on after the weekend, I'll be going to Latacunga next to check out the huge crater of Quilotoa volcano.  Then I'll do a trip into the jungle.  Also hope to go to Mindo for a couple of days this week, it's not far from here - it's a nature reserve with plenty hiking, waterfalls, birdwatching and hummingbirds, by all accounts dead beautiful.

 

I am sort-of in the ghetto at the moment.  A room with private bathroom is only $5 a night or about three quid so I can't complain.  And they sell big beers in a shop just over the way.

 

On the football front, Liga de Quito were beaten 2-0 by Sao Paolo in the Copa Libertadores, in that match they talked about during the World Cup (turned out it was in Brazil, not here) and they went out 2-1 on aggregate.  River Plate were knocked out as well and the riots lasted for twenty minutes, the TV showed everything. 'Welcome back.  Now we're going straight back to the violence.'

 

The big derby game took place here yesterday afternoon, Liga de Qito against Deportivo Quito, Deportivo thrashed them 5-1 and set a new record for the fastest goal, 24 seconds.  Things are not well at Liga.  How quickly things can change.

 

They show ads during the game on a horizontal strip at the bottom of the screen here.  The game carries on but all you can hear and basically see are the ads.  Not pleasant, but at least I don't have to put up with Clive Tyldesley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ECUADOR: Oh! South! London!

I'M IN: EL Rincon del Viajeros, Otavalo. Spotless private rooms and a dead posh restaurant serving steaks and mexican food for $3, mad American chef who bores you stupid about poker. Nice but a bit quiet.

 

I've met many people in Ecuador - muchachas from Switzerland, the States, Israel, Germany, and Ecuador, and chicas from Denmark, Germany, the States, Israel, Canada, Ecuador.  Plenty of English.

 

And it's easy for me.  I say I'm from London and it's true, more or less.  They ask where exactly, and I tell them about Croydon.

 

It actually carries quite a bit of kudos.  London's cool, so I must be too.  I'm not going to correct them.

 

But I recoiled in horror when I overheard a bloke from Milton Keynes telling some folk that HE was 'from London' as well.

 

I guess it must be tiring trying to explain exactly where it is, and the fact that you can pretty much guess that no-one will have heard of it, but to me it displayed a sad lack of pride in his roots.  Surely being from somewhere perceivedly 'exotic' would be a story in itself?

 

People slate Croydon all the time but it's where I live, and I'll back it all the way.  The same for Palace, naturally, who no-one's heard of, even the English.

 

And when you start explaining things to people, like why my team are called Crystal Palace, you realise that (a) you know a worrying amount about it, but also that (b) your pride is entirely justified.

 

I've also had real trouble making people understand my accent, especially the Europeans, for whom I speak too quickly, and use weird phrases.

 

Two German girls, both about 22 and training to be doctors, turned up at the hostal.  The Secret Garden is great in that it encouraged people to get to know each other, because the food was served at a long table and everyone mucks in.

 

So naturally I started teaching them some slang, and generally winding them up.  And then about twelve of us went out to play pool.  Later on, their German friend sidled up to me, a bit confused.  He wasn't sure where they'd gone.  Did I know?

 

No idea.  I hadn't seen them since we played Killer.  Did they say they were leaving?  Maybe, he said.

 

They've gone somewhere, somewhere they needed to go, because they'd told him.  And they left in a hurry.

 

But where, he asked, could he find this 'slash'?

 

 

 

 

 

 

ECUADOR: Full of Piss and Vinegar

I'M AT: Secret Garden Hostel, Quito. See below.
Days four and five in Quito.

Met Colin in the bigger of the two central parks, by the volleyball nets, both late somehow, cabbed it to foot of Teleférico, a newbuild cable car in the west of the city. Bottom rung a pin-new park of swings and takeaways. In car, with small local family, we swung pretty quickly to the top, ears popping, of what is the park Ruca Pichincha, a now-extinct volcano. From viewpoint with pipes panning we schlepped up the hill, past a tentful of leather-skinned horsemen, and their charges, with silver footrests, nibbled at yellow tufts.

The altitude really kicked in. We climbed to 4200 feet with views of the vast expanse of Quito, and paused for breath and water, then we could look at the tops of clouds, and were actually above the gleaming white planes. Quite odd to see them skim across the surface of the sky, with us, angular boatmen, dipping. Thank god for the meniscus.

Anyway we were pretty much done after two hours walk and puff, and back down to a waiting gluwein bar, spicy red cinnamon in hot afternoon, perfect.

After descent, the afternoon was whiled away in the Turtle´s Head, a proper, well, English pub really, run by a Scotsman with a Glaswegian-Spanish accent, and very steamy barmaids, in school uniforms, 20ish. The busty one kept bending over to stick and re-stick a label at my groin-height. Nice.

AND THEN TO GUAGUA PICHINCHA

The next day (Saturday) we set off quite early in Brad´s landrover for a trek to the summit of Baby Pichincha, the angry one. GuaGua last threw up all over the countryside in 1999, and it´s still rumbling. I say a trek to the summit - really it´s to two summits, the pre-1999 one, which is still marked as the main summit on the topographical maps, and then to the new summit, which is yet to be surveyed.

It was bloody freezing as we hit the refugio, after one and a half hours of acclimatising walk (read: lungbursting and heartpounding). Sat for bananas and chocolate biscuits in the cold lodge. Watched with astonishment as two lyra-clad Ecuadorians pushed their mountain bikes up the steep incline we´d just hauled ourselves up. Incredible.

And so to the main assault.

Now whilst Brad, the tour leader, kept impressing upon us that this was an easy climb, he later pointed out that a good Canadian friend of his is now one of the top climbers in his country, and these guys had done masses of climbing. He led the way whilst we sort of shuffled along, well, some of us shuffled.

The wind blew and we were above cloud level, and I just sat and my teeth chattered, and whilst I was feeling pretty fit and no effects of altitude, I was so nervous at the sheer drops and the fact that the path was (a) very steep, (b) made of sand and shingle, so very slippery, and (c) the width of my shoulders. I really wasn´t looking forward to it but everyone pushed me on, lovely people, Matt, Brad, Colin, Tina, Mark, Camilla - salutations. I´m pretty sure I still owe some of you a beer.

Brad´s advice grew from being quite homely to something quite different - dig in with your toe; keep to the right edge of the ridge; if you feel like your head´s exploding or you´re going to pass out, tell the next person; stick together; use your arse, cos sand washes out, blood is trickier to shift; that sort of thing.

It wasn´t until we´d made the second, higher summit, and after he´d shook my hand and hugged me, that he came out with the "full of piss and vinegar" line, and I remembered it from my childhood, as did he. I reckon it means full of life, or full of lies, one of the two. It stuck with me though.

The descent through skree and sand was scrambled and great fun. And then he told us the hostel was laying on a free happy hour for us. So we drank.

And drank.

And now it´s Sunday.

ECUADOR: Dos cervezas y un vaso de tequila

I'M AT: The Secret Garden Hostel. Cracking place, run by volunteers from England, New Zealand and Switzerland, great terrace bar, great people, terrific for the lone traveller as it's so easy to meet people, they sort trekking and jungle trips out, murals everywhere, music always playing, big fire on the terrace each night, great view, can't be bettered.

Good christ.

 

It´s almost four and I´m still hungover.

 

My hostel lays on meals and music for the guests, and last night was Ecuadorian evening.  It all started quite gently but a few beers, a fish supper and some ragga panpipes later and I was cheering the house band to the rafters.  Knelt next to fire, burning in a metal wheelbarrow, and took some pics.  And then, coming back up the stairs, I stumbled a bit and almost wiped out the cook.

 

I should say something about the old town and reading the paper and sitting in the sun but really nothing much happened until the sun went down.

 

So it was dreadlocked Alex´s second-last night in Quito and she insisted we go out, and took us to a salsa club, one beer, then another more hardcore club, three beers, back to the first, three beers, a tequila and a vodka, and then when it closed we went to a thid club, hip hop, we were the only white faces in there, and some geezer taught me an Ecuadorian handshake and called me his brother, and then when THAT closed we went back to Alex´s place, a shared house down the road from the hostel.

 

Her two mates had been friends for life and got a guitar out, and a bongo thing, and finally the washbasin, and started just giving it some to a massive extent, all rap, all Spanish, the veins on this guy´s neck stood out as he just belted his tunes out, and then I played their basslines, and whacked the washbasin, and the mango and vodka was passed, and then the guy got his pipe out, Colin copped off with a girl on an organised tour, and it all made pure sense, and the sun came up, and I staggered back, and now here I am.

 

It´s salsa night at the hostel tonight.

 

ECUADOR: West Wickham to London to Miami to Quito

They´re off!

 

Having stashed stuff at my folks place for a year, the driver with forearms like fat hams and much wireless gizmo ferried an early-morning Nick to the airport and, feeling a bit nervous, casting about for things to talk about, I noticed a big building facade near the Albert Bridge, with my full name on it.  I´m a sucker for an omen.  Whether it meant I´d shortly be a pile of rubble dotted with portaloos I don´t know.

 

So en route to Miami from Heathrow, after wandering round the Harrods concession and thinking how much it was like Woolworths, only tartan, I met a lass called Eriwhen from Cardiff who was going diving in Honduras.  Struck home how I´m likely to meet a lot of 20-somethings on this trip.

 

V for Vendetta and a Cary Grant film passed and we touched down in an overcast, thirty-degree Miami International.  It´s one of the worst airports I´ve been to.  The place was shambolic with queues for passport control stretching back into the 1900s, wanker security guards, unsmiling and overweight staff, begrudged help.  They had a notice pinned up to the Immigration desks - "Been to the World Cup in Germany?  You Might Have German Measles."  Couldn´t wait to leave.

 

So I settled down into the second plane where Van Morrison warbled about going Into The Mystic, and by jove it felt like it.  But got chatting to Anthony, an nice American guy with a book of Spanish grammar and malfunctioning seat, and a woman who was born in Quito and going back for an annual family pilgrimage.

 

It was a clear night with a full moon, and we could see Quito laying below, fanning out like a wave.  It´s situated in a valley so looks like a tiger skin rug, all strange fingers of suburbia and stripes of undulating light.  Hats off to the pilot cos the landing is very tight, with mountains and volcanoes on each side of the runway.  And you come in over a very busy road, can see the drivers teeth reflecting the streetlight.

 

Taxi to secret graden hostel, and first drink of the day, a cold beer, and just a twist of the arm later and I was in town playing pool and drinking, had been up for 24 hours by this point because of the time differences.

 

And so here I am now in a cafe in the Old Town, and outside are Indian ladies selling strange fruit, but herbs and mountain flowers, shouting something, and there are churches, and plazas, and police with fucken huge alsations, and it´s all good.  Going to set up my Spanish lessons tomorrow and maybe get a cable car up to a smallish mountain overlooking the city.  The people in the hostel have been ridiculously friendly really and long may it continue.

 

I think the only trouble is going to be deciding what to leave out.