Sphere: Related ContentHey All! Its Amanda making an appearance on the boy´s famous website. I thought I would give them a little break from the writing and make a post myself. It was so good to finally be in South America and meet up with my brother and Adam, I could hardly believe it when I saw them at the airport, I was half expecting to get there and be totally on my own! (Me of little faith). But of course they were there and greatly impressed me by their Spanish skills when hailing a taxi back to our hostel.
For the first full day in Quito, we decided to hit up Old Town, the more historic and architecturally interesting section of town. The definate highlight was our trip into The Basillica. It is this hugely imposing, gothic style church that looks like it belongs right out of medieval Europe or something. It sits high up on a hill in Old Town so its steeples are visable from many different areas of town. When we got there, we weren´t sure we wanted to go in; it cost $2 and the boys had seen so many churches at this point that it didn´t seem like it would be anything new. But boy were we wrong! This church rivaled many that I had seen in Europe; huge gothic arches, giant stainglass windows…but the best part was that they let you climb up very high into the bell tower. Now, had this church been in America, I´m pretty sure this climb would have been a major hazard and would be roped off. But lucky for us, it wasn´t. We climbed up these steel ladders, amazed at every level that they were letting us go even higher up the tower! When we finally reached the top level, we found that the floor was made of metal beams and mesh…It was quite nerve racking actually. And then of course, they had this little ledge you could crawl out on and look over the city…and of course, Jordan and Adam had to go full out on it and totally freak me out. I just sat and looked out over the city instead, preffering to keep both of my feet INSIDE the church. On the way down from the tower, we stopped at this little cafe that had an amazing view of Quito; I mean seriously, these views rivaled ones you might see from the Space Needle. Except, our lunch cost about $2 a person instead of $50.
The next day, we took a ´Journey to the Center of the World´, quite literally. We decided to visit El Mitad del Mundo, the middle of the world. They have this amusement park type setting, minus the rides, where you can walk up and down a red painted equator and jump back and forth between hemispheres. But first, we had to figure out the crazy Quito bus system. Basically, you just stand on the side of the street were it says ´parada´ and wait for the bus you want to come zooming along. You quite literally have to flag the bus down as you would flag down a taxi. So once we found the bus to El Mitad del Mundo, and rode it for 45 minutes, we hopped off at the last stop. But alas, no Middle of the World was to be found. We did see a sign, however, that pointed to the direction of our destination. So we started walking, and then we walked some more, and then we kept walking down this busy highway; but still, no middle of the world. Finally, we asked how far it was and found out that it was over another hour of a walk. We were supposed to have switched buses and continued on, ahh, at least we know that now. So we hailed down another bus and the rest of the journey was uneventful. Once we were at El Mitad del Mundo, there was little to do but jump back and forth between the hemispheres. The funniest thing was that when we were in the Southern hemisphere it was Winter, and when we crossed this red line on the ground it was Summer. It was crazy feeling! And all and all, a very fun time was by all.
And then yesterday. Oh, that was a fun day. Actually, most of the day was spent at the Internet Cafe trying to decide what we were going to do about going to/bypassing Colombia. (We decided to take a flight straight to Panama City as that will save us time and will keep us quite a bit safer). Well, after a while, I started to feel restless. I mean, its my 3rd day in South America and I want to do something I´ve never done before! So I tell the boys, lets take a Salsa Class. To be honest, I just wanted to walk around and look at prices, I didn´t expect to find a place that would give us a spur of the moment lesson…but it turns out we found one right away. And let me tell you, it was a blast! We learned 5 different steps and then started in on partner dancing. Oh, I´m sure so many people would like to see a video of us attempting to do Salsa, but pictures will have to do. Trust me, I just crack up thinking about it. We had to do all these turns and we kept going the wrong way. And then Jordan with his Robot Arms…haha! It was so nice of the boys to humor me though and join in. I guess there is a Salsa Club in Antigua, Guatemala. I said that we should keep taking classes in all of the major cities and make it a goal to wow everyone on the dance floor. The boys say maybe we should aim at competancy instead… Anyway, afterwards we hung out at this bar for a while and shared this huge Jarra of Pilsner. It was a blast!
Anyway, now we are in Riobamba, a town 4 hours south of Quito and very high up in the Andes. We leave very early tomorrow morning for a train that will take us down El Nariz del Diablo, The Devil´s Nose. It should be pretty fun as we get to sit on top of the boxcar! More to follow on that of course. Our plan is to continue to make our way to Guayaquil where we will catch a plane on Sunday to Panama City. Love to all!
July 13, 2006