Who Loves Ya Baby? Quito Does.

The first time Drew and I arrived in Quito , we were mobbed at the airport with cameras and reporters. It was a hero´s welcome. You get used to it after a while.

Yesterday, we unexpectedly returned to Quito. As we crested over the Andes and down into the valley where Quito sits, the city greeted us with rainbows and snow-capped mountains. The locals tell me this is a rare sight. Quito loves us. Unfortunately, the pictures didn´t come out very well so I can´t pass them on.

On Monday, Drew and I had to make a hasty departure from the beach. We had about 30 minutes to find all of our stuff, throw it in a bag, and get out the door. I shot the sheriff, but I didn´t shoot the deputy. Drew did. (That joke would probably work better in the Caribbean.) Actually, a Canadian we met offered us a lift back to Quito. I know that is can be a bit dangerous to accept rides through the jungle with people you don´t know real well, but in this topsy-turvy world if you can´t trust a Canuck then who can you trust? Besides, it beats taking an eight hour bus ride with a bunch of screaming kids at the end of a holiday weekend.

On the way back to Quito we drove through a large town and was met with an impromptu toll road. A guy with no legs was sitting in the middle of the road with a rope tied around his waist and the other end looped around a post on the far side of the road. Each time a car approached he raised the rope and demanded his fee. Apparently Canadians don´t pay tolls. Instead of stopping, we accelerated. Wisely, our Ecuadorian friend lowered the rope.

Drew and I will only be in Quito for a day to resupply, do some laundry, and relax. The city is a cooler and it is nice to enjoy a bit of fall weather after a month of 80 degrees. There are lots more police on the streets right now, so the government seems to be taking this crime wave seriously. Tomorrow, we hop a bus to Baños to check out the hot springs and volcano there.

A Nate is Equal To...

In Ecuador everything is for sale.

Last Friday, Drew, George (a Winconsinite we ran into), and I were in the Old Town of Quito. We cut around a corner and entered a little plaza with people milling around and a few vendors scattered along the side. I was bringing up the rear of our troop when an old man approached me holding out a tape measure. The tape was extended out about three feet and he was shouting "Un Metro, Un Metro! Una dollar!"

I always wanted my own unit of measurement so I jumped at the opportunity to buy the meter. Actually, I bought two. I smashed my two meters together to form a "Nate". Unfortunately, one of my meters was a little shorter then the other. Consequently, the Nate is slightly shorter than two meters, but still longer than a smoot.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

We saw the equator today. Maybe. Probably.

The Mitad Del Mundo (Middle of the World) lies about 15 km north of Quito and is the supposed location of the equator based on a French survey in the 19th Century. In the 1930´s the Ecuadorian government built a large pedestal and globe on the site and declared it the middle of the world. Despite the governments claim, it probably isn´t.

New surveys, aided by the GPS system, suggest that the real equator lies about 300 meters north of the monument. Not to be outdone, a local family conducted another survey, sans GPS, and claimed the real equator is 700 meters south of the monument, conviently running right through their family-owned museum. To cover our bases we wandered around to all of them.

In the end it doesn´t seem to really matter. After the Mitad Del Mundo monument went up a entire fake village sprung up in order to ensure that no tourist went home empty handed. They compare their "village" to Disney World, but it falls a little short. It is a bit closer to something like the world´s largest ball of string. The fun part of the adventure was the lack of gringos present. A few showed up while we were they, but mostly the park was filled with Ecuadorians taking their kids out on a Saturday afternoon.

This is a good time to mention the "Gringo Tax" that is levied both official and unofficially throughout Ecuador and most of South America. Unofficially it shows occasionly when you purchase something on the street. Yesterday, while buying an avacado we noticed that it cost a dollar for gringos and fifty cents for locals. Ironically, this rarely upsets the Americans or Europeans since the tax is never more than a buck or two, but it really upsets a lot of locals. They think it gives their countrymen a bad name and I witnessed one Quitoian yelling at a merchant who over-charged a gringo.

The offical Gringo Tax is even more fun. At a lot of sites, including the Midal Del Mundo, the admission sign has to columns: one for Ecudorians and one for Foreigners. Today it was a dollar entrance fee for locals and two or three dollars for Foreigns. This doesn´t happen all the time, but often enough to be funny.

This is our last day in Quito. Tomorrow we head for the Ecudorian coast and a small town called Canoa. This is were Drew and I will be attempting to relearn any Spanish that we once knew.

Adios.