Quito is Quite Scary

 

My first real international travel experience started with what was supposed to be six days in Ecuador. It was a leg of the trip added just a few weeks before our departure. I wanted Peru, our friend Carey wanted the Galapagos Islands, and Kenn didn’t care as long as we went somewhere. So, since we had to fly through Quito, Ecuador to fly out to the birthplace of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, I thought it just made sense to spend some time on the mainland and explore a country I had never really considered as a destination.
The morning of our departure we could never have guessed the events that were to transpire: unusual challenges, occasional bouts of pure terror, and awe-inspiring closeness to nature. And, I mean really close! I couldn’t have wished for a better first-time third world experience.
Arriving at midnight, it dawned on me that Ecuador was actually
somewhere a lot of people would consider a crazy place to holiday. I was nervous, asking myself, “Can I really do this?” I wanted to. I hoped I could, but all the while I was thinking, “Oh good god! There’s no turning back now.” But we got a taxi to our hostel with no drama.
Our first full day in Quito consisted of touring the Plaza de Armas with its centuries-old Spanish colonial architecture and visiting the massive statue of the Virgin of the Apocalypse.
I don’t really understand why there’s a giant statue beckoning the end of the world at one of the highest peaks in the city, but you can climb up inside it and take a 360 degree
view look at this South American capital.

 

Our second day turned out to be somewhat more tumultuous.
While meandering through the streets of the downtown area, a lady came running out of her travel agency with a look of concern.
“Are you American?” she asked.
Usually, I say I’m from Canada (nobody hates Canada), but this time I told the truth. “Yes.”
“You need to get out of the city,” she told me.
“What? Why? What’s happening?” I asked her.
“They already lit the Sheraton on fire!” she responded.
“Are you effing kidding me?!” I thought. There just happened to be a demonstration against the spread of NAFTA into South America that day, and unfortunately it turned out to be a moderately anti-American demonstration. I had been wondering why there were so many soldiers in full-on riot gear surrounding such a large area of the city, along with a bevy of tanks in the streets; I figured it was just another day in Quito. I mean, it’s not like I’d ever been there before.
We hailed a cab and took off for the bus station, en route to Las Termas de Papallacta (papa-yahkta), somewhere high in the Andes. Our bus ride proved to be somewhat precarious. Around one petrifyingly sharp turn we nearly had a head-on collision with a Mack truck. Kenn, being on the cliff side of the bus, made a futile attempt to save his life by jumping across his row of seats towards the road side of the bus. Carey and I just froze in terror. I thought I was going to die. As I watched the gravel/mud road disappear
below the windshield all I could think was, “Why did I pick Ecuador?” Fortunately for us, the bus ground to a halt, the front end casually hanging over the precipice.
Tragedy averted, we continued down the road until I saw a sign notifying us that our intended destination, the small town of Papallacta, was a mile away...behind us. We had missed our stop and had to walk back up the muddy road in the chilling rain, me dragging my roller bag behind me. All I needed was some white Manolo pumps and I could have been Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone. My quest for the title of “world traveler” was off to a slow start.
We finally made it to the hot springs we wanted to visit, huge man-made pools fed by a geothermal spring. I felt like Goldilocks going from one pool to the next. “This one’s too hot. This one’s too cold. Ahhhh, this one’s just right.” We drank Heineken in cans and lounged all day. That part was good.
Two days later we were driving up Mt. Cotapaxi in the back of a converted Datsun
pick-up truck that was probably around my age. We arrived at some kind of lookout
point, but what with the blizzard and all, we couldn’t see a thing our guide was pointing out to us. Suddenly, the truck started sliding down the frozen dirt road with the three of us in the back and with no driver. Kenn, the only smart one, jumped out to save himself, leaving Carey and I to fend for ourselves. Again we froze in terror and after we hit the snow bank that ended our accidental descent we promptly informed our guide that we had seen enough and were ready to go back down. But wait, there’s more.
After returning to the Pan-American freeway, we made the unfortunate discovery that the bus stop that was alleged to be there, according to my travel book, wasn’t there anymore (that’s a tip: always use recently published media). Hitchhiking what is arguably one of the most dangerous stretches of road in the world, as far as kidnapping
foreigners and holding them for ransom, was not a good time. But after about an hour a bus stopped and picked us up. We sat on the steps by the door. But wait, there’s more.
About twenty minutes had passed when it started raining mud. The driver was hurtling this overcrowded bus at breakneck speeds, looking through a spot of windshield the size of my fist. It wasn’t until he pulled over that I realized it really was raining mud. We would learn that while our little daytrip was going on three volcanoes had erupted all around Quito. I got excited and Carey chided me for my lack of worrying about death and destruction. I just thought it was cool a volcano, no three volcanoes, erupted where I was. That coolness would later wear off; midnight seemed to come at four o’clock that afternoon as a cloud of ash blanketed the city. We bought some surgical masks from a guy on the street and set out to find some vodka.
We spent the next two days hoping the airport would reopen, but when that didn’t happen we decided to grab an overnight bus to Guayaquil (g-why-uh-keel) on the coast. So, six days, five kicks to the gut, we were ahead. Ten hours on a cramped bus was only made manageable by a two-liter bottle of cosmos and knowing we would be in the Galapagos Islands in less than twenty-four hours. We hoped.