Days 74, 75 and 76: "Woah, we´re half way there"

Day 74
Having arrived late at the hostel the night before, I was the only one awake in the dorm room at 4am. Settling down into bed I turned on my head torch and started to read. Without any warning the guy in the bunk below me let out the loudest and most inhuman noise I have ever heard. Such was its force it made the beds and windows in the room shake! I can only describe it as being like the noise a dead body would make were it to be brought back to life: a sharp intake of air combined with a deathly scream. Obviously everyone in the room woke up and sat bolt upright shaking with fear. They all turned in the direction of the noise and what did they see but me with my head torch on. The next morning I found out that everyone had asked to be transfered out of the room because of me!! I spent most of the day telling everyone in the hostel that I was innocent, but I dont think they believed me.

Quito is a mere 22km south of the Equator and so I headed out on a day trip to the Mitad Del Mundo equator park. Today was Ecuadorian Mothers Day and a Sunday, both of which meant that the bus to Mitad was crammed with jolly-looking locals carrying red roses. The atmosphere at the equator park was festival-like with live music and salsa dancing. The crowd went absolutely crazy when a local celebrity called Paulina Tamayo came to the stage!

Of course I took many clichéd photos with one foot in each hemisphere.

The guides there also introduced me to some interesting equator facts. I had been noticing on this trip that  I was eating more and more but weighing less and less. Now I know why. Due to the earth´s bulge, the closer you get to the equator, the weaker the gravitational force and hence the less you weigh! Comparing England and Ecuador that means I weigh a whopping 3 kilograms less here than back home. Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_gravity#Latitude . Other ´fun´ little experiments involved trying to balance an egg on a pin head (supposedly easier at the equator) and swirling water above and below the line (supposedly the water swirls in a different direction). I am a bit dubious.

I had some pristiños for desert, a fried dough covered in cinnamon honey. Here is a recipe http://www.suite101.com/content/fried-pristios-in-syrup-recipe-a88875

I returned to Quito afterwards and had a look round the historical center before spending the evening chatting to people in the hostel.

Midnight tonight marked the half-way point of my trip.

Day 75
Quito, like most South American capitals, is nestled amongst the mountains. The city has a multimillion-dollar sky tram called the TeleferiQo (god knows why there is a capital Q in the name) which takes passengers up the flanks of the largest of these, a volcano called Pichincha. I got there early in the morning and was the only person about. This turned out not to be a good thing as half way up the mountain my cable car stopped and I spent 15 minutes dangling several thousand meters above the ground not knowing what was going on. In addition, the sudden stop left my cable car swinging at a nausea-inducing rate. Thankfully it did stop and I reached the viewing platform at 4,100 meters. This was not the summit of the volcano though and I do love to summit things. There was a brief sentence in my guidebook saying that there was an unofficial path to the top (4,700 meters) and that the hike would take three hours each way. So I set off.

The path began simply enough and I spent the first hour happily walking up scraggy slopes.

However after that the path came to an abrupt end and I was faced with a sheer cliff wall. I thought ´what the heck´ and decided to put my rock climbing experience in London to the test (but this time without a safety rope). A little adrenaline later and I scaled this wall to find the continuation of the path.

However the path soon disappeared again and many more hairy rock climbs were required. I had gone so far now there was no turning back though. As I got higher and higher the weather got weirder and weirder. For a while there were rapid fluctuations between bright sunlight and freezing cloud (the changes happening every 10 seconds or so) then a thick fog set in with a light smattering of rain.

It felt like some weird other-worldly landscape and only the occasional wooden sign gave me hope that I was still on planet Earth. However it began to dawn on me that nobody knew I was climbing the volcano today, I was the only person around for miles (because it was so early in the morning) and the cloud was so thick that a storm was possibly brewing. I realised that I could very easily get lost up here (the signs were hard to spot in the fog) or even worse fall and nobody would find me for weeks. Still, I had been walking for 2 hours and was not about to give up now. The final ascent required a madly suicidal scramble up a nearly vertical rockface. My hands were red raw from gripping the rock and my trousers were somewhat shredded due to my hugging the wall so closely. Eventually though I reached the summit!

Or so I claim, as you might be able to see that the volcano did actually go a bit higher behind this mini-peak. The extra climb would take a further 45 minutes and with the weather rapidly turning and my growing certainty that I would die up this mountain I decided to return. I allowed myself the luxury of one photo before rushing back down the mountain

The path down was 1000% more dangerous than the path up as the rocks were slippery and the gravel would crumble beneath your feet creating a mini avalanche. I did spend quite a lot of time free-sliding down. After a little while I encountered two other climbers, both as fearful for their lives as me. They informed me that this volcano was actually a rather technical assent and should only be climbed by experienced climbers with equipment. Oops! Anyway they decided it would be safer to return before reaching the summit and so I had some companions for the route down. After two hours we reached the TeleferiQo again and treated ourselves to a very late lunch (it was now 4pm) at one of Quitos shopping centers. We ate so so much to replenish our starved muscles and enjoyed swapping travelling stories.

Among my many courses was a bag of pan de yuca, a bread made from cheese and yuca flour. So delicious. Here is a recipe http://laylita.com/recipes/2008/01/14/pan-de-yuca-pan-queso/

I also had a cinnabon chocolate deluxe pastry.

Returning to the hostel I was in a somewhat hyper post-exercise mood and managed to speak to literally every person in the place. I then sought out a local second-hand book store that had been recommended to me. Entering throught the door I realised I had found Mecca. There were thousands of English language books on every subject! I was able to find every book I had been searching for for weeks and was able to sell my old books there for a fair bit of money. The shop was run by a legend of an American man, stout, drunk as a skunk, highly knowledgeable about every book in the place and not unwilling to take the piss out of his customers. As he sank several beers I had a great time attempting witty banter . He surprised me by saying that the most popular authors are Joyce, Homer and Sartre. It turns out that the majority of travellers in South America are rather intellectual sorts. It was amazing to browse the shelves and see the weird and wonderful books that various travellers had thought to bring to South America for their holiday reading. I mean there were whole rows of literary criticism, 10kg leather bound books of French philosophy and so many copies of the Canterbury Tales it was unreal. I sold ´Between the Assassinations´, a great book about India that I had just finished, and bought various new books.

That evening entertained the happy coincidence of my last night in Quito and the end of the Ley Seca (a national alcohol prohibition imposed for that week´s referendum). I had risotto and cocktails with some great English girls I met, then we joined the others from the hostel at the local Irish pub. The atmosphere was amazing, with everyone in the bar chatting to each other and the landlady was an absolute force of nature. It turns out she is from a rather posh background and is good friends with ´Kate´ and her sister, though she is yet to meet ´Will´. We were rather star-struck by this revelation! I drank rather lot and a fun night was had.

Day 76
The following morning was less fun though as I had to wake up early to check out. I had been lucky enough to go up to now without having lost a single item all trip, but when packing I realised my towel was missing from the hook on the side of my bed. Asking around it turns out that the hostel´s cleaner is a notorious towel thief and almost everyone had suffered at her hands. Grrr.

I spent my final few hours back in the historical center visiting various churches and plazas. Of particular note was the Monasterio de San Francisco (I have now been to such a monastery in every capital city of South America) and the gothic Basilica del Voto Nacional. I climbed up the many towers of the latter for some impressive views of the city, but lets just say health and safety is not big in Ecuador as the climb was highly dangerous up rickety ladders with no safety support.

I treated myself to lunch at the Magic Bean (a restaurant recommended to me by Jo) and indulged in a rocky road brownie for desert.

My taxi to the airport was annoyingly involved in a mini car crash and even though were was no damage the various police/insurance matters meant I was a little late getting there. I flew to Bogota in Colombia, then transfered to a flight down to Santiago in Chile.