Ecuador

Tuesday 23rd February 1988

I whiled away the morning with a short walk east of the hostel, browsing around the huge, well-stocked automercado on the way to the suburb of San Pedro. Returning, I got photocopies of my vital documents in the “Goldfish Copier Shack” next to the youth hostel.

I read for a bit, then showered (cold!) and shaved and put on my “best” shirt for the plane trip to Ecuador. At 11:50 hrs. I shouldered my pack and said goodbye to camp José in the restaurant, who said I looked beautiful! I walked across the city for the last time to the Bus Terminal.

There was a continuous queue for Alajuela and the Aeropuerto and a soon as a bus was full it left and another empty one immediately took it’s place. We passed near to the airport, but we didn’t stop at any obvious alighting point for it. Thus, I travelled to the end of the route at Alajuela missing the airport along the way.

I had to get a return bus (only another ₡ CRC 15) but now I was worried about the time. I sat impatiently while the bus slowly filled. It seemed like an eternity, but it was only about five minutes until it pulled into the forecourt of the airport.

I was clutching my plane ticket to Quite. VARIG BRAZILIAN AIRLINES number SJO VIO-RG #0424226884910 San Jose to Quito 23/02/1988.

It was now 13:20 hrs. so I immediately checked in at the VARIG desk and paid my departure tax of ₡ CRC 313 and spent my remaining colones on a cheese and ham toasted sandwich and a coffee. I passed smoothly through Immigration and met two nice Swedish girls and a mad Scotsman called Jackie Smith in the Departure Lounge.

Jackie had cycled across America from New York to Los Angeles and then down through Central America. He was now flying with his bicycle to Ecuador to continue his journey south. He only had shorts and a vest on and was most disgruntled when the captain told him that he had to wear long trousers for the flight.

He had to scrobble about in the hold to get some long trousers and put them on. The huge VARIG 767 was virtually empty with only about 30 passengers on board. The flight took less than two hours and was fairly uneventful with a nice snack and a non-descript in-flight movie.

We landed and went easily through Customs and Immigration at 18:00 hrs. and then changed up some money. There were 376 Sucres to the $U.S. dollar, or 660 to £1 Sterling. The Sucres was the currency of Ecuador between 1884 and 2000. Its ISO code was ECS and it was subdivided into 10 Decimos or 100 Centavos. The Sucres was named after Latin American political leader Antonio José de Sucres. Today Ecuador uses the $U.S. dollar as its official currency.

Jackie retrieved his bicycle and managed to break away from his fascinated audience at the airport and pedalled off towards the town centre. The two Swedish girls and I took the number 16 bus, at a cost of 10 Sucres, to the Plaza Santa Domingo. This busy square in Old Town is dominated by the Iglesia de Santo Domingo and the church museum.

The city of Quito looked distinctly European and reminded me of Athens in Greece. Quito (Quechua: Kitu; formally San Francisco de Quito) is the capital of Ecuador, the closest capital city to the equator, and at an elevation of 2,850 m (9,350 ft) above sea level, the second-highest official capital city in the world after La Paz in Bolivia. It is located in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains.

The historic centre of Quito is one of the largest, least altered, and best-preserved in the Americas. Quito and Kraków, Poland, were the first World Cultural Heritage Sites declared by UNESCO, in 1978. The central square of Quito is located about 25 km (16 miles) south of the equator; the city itself extends to within about 1 km (0.62 miles) of zero latitude. A monument and museum marking the general location of the equator is known locally as la mitad del mundo (the middle of the world) to avoid confusion since the word Ecuador is Spanish for "equator".

The bus struggled through rush hour traffic, and we got off near the centre of the city. There were lots of military and police on the streets and a couple of armoured cars, the response to students protesting on the streets of the capital.

I had studied the map of Quito on the plane and led the way through the narrow undulating streets from the Plaza Santa Domingo to the Gran Casino Hotel. The girls struggled along behind me, complaining that I was walking too fast.

Jackie was already at the hotel, and we got a double room together for 300 Sucres each. The first room that we were allocated had only one double bed and the second one had no light. We ate a good cheap meal at the hotel for about 250 Sucres and a couple of Pilsener beers.

Pilsener is a Pilsner - Bohemian / Czech style beer brewed by Cervezas Nacionales in Guayaquil, Ecuador. This was the first beer in South America and my first one south of the equator.

We went out for a walk at 21:00 hrs. but most places were closed, and the local indigenous Indians were settling down to sleep on the pavements around the plazas. We returned to the hotel where we had a final beer, as there was no water available, and went to bed.

Earlier we had chatted to a Spanish traveller, which was good for improving our Spanish language, and he seemed like a good bloke. In our room I had to perch on a stool balanced precariously on a table to change the light bulb. This heritage hotel had high ceilings.