We assembled in the restaurant for breakfast in various states of hang-over. A great deal of food and a lot of tea was consumed by all. Today’s target was the Panecillo, the hill with the angel overlooking the city.
Jackie set off on his bicycle and Hannes from Bavaria and Aneka, and Anja from Sweden joined me to bundle into a taxicab which cost us 300 Sucres to take us to the summit of Panecillo hill. There was a good panoramic view of the city and the surrounding hills.
We sat on the grass while the two girls made pulseras (colourful woven wrist bands). Interested locals and dogs looked on with bemusement at Jackie went through his daily yoga routine. The sun peeped out a few times and we had several short sharp showers.
After a couple of hours, we got a pickup taxi to the Plaza de Independencia and went to a restaurant for lunch. We had a huge three course almuerzo at a table adjacent to one occupied by four transvestites. The Spanish verb “to eat lunch” is almorzar and the noun is almuerzo. The traditional almuerzo, also known as menu del día, is a fixed-price fixed-menu lunch, served from around 12:30 p.m. till around 3 p.m. in Ecuador. Traditionally, the almuerzo is the big meal of the day.
We sat around for a bit and then I went out to look at some camouflage T-shirts that they had in the market. I had seen them earlier but the stall was not there anymore, so I pushed back through the press of people and returned to the hotel.
At 17:30 hrs. I went to the cinema with Hannes and the two Swedish blokes (Kent and ?). We saw “The Hitcher” which all three of us has seen before, but thought it was worth seeing again.
While driving through the New Mexico Desert during a rainy night, the college students Jim Halsey and his girlfriend Grace Andrews give a ride to the hitchhiker John Ryder. While in their car, the stranger proves to be a psychopath threatening the young couple with a knife, but Jim succeeds to throw him out of the car on the road. On the next morning, the young couple sees John in another car with a family, and while trying to advise the driver that the man is dangerous, they have an accident. While walking on the road, they find the whole family stabbed in the car, and John sees that the driver is still alive. He drives to a restaurant seeking for help, but the police blame Jim and Grace to the murder and send them to the police station. However, John kills the policemen and pursues the couple, playing a tragic and violent mouse and cat game with Grace and Jim.
It cost us 125 Sucres and the auditorium was packed with people of all ages, even little kids. For the rest of the evening we played a card game called Cheat while the Swedes told us of the numerous times that they had been robbed in Peru and Brazil:
* Robbed sneakily and at knife point on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on 2 occasions at night.
* A money changer running off with all their travellers cheques in Salvador in Brazil.
* A midnight intruder in their hotel room in Brazil who was later caught and beaten by the police to recover their money.
* Numerous tales of bag slashing, snatching, pickpocketing and diversionary ruses.
The evening left us feeling very wary about travelling through Peru and Brazil but made us more determined to be security conscious.
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