fear and loathing in quito

chewing gum vendor, quito

who sat next to the psychopath who got arrested as soon as we touched down in miami airport? i did!!! damn he was sexy though. i found myself fantasising about him between his crazy outbursts.

ice-cream vendors, quito old town

i tell you what though, 3 hours transit in miami were more than enough for me. perhaps it was the fact that i had just come from paris, but looking around at a terminal full of obese people with mismatched clothing and bad haircuts who simply didn't care what they looked like precipitated an acute episode of culture shock. i wanted to get one of those massive portable loudspeakers to make a general announcement "can i have your attention please americans! for the love of god, will you please just tidy yourselves up".

where's the fucking chicken?

through airbnb.com i had rented a room in the apartment of an ecuadorian lady living in the heart of quito new town, mariscal sucre. she was fun and lovely, but there was no denying she had a personality disorder. i arrived on a saturday night, but my bags didn't, so i reshuffled the clothing on my body to minimise the stench and after a few drinks with a swiss gringette, i headed out to dance all night at balzac, a gaybar packed to the rafters with ecuadorian faggots. it was a damn good night.

quito is not my favourite place in the world. it seems that everyone i've talked to has either been mugged there or had a good friend of theirs mugged. though nothing happened to me, after hearing all the stories and talking to locals, i quickly developed the fear. the streets, especially at night, are just barren and unfriendly, and you get the feeling that the city itself hates you. fucking ugly city. at one stage i walked a few kilometres north of my apartment to catch a film at a local cinema. i was actually stopped on the street by a local who told me that it was too dangerous and that i had better take a taxi or i'd be mugged, before wishing me 'good luck'. how reassuring. i took to stomping around like a psychopath in order to make people more afraid of me than i was of them.

but it wasn't all bad. once i had reined in my jetlag i was able to have some fun with gringos and locals alike, including the gay ex-pat cuban community which is so big that they've even got their own club for gay cubans (club magenta). who would have thought? shit those boys can salsa. you could break an egg on their buns. or fry one. i also got in some good hours of spanish study, and explored the old town, whose spanish-colonial architecture left me singularly unimpressed. the second best thing about quito is the geographic setting - a high valley between two mountains that have a suburban sprawl clinging to their bases and green cloud-covered peaks above. every morning i would look out my window at those wonderful peaks just before the clouds came rolling in over them. it was truly beautiful. for reference, the best thing about quito is the road out.

and so week #1 is over. i was about to take a 10 hour bus ride from quito to cuenca until i realised that i am a (comparatively) rich gringo with chronic back pain, and paying $30 more for a 50 minute plane ride was right up my alley as far as transport was concerned. my plan is to put my head down and study spanish 24 hours a day for the next three weeks. little success so far, but more about that later. i'm posting photos on instagram for all of you who have this iphone app (hello_ondrej is my name!), and am trying to post a photo a day to facebook, so watch out for those and let me know what you think!

hasta la vista baby