Quito

Watching documentaries always reminds me of how much peace nature gives me and how grateful we should be living on this beautiful planet with all its beauty. 

It inspired me watching a documentary on my way to South America and knew I‘d be spending most of my time outside exploring different types of wildlife and nature. 

The documentary reminded me of things we should remind ourselves each and every day.

We forget that without all these resources nature offers us for free we couldn’t exist. It’s not that I want to become missionary, but want to more appreciate what we have and live in harmony with it.

Everything is alive and everything is connected, it doesn’t run by itself, everything needs eachother.

ITS ALL ABOUT CONNECTION AND DIVERSITY, two pillars that hold our planet together!

Glad to have finally arrived after a 11 and 5 hour flight with stopover in Houston/US, but having passed customs real quick, there was no glimpse of my bag at the luggage band. After another look, I claimed at the desk that my bag was missing. They immediately found the bag still resting in Houston....they hadn’t managed to transfer it within 2 hours, ridiculously! They promised to deliver it the next day to my hostel, but not before midnight since it would be sent with that one late flight I had taken today.

Ok then get to the driver to move in to my hostel „Vibes“ in the middle of Quito.

Next surprise just ahead. We passed several bars and clubs close to the hostel and many people on the streets, it was past midnight already. I got out of the taxi just about to ring the hostel’s doorbell when a group of youngsters started to get in a bad fight throwing beer bottles at eachother. Quickly got in to the hostel, simply falling in to bed.

Not having my bag, I collected some items from my hand luggage for showering, even my Kenyan kikoi as a towel, but no shower gel. I asked the girl showering before me and she borrowed me hers. We got to chat at breakfast. While my luggage was supposed to be delivered this night, she had lost hers 5 weeks ago and it didn’t appear since then. If you think your situation is bad, it can always be worse. 

We spent the rest of the day together buying some warm clothes for the rather cold temperature of 13 degrees and rain. Both of us didn’t have enough warm things, mine were in my luggage.

Successfully equipped with a pullover and a local SIM card for 15 Dollars including 2GB we had some lunch at „Fried Bananas“ just around the corner....Ecuadorian style rice with prawns and typical almond flavored coffee.

She left the same evening for the Galapagos and we were supposed to meet upon her return in 10 days.

Next morning I woke up again early and lonely. Just as I got to know this UK girl, she left and even though I spoke to some Norwegian and Israelian guy at breakfast, I didn’t feel that communicative as usual. I had the same feeling like in Africa the first two weeks missing my friends and family, but with the difference that in Africa I had the charity project I was working on and kept me busy. Here I didn’t really have much activity yet. 

I tried to calm myself down talking to friends back home and practicing patience...it was my second day, I was about to meet my host family and tomorrow school would start. It was a matter of time and trust, that the comfort zone would come step by step.

I told myself „go out and explore, don’t sit around“, so I walked towards the Botanical Garden, which was only a fifteen minute walk away. Finally I felt better being outside, sun was shining, local food was around and the beautiful flowers helped me find piece of mind.

Late afternoon I moved to the more historical part of Quito, where my guest family was supposed to wait for me. The Uber driver dropped me off in Calle Mexico and I quickly found my place. Lorene Campaña is a lady living with her grown up daughter in a spacious apartment. I have my own room as well as Hartmut from Germany, who is visiting the same school as me. The only difference, that he is already ower 60 years old. 

Lorene makes us speak Spanish only, so we sat together for dinner and had a simple conversation while dining. Soon I went to my room to relax and fall asleep soon.

Next morning after breakfast Hartmut and I made our 15 minute way towards the school. Our teacher asked us a few questions and soon realized according to our Spanish knowledge that we could continue the class together. We spent the following 4 hours practicing vocabulary and times. Slowly my memories are coming back and during the whole time the teacher speaking only Spanish I could understand almost everything! That gave me confidence that I would proceed quickly although I was still a bit shy to speak. Patience and trust is the key...

Since it was already 1pm, Hartmut and I looked for a place for lunch and soon found a small local restaurant. I simply tried a dish called Corvino, which is a breaded sea bass fish and Patacones, fried bananas. With a drink and coffee after only 3 Dollars.

Now it was some time for diving into the historical area of Quito, so joined a free walking tour. Pamela showed us and two other girls, also from Germany, most interesting areas of the historical town explaining lot of history. Even though I can never remember this kind of information for very long, I still enjoyed the moments and atmosphere the city gave me while she told us several stories. Apart from that, we tried some exotic fruits in a market, some typical sweets and a local hot alcoholic drink named Canelazo. After three hours the tour ended and we gave Pamela 10 Dollars tip each. She was happy and so were we having learned a lot.

The four of us had a coffee together before we separated and agreed to meet the following days for drinks or activities since everyone was traveling my themselves.

Hartmut and I returned to our home for dinner and relaxing...

The second day of Spanish classes went ok, but the teacher was talking more than we did, which was good for practicing to understand, but not to speak. Again, maybe I just need to be patient and at some point I would start talking a bit more.

Hartmut decided to extend his classes to another week because he had only booked for one week. 

Initially I wanted to also spend some time by myself such as this afternoon, but when I proposed to him to join me for lunch and a walk, I didn’t mind, he was glad and I was too in the end. 

You meet people for a reason and when I told him, that I didn’t feel that comfortable yet being on my travels again, he completely understood and made me realize other things. Since I was feeling cold all the time, I thought it might be the jetlag or simply because it was cold here, but he said it might come from not feeling comfortable. Another body reaction besides the stomach that I was feeling. 

It’s an interesting process learning about yourself and what different circumstances do to you, your emotions and to your body. I am trying to just watch what is happening and how it’s maybe gonna change with time passing. I am in a balance between not giving up too fast and giving a new situation time to become reality. At some point I don’t want to force myself continuing if it still doesn’t feel right, which I set myself in two weeks being on the Galapagos islands.

Hartmut and I sat in a cafe after lunch and walked through different shops while talking and telling travel stories.

In the evening we sat together before dinner and did some homework, which was fun also having some help from our hosts nephew. The whole family sat together for dinner and I kind of enjoyed this authentic atmosphere of a South American family with traditional food...

This morning I got up kind of fit and awake, the sun was shining and in the afternoon an excursion was ahead. 

I really underestimated the altitude and what it can do to your body. The first days I really felt extremely tired with a slight headache, which I thought was purely from the jetlag. But that never really affected me that much. It was the altitude and lack of oxygen that made me tired. Now that a few days have passed, more and more energy is coming back, which makes me start to feel alive step by step!

The classes of Spanish went ok...another girl joined our class and the three of us spent the last two hours watching, listening and writing recipes of typical South American dishes. It came to my mind that I would add some private lessons next week to improve my talking skills since I felt that I was missing out on that. Sure we needed to go though the grammar part, but for me it’s more about talking which is difficult in a group of three.

Before heading to lunch and our tour, I booked my days tours for the weekend to: Mindo, Cotopaxi volcano and to the Quilotoa lake. In total 140 Dollars including everything the whole day.

Our tour today took us to the middle of the earth (midad del mundo). We stopped first at the real zero point of longitude and latitude, where a guide explained a bit about Ecuadors culture and history. Quito, the capital, means originally middle of the ecuator. For this reason Quito has no seasons. The sun changes its position every three months and changes from North to South half every half year on Equinox (21st March/September). Also for that reason sun always rises at 6am and sets at 6pm, always 12 hours day and 12 hours night. A really unique and special place I realized I was. 

The second and last stop was the „fakequator“ because it was built when GPS wasn’t precisely enough to set the right location, so the monument was build 150 meters from the real one, which we had already visited at our first stop and tour. 5 Dollars and one UK girl and I got close and to the top of the monument, which was short but worth it.

Our bus driver luckily dropped us of on the way back close to our home.

We had dinner, did our homework and chilled after the long day.

Our Spanish classes today were quite amusing. After we had presented our homeworks, the teacher put up a Mr. Bean episode and we had to in turns describe what was happening. Quite cool because we had to use a lot of words of daily use. For the break the other teacher took us to the supermarket to buy some local snacks (Bocadillitos) and we could try each of them at our school. Time passed by fast as we continued with the final hour of Spanish lesson.

I spent another two hours at school....I needed the Wifi from the school for a phone call with a potential apartment owner since I wanted to maybe move to another place when back in Germany. 

Soon very hungry I made my way towards Plaza Grande where I remembered seeing some nice restaurants in an atrium from our walking tour the other day. These places are of course more expensive than local restaurants, but the atmosphere was worth it today and so I had a delicious fish when Hartmut joined after his tour through a different part of the city. 

For the evening we met Nadine from the walking tour earlier and had a few beers at a bar „La Oficina“, where we also joined some basic salsa lessons. 

Nadine and I agreed on spending the next weekend together for hikes around Cotopaxi. Anyway we didn’t stay out long.

The organized tour picked several people up at 7am in Mariscal area to drive to Mindo, which was 2,5 hours away from Quito. On the way our guide Jaqueline explained that out of 10.000 species there are around 500 only in Ecuador and over 100 different kinds of humming birds, which we were about to see...well not all of course ☺️. This was our first stop just before Mindo, 5 Dollar entrance fee and free coffee/tee. An old lady had created this space with lots of love and details, are garden that offered several food spots for tanager and humming birds.

My favorite spot was then the waterfall hike. A small wagon carried 6 people on a zip line to the other side. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to hike to the big cascada reina, but to a smaller one and maybe I would come back by myself for the others. Anyway I separated from the group and enjoyed the beauty and peacefulness of the rain forest. I was surrounded by deep green forest, my skin covered by humidity and of course moskito repellent, which was necessary. I followed the path, that offered so many different beautiful views on things, that seemed to be perfectly shaped for this museum visit. Everything looked so perfect, that you didn’t want to touch anything, scared of destroying something. The little waterfall with a river connected to it was on the half way followed by a path upwards back to the starting point. I took some time along the path to close my eyes and simply listen to the sounds of the forest, couldn’t have been any more present than in this single moment of peace.

After lunch in town we visited a butterfly farm, nothing special but nice anyway, and were dropped of in Mindo town. Some visited the chocolate factory, but I walked around the town, had coffee and a brownie before we then departed back to Quito. It was worth spending the day, but could have easily gone there alone.

For the evening I met one of the girls that also were on the free walking tour for dinner. We went to a restaurant called Purisima close to the Plaza Grande and tried different dishes for starter, main course and desert....what an art of dishes, each of them delicious and nicely served. After we had also finished our wine, we said goodbye until Galapagos, where we might meet again.

The bus left early morning from Mariscal again and made a first stop after two hours at the chuquiragua lodge for breakfast to then take another 1,5 hour drive to the parking lot at Cotopaxi, already on 4.500 meters. On the way we had bought some coca products such as the leafs and the candy to take either in case of altitude sickness or to prevent it. Also some gloves were needed, so bought these as well.

Just as we started making our way up, I took some candy although I didn’t feel anything yet. Already then I covered myself with 3 jackets and gloves since it felt like autumn where the wind was picking up and it would become even colder the closer we got to the glacier. Unfortunately the top of Cotopaxi was covered in clouds, so only every now and the some parts of the snow slopes appeared.

Some of the group went directly to the refugio after an hour hike, more than half way up, and the rest start towards the glacier. Some more steps fighting against cold and wind until the glacier appeared slightly behind the clouds and finally on arrival showed up for some really good pics.

The guide was nice but a bit stressful chasing us back down soon. By then it even snowed a bit, winter had arrived. The whole group still felt good, but still needed a rest at the refugio, where we could have a hot chocolate. Sun had also appeared and gave us a bit of Springtime feeling. By then I still felt ok even though we had made our way up quickly. The short cut down only took 20 minutes and we got in the bus.

On about 4.300 meters some mountain bikes were waiting for those who wanted to ride downhill. I hesitated, but in the end got out of the bus and got on the bike down the curves and rocky roads until we reached the Limpiopungo Lagoon beneath the Cotopaxi.

Sun was strong down there on 3.800 meters and so I could take off some jackets for almost short sleeves, finally a bit of summer. But there it was the belated feeling of altitude sickness....my head was really painful, so I hoped the lunch at the same lodge would help, but it kept on hurting until I got back home by seven in the evening. Soon after dinner I took a tablet and went to sleep.

Still feeling a bit tired from Cotopaxi, but motivated to see the crater lake and hike a little. Again equipped with warm clothes we left at 7am in a minibus towards South direction Cotopaxi, but Quilotoa was a bit further. Today Hartmut accompanied me since he was resting the past days and was also motivated to see something else than only Quito.

First stop was a local market in Pujili, but we were given only twenty minutes time...just enough to walk around, see the variety of goods and get a feeling of the central meeting point of local people.

Next stop took us to an indigenous home, where we met the family. They explained a bit of history such as their former lives, when the women used to live, cook and sleep in one room with almost 20 kids. The women used to live only up to 35 years because of the amount of births they gave and lots of smoke their body had to inhale from cooking in closed rooms. Luckily their today’s lives have improved, so that the elder with his age of 72 could show us different types of potatoes and was still very active.

Finally arriving at an altitude of 4.000 meters in Quilotoa town, we were left more than 1,5 hours free time. When we approached the first view point of the lake, we knew why we were given that much time. The craters depth was approximately 300 meters in altitude and almost 2km wide. Walking down we took our time stopping for some pictures, but soon had to concentrate on the path with its steepness and kind of dusty sand. After half an hour we reached a platform overlooking the lake and watching the clouds being blown over the lake to give the water different colors and shades every second. 

Soon we made our way up....we chose to walk instead of taking horses they offered. Slowly but steady we accented in less than an hour, faster than expected, but I had a good altitude basis from Cotopaxi, so managed it in good condition. 

After lunch at 2pm the bus took us back to Quito on a 3 hour ride and dropped us close to our home.

The second week began again with Spanish classes and it was quite difficult to pick up again, but worked out well. Hartmut and I spent a relaxing day with food and coffee, also visited the church on our way home...we were still a bit tired from the Quilotoa tour.

Since I had missed four hours of Spanish last week, we added two hours of them to the Tuesday afternoon. I only had an hour for lunch before we continued, so found a really nice vegan restaurant, that offered 3 course menu for 3 Dollars. 

Tiring after 6 hours of classes in one day, but it helped a bit. Hartmut sursprisingly returned to the school to pick me up, he wanted me to go with him to buy new pants. His pockets were cut in the bus and his wallet was stolen. He kind of stayed calm, I would have probably freaked out. Anyway a bit nervous I went with him, in the end also to the police station to give an announcement. No chance to catch the person, but the police was glad to receive such information since they were interested in keeping the city safe for tourists. 

I brought Hartmut home and left shortly after for dinner with the British girl, I had met in my first hostel. We had excellent food at a restaurant in Calle Ronda called „La Casa de los Genarios“, chatted about her experience on the Galápagos Islands and went to her hostel for the last wine.

Since I didn’t carry my wallet except money and my phone I wasn’t that scared to find a taxi in the dark, but after Hartmuts experience more aware of what could happen.

The highlight was then on Wednesday afternoon. With the recommendation of my Spanish teacher Edison, I got in touch with a refugio that rescues injured street dogs. Their driver picked me up in town and we drove outside the city to Tumbaco. On the way I bought some doog food and arrived after an hour.

I was welcomed by more than 80 dogs, all sizes and conditions. It was hard to see that some of them had lost one of their legs, but still were really happy. I was privileged to spend more than two hours with the dogs and the couple that took care. They depend of donations and put all their money from their jobs into this project and manage to find new homes for about 20 dogs per month. For some dogs its not easy to find new homes because they sometimes don’t like other people...like the mixture Tato. He is in the shelter for more than three years, never approaches anyone or stays close. Suddenly he came up to me and didn’t leave. He wanted to cuddle and play. The owner Nicole had tears because she had never seen him this way. I truely fell in love with him and he obviously did with me. 

Nicole and I agreed to stay in touch because I was seriously interested in adopting Tato and bringing him to Germany. Many circumstances need to be clarified before, but nothing is impossible, so we’ll see if it works out. 

Thursday I woke up having a tough night behind me with body pain and problems with my stomach. I simply couldn’t attend the first hours of Spanish....slept a bit and joined later. Still it was hard because I was so weak. Some Paracetamol helped to give me just enough energy to go to the travel agency of Community Hostel for my Galapagos tours and back home. Laying down, eating a soup and sleeping must help I hoped. Still the next day started similarly bad but different. I anyway managed my last classes of school and did some things like ATM and SIM Card Upgrade before we went out for dinner with our host. Hartmut had proposed to invite us and Lorene chose a nice place on a hill, the Vista Hermosa with a view over almost the whole city of Quito.

Next morning straight after breakfast I took off with a taxi to the Secret Garden Hostel. I was about to spend 3 days at their hostel close to Cotopaxi and their shuttle picked me up there.

What was about to come was beyond expectations. After a two hour bus ride with almost 20 people, all kind of my age, we arrived at sn exposed place on a hill overlooking the Cotopaxi National Park and of course the Cotopaxi itself. It was a simple paradise in the middle of nowhere and so far out, that even phones didn’t work. What a relief! Everyone without being distracted, except by the beauty of nature, talked to eachother. The place offered different buildings like in a village, all connected to eachother. 

We were welcomed with a short speach and lunch. Since it was so far out, everything was included in the booking: guided hikes, 3 meals a day and coffee/tee/snacks all day.

Short after lunch we started the hike to waterfalls. About 3 hours in total through a peaceful forest following the river, climbing some rocks and got to the waterfalls in the middle of the forest. Our boots kept us from being soaking wet. Already on the hike you got to meet nice people and chat since the hike was really easy, more of a walk than a hike, but perfect for the first day.

After the tough hike the day before I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to go on any activity on the last day. Although all activities such as horse back riding or a hike ended just before lunch and the shuttle was timed just right after, it was still a packed day. The hike to the top of Pasachoa was supposed to be an easy path for the first half of accent, but still up to an elevation of 4.200 meters, which meant to accent 700 meters. I wanted to move a bit, but also be back to chill, so I joined the group for the first 1,5 hours before I turned around by myself and hiked down through fields and the cloud forest slowly to enjoy the scenery.