Highway robbery.

the outside of the Baños police station although the inside wasn't much more inspiring

Since we had arrived in South America, it was a lot harder to find good accommodation. In Colombia, the problem was that the supply couldn’t keep up with the demand. One hostel owner told me that over the last five years tourism had grown at a rate of 20% annually but this year it was growing 20% every month! Absolutely bonkers. Now combine this with something another hostel owner told me, it took him two years to get permission to open his hostel and you’ll understand why we were always so anxious to book ahead. In Ecuador, the problem was not a lack of hostels but a lack of good hostels and a whole lotta tourists. August is the highest of high seasons and Ecuador is one the most popular backpacker destinations. But despite leaving the dusty roads and low-tech of Central America, booking ahead was a big problem in (supposedly more advanced) South America. While most hostels listed an email address, it seemed none of them ever checked or replied to their emails. So here we were about to set off to the popular backpacker town of Baños without having heard from any of the places we emailed. That just meant we’d have to be sure to leave by midday so we’d have a shot at finding a good place before dark.

Luckily Baños was just over three hour ride from Quito so there was no need to get up at the crack of dawn. Instead we had breakfast and said our goodbyes to the lovable oaf that was the hostel dog and headed out to the Southern Bus Terminal. When we grabbed a taxi on the street, we were pleasantly surprised by a quote that was less than our ride in. And that pleasant surprise turned to guilt as the cab kept driving and driving and driving to get to the new terminal. It was even further out than the northern one so we gave the driver the 50 cents for the tax to enter the new terminal. I know, I know, but Ecuadorian taxi drivers were making us soft by actually being nice.

The Southern Terminal was even bigger than the one we arrived at. It looked like an airport, all shiny and clean and modern. Inside buying a ticket was made incredibly easy by the colour coded kiosks – a directory let us know which colour window we could buy our tickets at and just in case we were colour blind a station employee pointed us in the right direction. After the chaos at Colombian bus stations this was all a bit overwhelming. We had just missed one bus but there was one due in 45 minutes which gave us time to buy water and find our bus bay. Our ticket had a bay on it but as we walked towards it we were immediately turned back by security and shown to the right one. Apparently we had been walking in a restricted (i.e. still under construction) area. Oops. When we got to the right bay there was a bus waiting there but it wasn’t ours. Nope, that one didn’t leave until just before our bus pulled in.

It wasn’t the nicest looking bus but we’d seen worse. But the employees were very helpful. The ayudante insisted on helping Adrian but his bag on the overhead shelf as we settled into our seats near the front. And then we were off. The route was obviously a popular one with lots of stops in towns along the way. At each one vendors selling food and drink would also get on, ply their wares and then get off along the highway, presumably to catch a ride back to town from the next passing bus. Like all buses we’d been on in the last 5 months, this stopping and starting added a lot of time to what should have been a short trip but we were used to it.

Soon we were just outside of Baños. Adrian reached up to grab his knapsack and immediately I noticed an uncomfortable look on his face. He began searching through the pockets which was easy considering they were empty. With a look of horror on his face he told me, “It’s gone.”
Sometime in the last 3 hours from right under our noses, someone had rifled through his knapsack and removed his beloved PSP and all the games. I figured he had just packed it in his big bag and told him not to worry. No, he insisted as we pulled into the station. They were gone and that’s when he told me the rest of the bad news. The knapsack was also where he had been keeping the money belts we never wore. Inside were our backup credit cards and his British passport. What!?!

As the bus stopped we grabbed our luggage from off the bus and began a thorough search of everything. Nope. We’d been robbed somewhere along the highway. Adrian decided to ask the ayudante if he’d seen anything - of course not but he suggested it was the people that sold stuff on the bus that did it. I don’t know how they’d do it considering they were always laden down with baskets of stuff in both hands. But whoever it was didn’t matter, the stuff was gone.

The good news was we still had our main credit card, bank card and passport. So we could still travel. But that didn’t mean canceling and replacing what was gone was going to be easy. The bad news continued when we got to our first choice hostel. They were no rooms. Still in shock we headed to our second choice. They didn’t have any rooms either. But they directed us to their sister place around the corner. The room was cheap and clean and big. So we took it and began making an inventory of what was gone. And gone were Adrian’s PSP, 10 games, 4 credit cards, 1 British passport, almost $400 in traveller’s cheques, and the 6-year old digital camera which had been in a handbag inside the knapsack, meaning however stole the stuff gave Adrian’s bag a thorough going over. I did smile about the digital camera, it was on its last legs and would be a disappointment when it stopped working.

With the list in hand (as well as a Spanish dictionary and old photocopies of all our documents), we headed to the police station (photo above) to make an official report that insurance, the credit card companies and the passport folks would need. The police station really was only 3 rooms and we were directed to sit in one of them. Here we waited for 20 minutes until a police office? judge? or clerk came in took our statement. Dealing with the police was not something I had covered in any of my Spanish lessons but luckily the officer was able to understand my pidgeon Spanish and Adrian’s mime and put it together in a typed report which was then signed and stamped by a notary? lawyer? or judge? That made it official, we were the victims of crime. The next stop was an internet café to hop onto skype and cancel all those credit cards. That wasn’t fun and I’d like to state how disappointed I was in Amex’s operator and how pleasantly surprised I was by Mastercard’s. Amex didn’t seem to care and was cold and rather unhelpful. Apparently, the thief had already tried to use the Amex to get $4995 worth of goods from somewhere (in Ecuador this would by you a fleet of used cars I’m sure). The transaction hadn’t gone through because my account was dormant since I hadn’t paid the membership few in the last few months (we hadn’t used it so I forgot). But that also meant Amex wouldn’t help me with a replacement until I paid the $50 fee – she then began asking me when I was going to pay it. Suddenly my “help, I’ve just been robbed” call became a collection call. Grr. This might not have sunk in accept that I called Mastercard afterwards. They were the polar opposite: they first asked me if I was okay, if we’d been hurt; they asked me what else had been stolen and did we need help; she wanted to know if we still had access to money. And when she knew we were okay she helped us figure out how to get a replacement card. Unfortunately, (and this is true for all Canadian credit cards) we couldn’t get a replacement. Well, we could get a temporary one that would expire in 30 days but a full replacement could only be sent to a Canadian address for security reasons. For some reason I don’t understand, it’s considered safer to send the credit cards to a third party address in Canada and then have the third party courier them to us, rather than have the credit card company send them directly to us. Silly. But after 4 hours of dealing we didn’t have much fight left in us.

The adrenaline was wearing off and since we hadn’t eaten since this morning, we were starving. We walked out in a daze to find a place to eat. As we approached the main square, we saw a familiar face. It was Matt from Cartagena. We chatted on the street and excused our moods telling him our sad tale. He decided to join us for dinner and we relived our first meeting by once again having pizza and beer. Although we’d only met Matt once before, it was nice to be chatting to a friend. Not only did it help to have a sympathetic ear, he was a great distraction and by the time we finished up we were feeling a hundred times better.

Qualms in Quito.

We had been told to stay in the new town of Quito because it was more happening. Unfortunately, the streets of the New Town had been dead – maybe because everyone was in the old city celebrating, or perhaps because of the big football match that folks were watching in the cafes. Unfortunately, the price points of the cafes were a little over our budget. Instead we spent the morning hemming and hawing over the cost of the Galapagos tour. Finally we decided to bite the bullet and book it.

Committing to the tour required us to figure out a new itinerary. The next tour wasn’t for a week but we didn’t really feel like hanging around Quito so we decided to fly from Guayaquil and spend the next 7 days getting there. That decided it was time to sign up. At the tour office, we were given a detailed itinerary, luggage tags and buttons to identify ourselves at the airport (how embarrassing). Now the hard part – paying. It had been a while since we’d had to pay for anything that was $100 let alone $2000. And seeing the total on paper made my hand shake a little as I handed over our credit card. We kept reminding ourselves that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity (please don’t say otherwise, as the price still stings). Booking our air tickets would have to wait until the airline office was open which helped lessen the sting too.

We our wallets a whole lot lighter, we headed to another Trole station so we could put some distance between ourselves and the scene of the crime. We were headed to Casa de Cultura where there were two museums to check out. It was only a few stops away and we could have walked but at just a quarter per ride, we saved our feet for the museums. Good thing too because we walked the wrong way around the building almost coming full circle before hitting the door to the first museum (note to others: walk left not right) Unfortunately it was closed but it worked out because the second museum was the better of the two and it was open. No worries, we kept walking to the second which was the better of the two.

The oddly named Museo de Banco Central (oddly because it had nothing to do with banking or money) was a kind of museum of the people Ecuador. The main floor was black except for the displays which were lit up. It looked great but it took us a while to figure out which way we were supposed to go. Once we figured out the order of the displays it made a lot more sense and was really well done (signage in English too which meant I got to take time off from translating for Adrian). The displays took us way back to the earliest tribes all the way up to modern Ecuador and was a mixture of dioramas, pottery, religious art and artifacts, modern art and even children’s toys. I was glad we’d saved our feet – although the museum wasn’t particularly big it was dense. And when we were done we were full of museum yumminess and didn’t even bother checking out the second.

On our way back to the hostel we stopped in at the tour company to book those plane tickets only to be told that the internet system wasn’t working. Hmm… we were leaving town tomorrow morning and the company had no office in Guayaquil. I couldn’t even book them myself since the flight was officially sold out and the seats we had were the tour company’s reserved seats. In the end we let the tour company charge the amount to our credit cards in their name – sort of like a cash advance. They said they’d book them as soon as the system was up and email us the e-tickets the next day. Not an ideal situation but we didn’t have much choice.

In order to make up some of that money we’d just coughed up, we went back to the cheap Indian place for curry. Since the previous order had been a little mild I made the mistake of asking for the vindaloo version. All I can say is ow ow ow ow! It was freaking hot and if it hadn’t have been for the raita and naan on the side it would have been uneatable. Lesson learned. Our cheap night continued back at the hostel where we watched someone’s copy of the new Harry Potter on the big screen in the café (shh don’t tell anyone but I think it may have been an illegal copy). We weren’t regretting our move here – the hostel was definitely one of our favourites. But we were still doubting spending all that money on the Galapagos. Tomorrow was a new destination and I hope we can keep up our good luck with accommodation and keep those costs down.

The battle for middle earth.

Somewhere on the bus from Otavalo to Quito we made the jump from the northern hemisphere to the southern. We’d missed the opportunity to celebrate this event. Fortunately for us, the canny Ecuadoran government had built a theme park on the equator called Mital del Mundo or the middle of the world. So today that was where we were headed. But first we had to do something about our accommodations. It wasn’t that we were staying in squalor. But the complete lack of atmosphere made the less-than-pristine condition seem worse. And surrounded by hostels we knew we had a better choice. Our first stop was the Blue House Hostel, yup the same hostel that had yanked our reservation out from under our noses. It was still booked solid. But we took advantage of their resources and hospitality to get a reco tour company for the Galapagos Islands. Then walked around the corner to Crossroads, another Hola hostel (the chain that we got a discount at). It had a lot of things our current one didn’t: common areas with tv and videos, restaurant and bar, non-saggy beds, clean bathrooms, attentive staff, people, a lovable dog, and most importantly they had a room with private bath that was $10 cheaper than where we were currently staying. So we grabbed it and then headed back to the other place to pack up and check out.

As soon as we dumped our bags in our new room, we felt 100 times better. We needed that boost because our next stop was the Galamountain tour company. Rather than a cruise, they offered an island hopping tour. Instead of sleeping on a boat you sleep on the islands and take a speed boat between them. The itinerary was full of fun activities: snorkeling, horseback riding, mountain biking and, of course, nature treks. But as fun as it all sounded the price knocked the wind out of us. 6 days for $810US or 8 for $1100US. Each. Oh and that didn’t include the airfare ($400US return. Each.) or the national park entrance fee ($100US. Each.). All together 6 days in the island would cost us $1310US. Each. Gulp. We needed to think about that. As we walked towards the Ecovia station, we passed a lot of tour companies offering the traditional cruises. The cheapest price posted was $530US for a 3-day cruise which meant we would probably be paying way more than that (plus the airfare and park fee). August was high season for travel to the islands and the more prices we saw posted the more it seemed like this island hopping tour was a good buy. Now the question we asked each other was, is a week in the Galapagos worth more than a month of our budget? Good question.

We were staring at the pavement pondering this question when we were greeted by Jo and Lauren, our white water rafting buddies from San Gil. They had just arrived in Quito too and were also debating going to the Galapagos. And they were also heading out to the Mital del Mundo today as well. The backpacker trail is a well-worn one. But first they had to go meet friends. We said see you later (never goodbye when you’re backpacking) and then walked through some slightly dodgy and empty streets to get to the right Ecovia station. We’d have to find a different route back as it didn’t feel like it would be very safe later in the day.

The bus-trolley arrived and we took it to the end of the line where we transferred to another bus. In total the ride took us 1.5 hours but cost us about 40 cents letting us off right in front of the entrance to the park. Ecuador, I love your transportation prices. The park was as tacky as it sounded on paper but we paid our entrance fee for the opportunity to take pictures of ourselves standing straddling the equator. Our ticket also included entrance to five pavilions which would help us draw out our visit and make the 3-hour return trip worth it. The park itself reminded me of Disneyland or Wonderland – minus the rides. There was a village with a main square where live music happened, around it various streets were fanned out like faux-authentic calles. One contained restaurants and bars, another souvenir stalls, and yes there were even a street where you could get photos of yourself taken in faux-authentic costumes or your caricature. We weren’t quite ready for all that faux-authenticness so we set off to visit the pavilions. They were a mixed bag of displays. The first was filled with prints by a famous Ecuador artist, another one was full of insects and butterflies, and the next contained miniature versions of Quito and Cuenca. Interesting, but what this had to do with being on the equator I wasn’t sure. Finally, the last pavilion, the one sponsored and maintained by the French government, provided some substance. It was an exhibit on cartography and astronomy relating to the equator with a particular bias towards the French contribution (of course). Weird that the foreign pavilion would provide the most info in this local attraction.

The only place left to visit was the giant ball on the pedestal (photo above) that marked the equator. However, we could now hear music coming from the faux town so we headed over to check it out. The band was good and fronted by two guys I’ll call the two tenors. Although they were singing popular Ecuadorian folk songs, they were belting them out like Pavarotti and Domingo. It would have been great except for the fact that the volume was about 30% too loud making it uncomfortable to stand and watch them. It must have been our sensitive Canadian ears because the locals were right up at the speakers getting into the music, many of them dancing. Or it could be because they were all drinking and we weren’t. We tried to stay until the end of the act but before the eardrums started bleeding we had to exit and head to the ball and pedestal.

Painted on the sidewalk leading up to the monument from the town square was a yellow line marking 0º 0' 0" latitude. We embraced the cheesiness of it and took many photos of ourselves in the Northern Hemisphere and then in the South and then straddling both. I'm still not sure which is my better side - the northern? or the southern? Next we headed up the elevator to the top of the ball for a view of the equator from above. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the monument was actually a museum but not about the equator but about the different indigenous groups in the country. So we took the elevator up took in the great views of the clouds rolling over the mountains and then walked down the 6 stories through the ethnographic displays of clothing and crafts (no photos allowed). They were really interesting and informative. But Ecuador has at least two dozen different indigenous groups making it all a bit overwhelming. My apologies to the people of the Northern highlands, we kinda ran through your floors.

With that we were done with the official Mital del Mundo Park but from the observation deck on the tower we’d spotted another series of displays just next door to the park. This was the unofficial park Inti-Nan, we’d read about and we had to check it out. To get there we had to exit the park and follow the wall down the highway then it was another 200 metres down a dusty path and across a rickety foot bridge where we were greeted by a guy who took our money and then became our guide. The Inti-Nan museum was set up like an indigenous village built around an 175 year old hut that was found there. Inside there was a weird collection of displays, anacondas in formaldehyde, authentic shrunken heads with instructions on how to make your own, totem poles from cultures around the world. But the highlight of the tour was the real equator. You see, for eons, the local indigenous folk had marked the equator on the site of the now museum. Centuries later, European explorers marked it where the ball and pedestal monument now stood in Mital del Mundo. But the local folks stood their ground and built their own museum. Some time in the last few years they were vindicated by GPS. It was official: their equator was the real equator. So for the second time that day we got photos of us demonstrating a long distance, dual-hemisphere relationship . It was just as fun the second time around.

Then it was time for lots of fun experiments that can only be performed at the equator. Supposedly. I was highly skeptical by what they showed us but was so thoroughly entertained by them that I was able to ignore my inner voice. We were shown how water drains counterclockwise in one hemisphere, clockwise in the other, and straight down directly over it. We were taught how to read ancient sun clocks. We were encouraged to balance an egg on the head of a nail. Then challenged to walk the equator with our eyes closed. It was all silly fun but at least it was fun. In fact it was much better than the official museum and was worth the three hour round trip. I declare the Inti-Nan museum the winner in the battle for middle earth.

Beware of slick websites.

After yesterday’s early morning, we slept in, well relatively speaking. On the road we’ve rarely slept in past 9am. In fact most days, we have found ourselves wide awake by 8am. I guess that’s what happens when you’re not overworked, and you have something other than the daily grind to look forward to. However, getting up at 9am meant we’d missed seeing off the five from last night. We drowned our sorrows in bacon once again. Not really, but it was an excuse to get two orders of it. Now, don’t look at me like that - who knows when we’ll see it or taste it again. Then it was time to head out. Unlike when we arrived out on the highway, this time we only had to walk two blocks to the bus station where a bus was waiting. Once we were on it took off for the unremarkable two hour ride to Quito. Although we did pass through one town that had some bizarre fixation with prehistoric cavemen. In the middle of the highway they had built or carved a large display of dinosaurs and cavemen in a raised island of rock. Oh well, at least it something besides mountains to look at.

We arrived at the brand spanking new northern bus terminal ahead of schedule. Just a month or so before, Quito had replaced its infamous crime-infested downtown stations with two new stations on the outskirts of town. Getting rid of the crime was good although it now meant that we had to take a taxi ride the 15km into town. I wasn’t looking forward to hearing how much that would cost. But was surprised when the driver said only $7. Then he turned on his metre and when we arrived at the hostel his quote and the metre matched – actually the metre was less but we still gave him the full $7. What a pleasant taxi experience – I may now have to mark down August 9th as Be Nice to Taxi Drivers Day. Too much? Probably. Anyways we were now in the New Town or Mariscal Sucre area of town. It’s affectionately known as Gringolandia and I could see why. Besides every third place being a hostel, the rest looked like a cross between Yorkville and the Club district. This area is where the locals come to party. But after so many small towns, it was a nice change. What wasn’t nice was our hostel. Although our room is big and clean, the rest of the hostel is dumpy. The shared bathroom is mouldy, the rest of the hotel is dirty. And although it calls itself a hostel there is no common area, no kitchen and no nothing. Even the attached sushi restaurant is closed Sunday to Thursday. All this for $30 US. No wonder they replied to my email request so quickly. At least the guy at the desk was nice. As we checked in, he let us know that today all the museums in the old town were free. We’d been looking forward to just chilling at the hostel but since it wasn’t such a great place to chill, we decided to check it out.

Getting into the old town was cheap and easy. Just a block away was a stop for the new Trole – the bus/tram/streetcar thing that only cost 25 cents to ride. Within 15 minutes we were in the old city and surrounded by people. It seemed like every person in Quito was there. I’m not sure if this was an every weekend thing or, as the banners announced, because it was the Independence Day. Every square was set up for live music that evening. And those free museums, galleries and churches? Well, even the smallest ones had lineups that stretched around the block. There was no way we were going to get in to any of them. But that was okay because the historic centre of Quito was enough of an attraction and it was cost free and line up free. With so many families I also felt comfortable to take my camera out, although after so many beautiful colonial cities on our trip it was hard to get too excited by anything in particular – there were churches, squares, old buildings, older buildings, government buildings, more churches, etc, etc. And after a couple of hours of fighting the crowds, it also got tiring.

Before we headed back to the new town, we decided to walk up to the Basilica, although climb would be a better word. It was about 10 blocks up which gave our knees quite the work out. On the way there we found a little side street that opened up to a marvelous view of the city (photo above) so we stopped to rest and take some pictures. Good thing too, because when we got to the Basilica, there was an entrance fee of $2 and a 6-storey climb up the bell tower to get the same view we’d had for free. We passed. The Basilica wasn’t even finished – probably needed more money which they were trying to recoup one admission ticket at a time. It was pretty enough on the outside. So we walked back down into the old town and hopped back on the Trole to the hostel. The lack of atmosphere (and food) sent us straight back out to a local Irish pub (Adrian’s choice, go figure). We milked our beer and pub grub for as long as we could, then went back to the hostel. Even with a bit of alcohol it didn’t feel any better. Tomorrow we would have to do something about that.