Quito, Ecuador
When I first got off the plane in Quito, I was exhausted. My cheap ticket from San Francisco ($550) was too Indiana Jones like, from SFO to LAX to Panama City to Quito. All of this was over night, and took 12 hours with layovers.
The flights themselves where not long enough to get comfortable, and I have a habit of getting good and exhausted before a trip even begins; it’s always been that way with me.
Maybe getting deliriously tired is my way of calming the nerves.
After all, what does it take a normal person to move to a foreign city with no connections?
So, there I am in the newly remodeled Quito airport trying to stand up straight and look okay for customs, and the first thing that I remember is that Quito is very high at an altitude of over 12,000 feet.
The air was thin, and I had been living almost at sea level in California.
No problems with customs. Ecuador offers a 90-day visa for US tourists. It’s my understanding that I can just cross the border and get another 90-day visa when the time comes. I guess I’ll find out in October.
I got my backpack, hid my cash, went outside to the smell of car exhaust (I’m getting less tolerate of these types of things and I think they use ¨dirty diesel¨ here), walked away from the airport, got a taxi, and started for the cheap side of town.
In the taxi, I realize how this routine is second nature to me.
Each time I put my backpack in a closet, I think never again. I even burned my passport once; then three months later spent 80 bucks to have it replaced for a trip to London.
This time things are different; my backpack hasn’t been dusted off since Western China in 2004 (excluding moving to California, which is it’s own country). In the down time, I’ve tried focusing on expressing myself in different artistic mediums but the backpack stays with me.
Now, I’m trying to bring art and travel together. It might be magic, it might be disastrous. I’ve never tried this combination before, but I figure others have made it work and I still have some youth to burn.
Back in the moving taxi from the Quito Airport, the driver says something into a CB radio that I don’t understand, which could be anything in Spanish ¨I’m leaving the airport, be back in twenty minutes¨ or ¨I’ve got the gringo, get ready,¨ just in case I calmly locked the three doors, leaving his door the only one unlocked.
At the first sign of trouble, I decide (and it seems totally rational at a time like this) I will kick this old man’s head off and take control of the taxi, but there never was a first sign of trouble, nothing bad ever really happens, and getting half crazy is half the fun of traveling.
I fell asleep in a five and a half dollar hotel room, woke up in the middle of the night, when nothing was open, went back to sleep, woke up in the afternoon and thought damn this place looks like San Francisco.
I had a good laugh; I didn’t pick up on that the last time I was here. It took me 12 hours to get to Quito from Mountain View, California.
How long does it take to get to San Francisco (North Beach) in accident laden rush hour traffic or public transit from Mountain View? I’ve been stuck in traffic for over three hours.
Commuting in the Bay Area, I will not miss.
Since the first night, things have been good. I am staying in the historic part of town (El Centro), which people just call the ¨Old Town.¨
It’s beautiful, and I found out they don’t allow cars into the old town on Sundays.
And even better, on the last Sunday of every month they close the main drag here from one end of the city to the other for every thing but bikes.
All of this has been reassuring, I was worried that since my last visit Quito might have fallen apart. There’s been a coup, multiple new presidents, etc. but costs are still low, crime is down, the things that needed to stay the same, stayed the same and things that needed to change, changed.
Don’t get me wrong, nothing is perfect, if I were half the man I were five years ago (slamming fist on table) I would take a power-washer to this place, who-ra.
- J Roland Kelly
Plus I can do a 45 in 35.
