Old Town Quito

The hostal offered a free walking tour courtesy of CarpeDM travel (located inside the hostal) and I signed up. The owner of CarpeDM, Paul (I think), started out the tour with the most enlightened introduction to Ecuador imaginable. Paul was inspired by poetry to move to Ecuador and start the tour company. Before we got going he  invited everyone to open themselves up to the experience of finding themselves and the unity that we all share. Truly – couldn’t have dreamed a better start to the trip than Paul’s speech – and then kicked the tour off with real honest eye to eye contact with each other and hugs. This is also where I made my first traveling friend – Karen from Ohio (who will magically appear later in the story).

The Old Town tour with Fernando was fantastic! From the old churches, to indigenous history, a salsa lesson, a Cevicheojos snack, a stroll down LaRonda (there is a Salsaoteca – for real, it’s like a discoteca but for salsa) and ending in sampling the most yummy fruits I’ve never tried before (dragonfruit – so sweet, passion fruit – so crunchy) I got a literal and figurative taste of Quito and Ecuador.

 

The afternoon was spent realizing that if I don’t start planning some parts of this trip I’m going to spend most afternoons planning and that’s not what I want to be doing. So – this afternoon was spent planning, booking flights and hotels and meeting my new roommate in the hostel – Gobi from Israel. Everyone has some sort of awesome adventure, city, town, tour, lodging to share and Gobi delivered. He told me about Mindo (cloud forest) and Tena (jungle) and planted seeds which would sprout later.

Dinner tonight was the most connected yet – so many new travel friends – Eve (UK) and Tom (Amsterdam) trekking Cotopaxi and acclimatizing in Quito and Eve (Australia) who just ended her year of study abroad in Buenos Aires with a three week volunteer position in the Galapagos and was heading to Carnival in Rio. The meal included an enormous serving of vegetable lasagna (which few finished) and a chocolate covered banana with ice cream that had to be shared among new friends.