Ecuador is quite small compared to some of the other countries in South America but reading the Lonely Planet - Which I have come to treat like a despised necessity by now, their definition of
"a cleanly hostel with friendly staff in this beautiful building restored to it´s former glory"
is very different to mine, when we turned up at the hostel that this was describing we thought it was a bit of a shit hole, the staff were ok but the owner was a knob and the building was half brick, some concrete and wood, our room was a hovel.
This was back in central America though and doesn´t have any bearing on this bit of the blog other than to emphasise that I don´t hold much in the descriptions of hostels. What I cannot ignore however is when the book advises us that the capital city of Ecuador that we are heading towards is, in their words "a bit sketchy" and that you need to keep an eye on your belongings when at the bus station, when walking down the road and pretty much all the time day or night. It also advises to take taxis at night as it isn´t safe to walk around, but make sure they are the correct licensed taxi´s or you might get kidnapped and forced to go to cash machines.
This might make the place sound unpleasant and dangerous but really this is common sense in all the cities and most of the small towns we travel to. The poor people are very poor and it is easy for them to resort to petty theft, and as rich tourists (in their eyes, in mine I´m a skint traveller) we make the perfect victim. Most of the places we visit have warnings of this kind, the worst in Mexico as I have mentioned where it´s common for the bus to be hijacked at gunpoint and all the passengers to be robbed of their belonging. The beautiful villages of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala are very cool but we were advised not to take a walk on the road between the places as there are numerous armed robberies.
I have actually heard 3 different stories of armed robberies on the same road there, the locals jump out of the trees with machetes and guns to rob people. Why the police haven´t done anything about it is anyone's guess.
So yeah, Quito. It didn´t really sound much worse than other places. That was until we started to talking to some of the people that stayed in the hostel. Apparently it was common to be mugged just outside the hostel, about 15meters from the front door!! Despite the fact there is a security guard outside. Now Security guards have a way of looking at things that I can´t figure out if I agree or not, actually that's not right, I do disagree with them but I can kind of understand. They will happily do there job and guard the building they are working for, if anyone were to try and break in to the hostel he would be there to stop them, however it isn´t their jobs to get involved in the mugging that is happening 10ft away. They are working in a city that is reputedly dangerous and the gun laws, if there are any and not adhered to, not to mention everyone owns a machete. Is it worth them risking themselves to help someone who is victim of a mugging?? Not in their eyes at any rate.
There was one fella at the hostel who told us about his ordeal.
As he left the Internet cafe 2 streets away from the hostel with his bag on his shoulder (containing his laptop) he was grabbed in a choke hold from behind whilst 2 men jumped out and went through his pockets, he tried to fight back but was either hit over the head or choked into unconsciousness. He came to moments later having been relieved of his bag, his chap stick(?) and some other items from his pockets but they had neglected to get his wallet? go figure!
There were people walking around, on the same street, there were security guards over the road who had watched it happen. They all were very helpful and told him which way the muggers had run!
Needless to say we were very vigilant with our belongings and stayed in the hostel at night.
The hostel was cool, we met some great people and spent a lot of time watching TV and drinking.
If you manage to find a good hostel it doesn´t matter what goes on outside, we have actually just left Lima, the capital of Peru after 4 nights and we only went out of the hostel once to see the city!
We played on the equator!
The funny thing is there is a massive monument with a small theme park type thing there and a line on the floor running through the whole place, people come from all over the world to visit it as it´s one of the only places along the equator that isn´t up a mountain or in the jungle somewhere. Everyone takes pictures and it´s kind of cheesy but fun.
Then GPS was invented. Oh how they must have laughed when the modern technology that is GPS showed them (not sure who "them" actually is) that the actual equator line is about 200 meters away, just outside their theme park!!
There is another, smaller visitors centre set up
here that does little tours and shows experiments and sure enough on one side of the line the sink of water drains clockwise, on the equator line it doesn´t swirl at all and on the other side it goes anticlockwise, that's all the proof I need! Apparently it´s also the easiest place in the world to balance an egg on the head of a nail, something to do with gravitational swirly stuff too.
I bought a bottle of Vodka for $3 one night, we met a couple of people from England and played cards and proceeded to get very drunk, good times.
The hostel had a great plan, make sure all the guests get so drunk that it´s impossible for them to leave! It worked really well, every other night the hostel gave a huge bucket of rum and coke to the guests, 12 litres of the stuff! there were 5 bottles of rum in there! Impossible to stay sober.
"a cleanly hostel with friendly staff in this beautiful building restored to it´s former glory"
is very different to mine, when we turned up at the hostel that this was describing we thought it was a bit of a shit hole, the staff were ok but the owner was a knob and the building was half brick, some concrete and wood, our room was a hovel.
This was back in central America though and doesn´t have any bearing on this bit of the blog other than to emphasise that I don´t hold much in the descriptions of hostels. What I cannot ignore however is when the book advises us that the capital city of Ecuador that we are heading towards is, in their words "a bit sketchy" and that you need to keep an eye on your belongings when at the bus station, when walking down the road and pretty much all the time day or night. It also advises to take taxis at night as it isn´t safe to walk around, but make sure they are the correct licensed taxi´s or you might get kidnapped and forced to go to cash machines.
This might make the place sound unpleasant and dangerous but really this is common sense in all the cities and most of the small towns we travel to. The poor people are very poor and it is easy for them to resort to petty theft, and as rich tourists (in their eyes, in mine I´m a skint traveller) we make the perfect victim. Most of the places we visit have warnings of this kind, the worst in Mexico as I have mentioned where it´s common for the bus to be hijacked at gunpoint and all the passengers to be robbed of their belonging. The beautiful villages of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala are very cool but we were advised not to take a walk on the road between the places as there are numerous armed robberies.
I have actually heard 3 different stories of armed robberies on the same road there, the locals jump out of the trees with machetes and guns to rob people. Why the police haven´t done anything about it is anyone's guess.
So yeah, Quito. It didn´t really sound much worse than other places. That was until we started to talking to some of the people that stayed in the hostel. Apparently it was common to be mugged just outside the hostel, about 15meters from the front door!! Despite the fact there is a security guard outside. Now Security guards have a way of looking at things that I can´t figure out if I agree or not, actually that's not right, I do disagree with them but I can kind of understand. They will happily do there job and guard the building they are working for, if anyone were to try and break in to the hostel he would be there to stop them, however it isn´t their jobs to get involved in the mugging that is happening 10ft away. They are working in a city that is reputedly dangerous and the gun laws, if there are any and not adhered to, not to mention everyone owns a machete. Is it worth them risking themselves to help someone who is victim of a mugging?? Not in their eyes at any rate.
There was one fella at the hostel who told us about his ordeal.
As he left the Internet cafe 2 streets away from the hostel with his bag on his shoulder (containing his laptop) he was grabbed in a choke hold from behind whilst 2 men jumped out and went through his pockets, he tried to fight back but was either hit over the head or choked into unconsciousness. He came to moments later having been relieved of his bag, his chap stick(?) and some other items from his pockets but they had neglected to get his wallet? go figure!
There were people walking around, on the same street, there were security guards over the road who had watched it happen. They all were very helpful and told him which way the muggers had run!
Needless to say we were very vigilant with our belongings and stayed in the hostel at night.
The hostel was cool, we met some great people and spent a lot of time watching TV and drinking.
If you manage to find a good hostel it doesn´t matter what goes on outside, we have actually just left Lima, the capital of Peru after 4 nights and we only went out of the hostel once to see the city!
We played on the equator!
The funny thing is there is a massive monument with a small theme park type thing there and a line on the floor running through the whole place, people come from all over the world to visit it as it´s one of the only places along the equator that isn´t up a mountain or in the jungle somewhere. Everyone takes pictures and it´s kind of cheesy but fun.
Then GPS was invented. Oh how they must have laughed when the modern technology that is GPS showed them (not sure who "them" actually is) that the actual equator line is about 200 meters away, just outside their theme park!!
There is another, smaller visitors centre set up
here that does little tours and shows experiments and sure enough on one side of the line the sink of water drains clockwise, on the equator line it doesn´t swirl at all and on the other side it goes anticlockwise, that's all the proof I need! Apparently it´s also the easiest place in the world to balance an egg on the head of a nail, something to do with gravitational swirly stuff too.I bought a bottle of Vodka for $3 one night, we met a couple of people from England and played cards and proceeded to get very drunk, good times.
The hostel had a great plan, make sure all the guests get so drunk that it´s impossible for them to leave! It worked really well, every other night the hostel gave a huge bucket of rum and coke to the guests, 12 litres of the stuff! there were 5 bottles of rum in there! Impossible to stay sober.
No comments:
Post a Comment