A swifty through Ecuador

Hola! I haven't written anything substantial since leaving Colombia so here goes... From Colombia we went to Otavalo in Ecuador which was reasonably dull apart from the fantastic and colourful market which threatened to spread to almost every street in the town! After Otavalo we went to Quito for a week of Spanish lessons which were excellent.

I have mixed feelings about Quito and in fact about Ecuador in general. On the bad side, there were just far too many tourists and I found places were fairly characterless and didn't feel very Latin American as a result. 'Gringolandia' (the new town) in Quito was horrible, the sort of place I would normally jump through hoops to avoid wherever possible - a mish mash of tourist-orientated, over-priced bars and restaurants, street sellers and beggars - not my cup of tea at all! Even the old town was not very inspiring... Perhaps we've been spoilt by all the beautiful places we went to in Colombia, perhaps we weren't there long enough and didn't visit enough places to give it a fair trial, or perhaps Ecuador simply just didn't compare - I'm not sure, but I think it's likely to be a combination of all of them. On the plus side, the wildly westernised Quito did allow us to indulge almost all our cravings! Dark chocolate, black tea, roast potatos and last but not least possibly the best Madras I've ever had - It was our third visit to (the same) Indian restaurant (in 5 days!) and experience dictated the necessity to ask for it be 'very very very very very very very hot please' (in Spanish of course!) to achieve the desired amount of spice - this time it worked - it even made me sweat a little! The Spanish lessons were also excellent and have helped me to practice, consolidate and feel confident with what I learned from audio tapes previously as well as quadrupling my vocabulary! Things are so much easier now...