Hola
Yesterday I went on the walking tour of Quito, organised through the hostel. I didn't have my pen to write any of the information down that I learnt. I think that intuitively I had forgotten my pen on purpose - contrary to my usual behaviour, I wasn't interested in learning anything or asking any questions. I am so glad to be on holiday and so averse to doing any thinking or planning, I just want to sit and watch the world go by. Anyway, for your edification, here are some extremely sketchy facts...
Quito - the name - comes from 2 different words, one starting with Qui, and one ending in To. It means middle of the world. I declined an invitation to visit la mitad del mundo, but will go and see it soon - the equator, that is. Apparently there's 2 tourist sites quite close together, both of which claim to be the official equator. You can balance an egg on a nail at the equator apparently, I'm pretty excited about this.
The currency in Ecuador is the US Dollar. I was wondering why this is, and why there isn't an Ecuadorean currency. Our guide Obi told us in great detail. It is something to do with when they used to export coca, they did it in pesos, which was their currency previously. For some reason they stopped exporting so much coca, so the value of it went right down, which had lots of knock on affect and eventually the currency was severely devalued. It became 3500 pesos per 1 dollar. This then worsened to 5000, and everyone that knew what was happening went and exchanged all their pesos, so that by the end of that day the exchange was 10000 to 1 dollar. Then things got really bad, and loads of people lost all their savings that the banks had had. I think that things then got slightly better when the centro banco decided to use 2 currencies, both USD and the pesos. After a bit of time they decided to get rid of the pesos altogether, and just use USD which is what they now have. I have explained that in a way which doesn't explain anything, I hope you enjoyed it.
There were in one 10 year period, 8 presidents. The current president (he of the aforementioned amazing roads), doesn't live at the palacio in the Plaza Mayor. This is for safety reasons I think, so he doesn't get killed as so many of the previous ones did. He lives in an apartment somewhere, probably a pretty swanky one. This president has been president for 12 years.
Ecuador exports more bananas than Costa Rica - fact! They don't export coca anymore, it's actually illegal here - normally you can chew coca leaves to help with altitude but not here. Their main export is oil - fact. I did not know this, it is all from the jungle reason in the east, and some of the profits from it do actually help the country, unlike in some countries. Obviously not as much as should go to the government does, but some does.
We stopped at a candy shop and ate some local delicacies - they seem to be obsessed with sugar here, so most of what the shop sold was sugar in different forms and colours. I had a sugar and sesame coated nut, and also a chifle - this is a thinly sliced piece of platano, with a spicy ish sauce on it. It was salty, and really good.
Ok, I think that that's enough fascinating information for you to be mulling over until the next instalment. We went to try to find a concert last night that I'd seen advertised at a church, it was free and the national orchestra of Ecuador, apparently. I got there at 9, it started at 8. Turned out it did actually start at 8, not at 9, as I imagined it may have done, with this being South America and all that, so I didn't see it. I'm going to one tonight, provided I get there on time, it's guitars and Andean instruments, I'm pretty excited about this, as that can surely only mean panpipes. Instead last night we went for a drink in the bohemian part of town called La Ronda, I had a drink called canelazo, it's a really hot drink made of juice of naranjillo (naranjillo is like a small orange which is quite bitter but they add loads of sugar to it), with things like cinammon in it too, and some alcohol. Kind of like mulled wine but it's not Christmas and we're not in England.
Adios chicos xx
Yesterday I went on the walking tour of Quito, organised through the hostel. I didn't have my pen to write any of the information down that I learnt. I think that intuitively I had forgotten my pen on purpose - contrary to my usual behaviour, I wasn't interested in learning anything or asking any questions. I am so glad to be on holiday and so averse to doing any thinking or planning, I just want to sit and watch the world go by. Anyway, for your edification, here are some extremely sketchy facts...
Quito - the name - comes from 2 different words, one starting with Qui, and one ending in To. It means middle of the world. I declined an invitation to visit la mitad del mundo, but will go and see it soon - the equator, that is. Apparently there's 2 tourist sites quite close together, both of which claim to be the official equator. You can balance an egg on a nail at the equator apparently, I'm pretty excited about this.
The currency in Ecuador is the US Dollar. I was wondering why this is, and why there isn't an Ecuadorean currency. Our guide Obi told us in great detail. It is something to do with when they used to export coca, they did it in pesos, which was their currency previously. For some reason they stopped exporting so much coca, so the value of it went right down, which had lots of knock on affect and eventually the currency was severely devalued. It became 3500 pesos per 1 dollar. This then worsened to 5000, and everyone that knew what was happening went and exchanged all their pesos, so that by the end of that day the exchange was 10000 to 1 dollar. Then things got really bad, and loads of people lost all their savings that the banks had had. I think that things then got slightly better when the centro banco decided to use 2 currencies, both USD and the pesos. After a bit of time they decided to get rid of the pesos altogether, and just use USD which is what they now have. I have explained that in a way which doesn't explain anything, I hope you enjoyed it.
There were in one 10 year period, 8 presidents. The current president (he of the aforementioned amazing roads), doesn't live at the palacio in the Plaza Mayor. This is for safety reasons I think, so he doesn't get killed as so many of the previous ones did. He lives in an apartment somewhere, probably a pretty swanky one. This president has been president for 12 years.
Ecuador exports more bananas than Costa Rica - fact! They don't export coca anymore, it's actually illegal here - normally you can chew coca leaves to help with altitude but not here. Their main export is oil - fact. I did not know this, it is all from the jungle reason in the east, and some of the profits from it do actually help the country, unlike in some countries. Obviously not as much as should go to the government does, but some does.
We stopped at a candy shop and ate some local delicacies - they seem to be obsessed with sugar here, so most of what the shop sold was sugar in different forms and colours. I had a sugar and sesame coated nut, and also a chifle - this is a thinly sliced piece of platano, with a spicy ish sauce on it. It was salty, and really good.
Ok, I think that that's enough fascinating information for you to be mulling over until the next instalment. We went to try to find a concert last night that I'd seen advertised at a church, it was free and the national orchestra of Ecuador, apparently. I got there at 9, it started at 8. Turned out it did actually start at 8, not at 9, as I imagined it may have done, with this being South America and all that, so I didn't see it. I'm going to one tonight, provided I get there on time, it's guitars and Andean instruments, I'm pretty excited about this, as that can surely only mean panpipes. Instead last night we went for a drink in the bohemian part of town called La Ronda, I had a drink called canelazo, it's a really hot drink made of juice of naranjillo (naranjillo is like a small orange which is quite bitter but they add loads of sugar to it), with things like cinammon in it too, and some alcohol. Kind of like mulled wine but it's not Christmas and we're not in England.
Adios chicos xx
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