Tuesday 8th November 2011 - Cloudy and cool

Once up, I booked myself onto a free guided tour of the Old Town which started at 1100.  It was really good to hear about some of the history of the area and the buildings seeing as I haven’t really been able to understand anything so far.  We started at the Basilica which is on the edge of the Old Town and New Town and Consuela explained all the animal figures that line the outside.  Where most churches have gargoyles, this church has animals of the Galapagos.  She also explained the use of Guinea Pigs – in villages the Sharman uses Guinea Pigs as a way to find out what is wrong with someone who is ill.  He passes a live Guinea Pig across the person’s body and after about 5 min, the GP dies.  He then cuts it open and pulls out all its insides until he finds the organ/s that have something wrong with them and then he knows what is wrong with the person.  Apparently all village people also keep GP in their house near the front door and use them as a way of knowing whether a visitor to the house is a good person or not based on whether the GP squeals.  Having worked in a pet shop for 10yrs, I don’t think I ever saw a GP not squeal the moment someone went near them so really can’t see how accurate this would be.  They also eat GP because it is native to here and is what people had easy access too before sheep, cattle etc.

We then went into an old house and looked at the flooring in the entrance way which had bones in combination with stones laid out like pavers (only tiny ones).  Apparently this is what the wealthy people used to do to protect their houses.  We went to a few more old buildings before heading to Plaza Grande.  Consuela was in the middle of explaining a statue in the middle of the Plaza when we were all pre occupied with a protest that was happening about 100m from us.  We asked her and she said it was because they had just increased taxes so people were protesting out the front of the mayors office.  The next thing we know, there are people running in every direction and we asked her again what was happening and she looked worried for a split second and told us to move a little further back because the riot squad (who were guarding the mayors building) has thrown tear gas out.  So that was a bit of action for the day.

We then headed to a few churches and then to the public library which had a roof top terrace which you could go up too and look out at the view.  In a courtyard below (3 stories down) there was a word spelt out on the ground in red rose petals.  We asked what it said and we were told that it was a marriage proposal, and the groom to be was down there putting the final touches on his layout, including having a basket tied to helium balloons on a long fishing line to bring down to her after he popped the question.  It was really sweet.  We then headed up to Plaza San Francisco where the tour ended.  It rained sporadically throughout the day, but I think that is quite common for Quito.
 

I then headed out to the New Town and found a cinema, but unfortunately I couldn’t communicate with anyone about what movies were in English so I went and checked out McDonalds instead.  It’s the first Maccas I’ve seen around the world that has the exact same menu as Australia.  They also have McHappy Day in November as well.  I thought that was only an Australian thing, but apparently not.  I then headed to a shopping centre and bought some vitamins suggested for sea sickness and altitude sickness and then headed back to the hostel where I tried to repack my bag.  I had dinner in the hostel café (vegie red curry and rice).  To my surprise, I had my first ever hot shower in this hostel and my dorm room filled up with all 6 beds being occupied.