Not feeling 22

So I've done the thing that all travellers manage to do at least once in their travels and got stuck in one place a lot longer than I intended to. After my mammoth day of travelling to Quito last week I was pretty happy to not have any plans once again and just be able to relax in one place, and I've had a pretty great week because of it.

Quito has definitely been better than I expected it to be- it has a beautiful old town area, a modern area with everything to keep us gringos entertained in the evenings and a few really lovely parks that I wish we had more of back at home. I went on a stroll the other day (it may have been a hungover 'must-do-something-with-my-day' stroll) not really expecting to see anything great and I happened upon a huge park full of families playing, market stalls with every sort of alpaca clothing possible, teenagers riding bikes and couples relaxing under the trees. The whole city is surrounded by the Andes meaning you can get some amazing views if you're willing to do a bit of climbing- or just take a taxi of course. Quito, as I thought too of Medellin in Colombia, is definitely the kind of place I can imagine living. 

In the end I spent a week being fairly chilled out, enjoying the view from my hostel (100% stay at Secret Garden hostel if you ever come here) and the company of other travellers. It was my birthday on Tuesday and I'd been stressing a bit trying to decide where to spend it; in the end a group of us who had been going out together all week decided to go to Secret Garden's sister hostel next to Cotopaxi volcano, which after 150 years of no activity started erupting a month or so ago. You might be right in thinking that's an odd choice of a place to spend your birthday, but actually the hostel wasn't in any danger zone and because less people were choosing to go there due to not being able to climb the volcano anymore, there was a deal on where you got your room, four meals a day (my kind of eating schedule) and unlimited alcohol for $38 a night. Oh and you always get unlimited banana bread too- there's a cake stand on the side which is constantly replenished over the day, so of course I averaged 6 a day while I was there. If my trip to Casa en El Agua was the closest I'll ever get to paradise, Secret Garden was the closest I'll ever get to The Burrow (Harry Potter reference #1). It was the cosiest hostel ever with open fireplaces in every dorm, amazing home-cooked food for every meal and ponchos galore. There was a jacuzzi, a giant hammock and 3 very friendly dogs named Milo, Daisy and Mash. I'm not usually a dog person but I think I need a sausage dog at some point- see below for a photo of Mash, who had a problem with storing fat and subsequently looks a bit like Dobby (Harry Potter reference #2).

And alpacas of course. I was told that the volunteers get to ride them but unfortunately this must have slipped their minds this time and I didn't get to see any alpaca racing. 

I think I made a pretty good choice of where to spend my 23rd birthday, though we may have taken advantage of the free alcohol offer a little too much- boxed wine in Ecuador isn't any better than boxed wine in England. 

Now I'm going to spend another night in Quito before heading south a bit to a place called Banos, which is the Spanish word for toilet. Maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up too much. Until next time, ciao chicas!

The tale of a border crossing

So I've got one country ticked off my list: Colombia is over and I'm actually very sad about it. I know I've said before that people have the wrong idea about the country but I'm determined to get the point across that it really isn't the scary place that I can guarantee you think it is.

I was, however, very worried about the border crossing between Colombia and Ecuador. Anyone you speak to has some horror story of a friend of a friend (etc) who has had some sort of trouble, whether it be the bus journey itself (general advice is never do it at night as bandits are known to board to bus and rob passengers, yes that's right I said bandits) or some issue with police on the border. In Popayan I bumped into a couple of guys that I met in Cali who were also wanting to head to Ecuador so I decided to join their plans- safety in numbers, especially when those numbers include two 30 year old men. Unfortunately for me their plans involved doing the first 8 hours in a minibus. Word to the wise: never take a minibus for longer than 2 hours. Perhaps in England where the roads aren't quite so bumpy and windy and the drivers don't have so much of a death wish, but never in South America. Much to my surprise, however, we got to the border exactly when we expected to (incredible seeing as Colombian time is a completely different concept to real time) and my bag hadn't been stolen from the back of the bus on one of the many stops we made in random towns in the mountains. After getting a collectivo (another minibus intended for about 10 people but actually transporting double that) to the border, a quick ten minutes of being stamped out of Colombia, walking across the bridge to Ecuador and gaining another stamp and we were done! No drama, no bandits, ni problema. 

We were feeling pretty good about heading straight to Quito so after getting yet another collectivo to the nearest town and wolfing down some fried chicken (all I'd eaten the rest of the day was a big bag of 'mega queso' Doritos) we jumped on another bus, ready for 6 more hours of travel. One viewing of Sleepless in Seattle (ultimate guilty pleasure film) and a few snoozes later we finally arrived in Quito, and luckily the hostel that I'd booked for the next night had 3 spare beds! At about half 2 I fell into what is definitely the comfiest hostel bed I've ever slept in, exhausted after 18 hours of buses. 

And that concludes my very uneventful tale of the border crossing- not the most interesting post but just to counteract the countless other stories on the internet which will scare you senseless. Now I'm chilling in Quito for the week before I head off to the sister hostel next to Cotopaxi volcano to spend my birthday hopefully not being swallowed by lava!

Chocolate caliente con queso, por favor

Yes you read that right- yesterday I had my first experience of hot chocolate with cheese in. It's a traditional way of having hot chocolate in Colombia and I was very interested in trying it out, but if I'm honest I was a little disappointed. I'm quite a cheese enthusiast but this cheese was very mild and rubbery so it didn't really add anything to the chocolate taste unfortunately. Still, I'm fully in support of anything that gives me an excuse to add more cheese into my diet. At the same time I tried my first tamale which is rice, chicken, vegetables and spices cooked inside a banana leaf. It's not the most visually appealing thing ever so please excuse the lack of photo, but it was really tasty. I did take a photo of the place itself just to show how small and easy to miss these lovely little places can be.

Aside from food, I've ticked quite a lot off my Bogota to-do list since I last checked in; 

- I got a bus out to a town called Zipaquira to visit an underground salt cathedral (overrated & personally wouldn't recommend it)

- On Saturday I went out to a place called Andrés Carnes de Res which is half restaurant half club and is so big it takes up two whole blocks. It was a lot of fun but made me horribly aware of just how bad English people are at dancing- it seems that everyone in Colombia can salsa like a professional. A Peruvian guy staying at my hostel tried to teach me but when he tried to get me to do a sort of shoulder shimmying move my British-ness got the better of me.

- I visited a part of town called Usaquen on Sunday to wander round a flea market. I had to get on one of the buses they call 'collectivos' where the driver goes around shouting out where he's going and you just have to get on and see where you end up. Luckily I managed to keep track of the streets and didn't end up in the middle of nowhere- I just love it when I manage to do something like that successfully. 

- Yesterday I went up Monserrate, the main mountain in Bogota. You can walk up if you have a death wish but I went with the easy option (obviously) and got the cable car up. The view was incredible as you can see for yourself: 

I've made plans for where to go next too- on Friday I'm heading up to Cartagena on the Caribbean coast then next Wednesday I'm getting a boat out to a place called Casa en el Agua to sleep in a hammock next to the sea for 3 nights. I won't torture you with photos of how amazing it looks but if you fancy being jealous of me today feel free to look it up! 

I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to consolidate my very limited Spanish, hasta luego!