21/2/23
Happy Pancake Day!
Today was a day of pals. After a hostel breakfast, first I headed out in search of jeans, since Ais had kindly pointed out that my jeans had seen better days (which they definitely had!), and I wanted to look half decent in Colombia, a place where people truly take pride in their appearance! I hit the historical centre first and headed to a place that David had suggested. Sadly it was closed, maybe to do with carnival and after checking, having coffee in a super cute courtyard I discover by accident and checking again, I gave up.
I went across town by bus to the mall to continue the jeans hunt. I mooched about and tried A LOT of jeans before settling on a pair of non skinny (how rad!) jeans from Bershka. Then I hit up Kai, and headed over to his flat, where he and his wife had prepared Chinese dumplings for me from scratch. I was greeted very enthusiastically, by their dog name ‘well-behaved’ in Mandarin, which was very accurate, as if you put a treat on an open palm, right in front of his nose, he would be drooling looking at it, but would wait for a command to eat it! We chatted about their (wife and pooch) travels from China, reuniting in the US, and life in Ecuador over dumplings and then homemade cake with te de cacao (chocolate tea), which I had tried with Kai in the market, and they had gone back to buy together. It was glorious. Then we went for a walk in the local park, known as the Central Park of Quito with the pooch and managed to successfully avoid the final foam sprays for carnival. Loads of people were out playing football and basketball and there were lots of street food stalls too, which all smelt meaty, but good!
After the park, I headed back to the mall to meet Aura, a girl I had met and hiked with in Cuenca who was working from Quito for a month. We went for pancakes, chatted and had a little mooch about the shops. Before we knew it, hours had flown by and I needed to head back across the city to go and ditch my stuff and get ready to go and meet my old school friend Holly. I got the bus back to my hostel, put my new jeans on ans chatted to an Oxford 6th year medic on elective before heading out.
Sadly, the Quito weather was against me. The rain was torrential, bouncing back up at my ankles from the pavement. The road was a river and as soon as I stepped out into it, my trainers were soaked. I saw only two other people on the streets and they were running! Perhaps the rain would keep me safer since noone would even consider going out to try and rob people in this weather! Even as a Welshie, who’s very used to rain, it was a lot! I met Hol and Steph, her uni hockey mate, who I’d met once before at Owen’s ride, a charity cycle ride, at their hostel and then we headed out. I wasn’t entirely sure where to go, since most things close in the evening in Quito, but the guy in their hostel suggested independence square which was close to the super cute courtyards I’d discovered that morning. We headed there. We ordered, chatted, I drank wine, ate gorgeous lamb and generally had a nice time. Hol being Hol asked me a million questions so I was the last to finish eating by a long way! 😂😂 Hol and Steph walked me back to the hostel (babes) and then I chilled there a bit before bed. We had hod to have a rooftop fire and fiesta but the weather was so bad, it was a lost cause.
22/2/23
Another moving day! Today I was off to Mindo, a cloud forest a ‘couple’ of hours from Quito. I had a lazy morning – I ate breakfast, read my book and drank coffee in the hostel, before eventually heading out around 11am to see the golden church. On my way there, I bumped into Hol and Steph, who had just finished with the teleferiQo and were heading for coffee. We sat in Independence square and chatted. Time flew and soon I needed to head to my bus. I said my goodbyes, bought an empanada and went to get my stuff from the hostel. I thanked David and got an Uber to the north terminal in Quito. There I would meet a friend, Martin, who I met in Mompiche (a beach town), and we would take the bus to Mindo together.
I found Martin in the station, we bought tickets and then headed to Mindo. The journey was pretty with lots of luscious, green hills and we chatted. We chilled, chatted, had a mooch around the town before getting food in the evening. I shamelessly said I wanted pizza and we went to a place with a glorious pizza oven. The pizza was gooood! Mindo is a sleepy place so after dinner, we headed back to the hostel.
23/2/23
I lay in a bit and then we headed out for breakfast. We went for a traditional breakfast, which was tasty and massive! 😂😂 Afterwards, we mooched about before heading out into the Cloud Forest. Typically, as we arrived at the Teleferico, a chairlift, the heavens opened and the clouds lowered and we gave up on the idea of going up the mountain in the lift to see any kind of view. Instead, we got a taxi back to the town and had a relaxed afternoon in a coffee shop. We watched a film before going out for a glorious fish dinner at the same place we ate pizza. It was oh so good! I slept early since we both had to be up at 6am for our respective buses.
wanderingwelshie2 travels 