3-4-10 Quito, Ecuador

Left at 6:30 this morning and rode to some little restaurant where the guy brought us our food (eggs, rice, plantains and beef) then brought us our silver ware and lastly our coffee and chocolate (just hot chocolate but kinda bitter). So that was different.  This particular little town had far more black and indigenous people who were short and stocky with a wide face and flat nose.

Getting out of Colombia was easy, just a 5 minute wait in line, then had to tell the stamp wranlger what my profession was. That's all. Not much different getting into Ecuador, though the guy had a hard time comprehending that we'd ridden our bikes from the States. He asked me where I started and I told him "Los Estados, Colorado" to which he replied, "Si, pero donde empezo?" and I repeated myself, the he repeated himself again, then I told him that I rode through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala...... and he got the idea then gave us a blank stare.

Ecuador is beautiful. Huge rolling hills and mountains, wide valleys and lots of farmland.  The fields are all irregularly shaped, and have different crops of many colors and textures, almost resembling a huge patch-work quilt.
Being that there were lots of green fields around and some healthy looking bovines as well we decided to try some beef. What came out of the pot on the stove on the side of the road was the following- 2 medium taters, 3 cubes of beast and a handful of toasted hominy.  Then we had a little dish of hot sauce that looked like Thousand Island dressing but had pureed strawberries in it I think and was spicy, very good. Oh, and no silverware was provided with this feast, just 2 room temperature Cokes. Being that we don't know what this specific meal was called, we decided to name it 'beef bricks' as the beef looked like, well, bricks. But it was actually really good.

The only complaint thus far is the toll booths.  They charge us 20 cents and are located every twenty minutes perhaps. The price isn't an issue, it's the fact that we have to stop, take off our gloves, fumble around in our tank bag for a quarter, then wait for the lady to print me a receipt which she gives me along with a nickel. Yes, they use US currency here.  At one booth I tried using a dollar bill but the lady couldn't break it.

Quito is a huge city.  We came over the crest of a hill just after dusk and saw a sea of lights in the valley beneath us, creeping up the side of a far mountain.  We didn't have a hostel picked out so set off to find the city center and work outwards from there.  While in the city, we noticed that we were in a lane without any other cars ahead of us or behind even.  Upon further investigation we realized that we were in a trolley lane with a high-voltage line above or heads.  We pulled up behind a trolley and had to wait for it to load before slowly making our way down the lane until we could find a spot to jump out into regular traffic.

We ended up liking Quito a lot. It's very cheap here. We had Chipotle-style burritos and a mini Coke for under $2.  The people are also very friendly and speak a clearer Spanish than the Colombians and also understand my accent better. This was most evident when yelling in traffic at taxi drivers for directions.  They never replied with a 'Que!?' but always with a concise answer.