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So after a lovely sunny time in Honduras I headed for Quito, Ecuador to study some Spanish and to try and book a tour to the Galapagos.
I was a little worried about visiting the city on my own, as again the guidebooks had madethe city sound really dangerous. But I was lucky enough to find a lovely hostel, called the Auberge Inn and they arranged a pick up for me from the airport. The queues were crazy out the airport and I had to wait about 2 hours to get my bag andthen go through another security check leaving the airport, but then a sign for Catrin Victor was waititng, and I was away.
I started Spanish school the very next day, but I needed to get a visa for Bolivia first and the London Bolivian consulate had said that it would be better to apply for it in Bolivia. So off I went tothe Bolivian embassy with my spanish school´s secretary who was lovely. We talked boy problems, apparently Ecuadorian men like having lots of girls at the same time, and her future dreams of being a writer and social worker. Girl bonding knows know boundaries! The Bolivian embassy inEcuador were fantastically organised and I got my visa in about 20 minutes for free (in London it would have cost 40 pounds) and then I was on to my first Spanish lesson, with my teacher Tito.
I had a4 hour lesson every day, one on one, and it did feel like a lot of hard work. But I got a pretty good, although basic grounding in Spanish, but I need to spend a lot of time preactising it and building the verbs out. At this stage, I just have very basic, traveller Spanish, but it´s enough to get around with travelling.
I had a good week, and basically spent the week learning Spanish and trying to organise my Galapagos tour in the afternoons. I liked Quito a lot, and the old city is very beautiful and has a lot of character. I also found the Ecuadorians very kind and generous people who make a real effort to be kind and help. A lady at the theatre gave me a concert ticket for free, Evelyn helped me at the embassy, taxi driveres were very patient, and I was given free tickets to a show at the National Theatre.
The weekend before I left for Galapagos, I went out on Friday night and had an amazing dinner at a restaurant with the most fantastic views over the city. I had fillet mignon and mojitos which were excellenet. Ecuador is very cheap and is a great country to visit as it has the mountains - I was really sad to have missed out on ice climbing up Cotopaxi, beaches, mountains and the jungle. I think you could have a fantastic, cheap time and seethe whole country in all it´s diversity in about 5 or 6 weeks.
Then a week after I arrived in Quito, it was time to leave for Galapagos, with my newly made friend Jason, an Ozzie who I´d met in the travel agency for about 15 minutes, and we ended up sharing a cabin for 8 days! Luckily we got on!!
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