2nd Stop: Quito, Ecuador

We arrived in Quito, Ecuador and went to "El Centro del Mundo" hostel in the heart of the new town of Quito, also known as Gringolandia, due to the large amount of tourists they receive. It is a very popular party/backpacker hostel, which we thought would be awesome but realized later it was not the ideal place for us... We walk in the door and were escorted to our room. It was the first room in the place, right next to the front door, open windows on a somewhat sketchy street, and no locks on the door...hmmmmm... our first thoughts were, "how safe is this place going to be?" We then discovered that there were locks on the closet doors and that is where we were suppose to put our stuff. We did this and then went out to chat with a couple other travelers that were sitting in the common area, watching Castle and the Simpsons. Thomas was our first new encounter! He's from Sweden and has spent the last few months volunteering at a school in Ecuador. He had a lot of advice for us about traveling around the country. Laura and I walked around town a bit, getting information about possible jungle tours in El Oriente of Ecuador, but made sure to make it back to the hostel in time for Rum and Cokes at 7:00. I don`t drink rum nor coke but every night at 7 they have a theme night and that night happened to be 12 free liters of rum and coke for all hostel guests. It was a blast! There were about 30 travelers in one small space drinking and sharing their adventures! How inspiring!

After socializing for a bit me, Laura and a couple new friends went looking for Brian and James that we had met in Colombia, that were now in Quito as well. They both lived in Quito for a couple years teaching so they know the city very well. We walked around to the couple places that they said they would be at, but could not find them. We instead decided to go watch a concert with Thomas and a bunch of girls from the hostel. It was a local Ecuadorian band, named Humanzee, that were friends of Thomas. The show they put on was amazing! It was cool because other then us from the hostel there were no other foreigners there. It was all locals, which I sometimes prefer. It was more of a cultural experience. :) After the concert I had my first Ecuadorian street food experience. We all went and bought taquitos from a little street vendor, hoping that we would not be regretting it in the morning! At this time it was after midnight, as they now stop selling alcohol at midnight on weekdays in Ecuador and don't sell it at all on Sundays, like in Minnesota. Laura and I had to be up early the next morning to head to the Galapagos Islands, so we decided to head home. We arrived back to the hostel to a living room FULL of people, and remember, our room is right by the front door, and living room. It was horrible. We set an alarm for 5:30 am and let's just say that there were voices and people coming and going until about 4:30 am. So, do the math and you can see how many hours of sleep I got.... This goes back to the beginning when I said picking the party hostel may not have been in our best interest! Minus the lack of sleep, we met a lot of cool people and did enjoy our first night in Quito. Now it was time to start our 4 day adventures on board a yacht in the Galapagos Islands!