Quito, Ecuador: Part Dos

We were happy to be back at our nice hotel, even if it was just for one more night. That evening we had Thai food, which we´d both been craving for a while. That night we made it a mellow night and just watched TV in our room; who knows the next time we´ll be able to watch TV in a nice hotel!

The following day we didn´t have to check out of the hotel until 2pm! Yeah, 2pm! Have you ever heard of such a thing?! We had brunch at Kallari´s, which had amazing organic food. They also had amazing chocolate! After check out we took a cab back to our former hostel. Later that afternoon we walked into the Old Town. First we visited La Compania de Jesus, which was so beautiful! Seven tons of gold were used to gild the walls, ceilings and altars. We weren´t supposed to take pictures, but we snuck a few anyways. Sh, don´t tell! Afterwards we walked to Plaza San Francisco and visited the Monastery of San Francisco. It is the largest colonial structure in Quito, as well as it´s largest church. Katie thought it was cool, but Leif had a bad vibe about it.

The next day we got up early and visited Volcan Pichincha. We took the TeleferiQo, a sky tram that goes up the mountain. We had some great views on the way up, but at the top it was super cloudy, not to mention freezing cold! We waited for a couple hours to see if it would clear up; when it didn’t we headed back down. Later that night we decided to go out! Our first stop was Papillion, which played mostly Latin music. After hearing the few songs we actually knew, we got bored and left. We took a taxi to Matpioshka, the place we had been to before with the unlimited drinks. We started talking to a Canadian, who had just returned from seven weeks in Banos where he was studying yoga and Spanish. While at the bar Katie was handed a business card by a guy in a hat, which read `you are so damned beautiful. I am gay, but I just had to say hi.` He was hot, so we started talking to him and his friends. We all danced until closing, and then shared some cabs to an after hours place. We continued drinking and dancing with our new friends. The cute guy in the hat was trying to convince us to stay in Quito longer. We would have loved to, but we had to catch a plane to La Paz the following evening. Why do we always meet awesome people right before we have to leave a place?! One by one they each left, until we were the last ones standing! We left around 6am; we couldn’t find a registered taxi so we ended up taking a pirate taxi…which you should never do. Oops!

The next day we checked out at 12pm, but didn´t leave the hostel until 5pm. We got to the airport about four hours before our flight, during which we ran into a mother and daughter who were on our Galapagos tour. At the airport Katie started to not feel well. She was weak and light headed, and then began to shake uncontrollably. A medic came over to see her, and gave her an aspirin and told her to rest a lot. Basically what happened was her body reacted negatively to the drastic climate change. We had gone from 50 degrees in Quito to sunny, 80 degree weather in the Galapagos, and then back to chilly Quito. So apparently, this is not good! She finally started to feel better by the layover in Santiago. After Santiago we flew to La Paz, and arrived there around noon.