New Hotel, 6th of December Day,Cable TV and so on...

I started the day early as we needed to move to the other hotel...We had our fixed breakfast with a great fruit juice (we don¨t know what fruit though), showered, packed up, settled the bill, checked the internet for the last time and took off for the hotel 20 m. up the street. The lady who we bargained was not there, there was a "señor" instead but we got the room we were shown (a triple) on the 3rd floor. We turned on the TV which looked much nicer than the other one, and came across with American show "E.R"...We decided to watch it first and go out later. The streets were all packed with hundreds of people, families were out the street. People were dancing, watching the funny shows, eating ice-cream (these people DO love ice cream, no kidding!!). The kids are adorable here, they simply are...Their little faces, dark complexion, black eyes like olives, little noses and curious "miradas"...beautiful...Another thing which is quite interesting is the men pee here just on the street, as people pass by...They don´t care,just pull down their pants and pee!!! We saw 3 men doing that by far, 2 in the park "El Ejido" and one just on the street. That´s why the streets smell urine at every corner...A macho thing I guess..After the celebrations finished, we decided to go to the hill of "El Panecillo" where we were recommended to go by a taxi cab. The cab driver was a young lady. We bargained for a 3 USD ride, climbed quite a lot and got off in the middle of Panecillo Hill. It was almost like a small town "lunapark" (amusement park) where people were sitting, picnicking, eating candies and ice cream, riding on "donkeys" as opposed to horses in a carousel (gauchos)...There is a statue of Virgin Mary with wings, it could be seen almost everywhere in old Quito. It looks gorgeous in the night time...We took an "unlicensed" taxi on the way back. It was a white car and the taxi driver had his 2 year old baby boy, drinking a "Gatorade", he had a darling face, his mouth was all Gatorade but he looked happy right next to papa...A potential good driver of the future!!!

We looked for a place to have lunch but everywhere was packed. Then we found "Caravana Fast Food" which was also selling pastries and freshly baked bread. We found some meatballs like "sucuk koftesi", very close to Turkish taste, and had it with some fresh bread and Coca Cola Zero (some kind of diet coke)...The streets were packed, for my coffee, we headed to the famous "Cafe Modelo" where everybody else was having ice cream. Quiteños do not care much about hygiene, they clean the cups with the same towel which I was watching as if I was watching a Listerine commercial (seeing thru the germs)!!!! It also seemed like a nice place for breakfast...Then we came back to our hotel and watched great movies and TV shows for the rest of the evening. In the evening, I felt like having a cup of coffee, went out but there was nobody on the streets, only a couple ladies looking for a job and some drunk people..I was a little scared, went back home...

When CSI NY started, I was asleep already...

Friday´s plan is Mitad del Mundo and a consular visit!!! Ciao!!!

Quito=ikinci vatanimizdan sevgiler