Life post-Peru

This time three months ago I touched down in Sydney airport after spending six months in South America.

For those of you post-holiday depression wankers dreamers, that’s the equivalent of 13 #ThrowbackThursdays ago. 

In some ways, it’s almost like I never left. I’ve settled so deep into the daily grind that my “new” job of two months feels anything but. I’ve re-joined the gym. I recently paid $50 for four drinks and barely bat an eyelid, because damn it that’s Australia for you.

Like a post-break up letter I never send, I guess I haven’t felt compelled to write a holiday wrap-up because in other ways, it didn’t feel over just yet.

I’ve gotten into the habit of saying “ciao” instead of bye. And just when I think I’ve shaken the last grain of sand out of the boots I wore in Huacachina, Peru - there’s more. It seems you can take the girl out of the sand dunes, but you can’t take the sand dunes out of the girl’s shoes.

My initial reaction when people say “Welcome back!” is “Huh? From what?”

Meanwhile they’re gawking at my skin tone. My tan-on-tan apparently reached such epic proportions I came back looking like an actual Inca (thanks, Mum). Or maybe that was my strategy all along: to stock up on 50 Shades of Tan before the Australian winter. 

Lima, Peru was the last stop. The city is so incredibly touristy, but made for a good transition back to western life: burgers, big breakfasts and hot showers. 

Three return flights later, here's what I've been up to since arriving back in Sydney...

I spent the first week in hideout with my boyfriend. Yes, we made it. Yes, it was fucking hard. But we’re as strong and great and happy as ever. We’ve also become accidental long-distance role models to our friends. This topic needs a whole other blog entry in itself (watch this space). 

The following two weeks after that were a whirlwind. I went into job-seeker mode. I submitted applications, and had interviews galore. My new boss found me on LinkedIn, and within a few days I was employed again. I’ll write another blog about the saga (so yes, keep watching this space). However, can I just say, it’s totes amazeballs how many job ads you find that are actually 3-in-1 roles offering entry level salaries... plus admin duties "as required." Pfffffft.

To finish, here are the top FAQs I’ve received. 

“What was your favourite place?”

“Can I pick 3?”

“Umm, okay.”

“1: Cartagena, Colombia. 2: Buenos Aires, Argentina. 3: Machu Picchu, Peru.”

“Did you go to Rio Carnavale?”

“Yes.”

“Was it crazy?”

“Yes.”

“How many people did you travel with?”

“It was kind of like a hop-on hop-off budget tour for 18-35 year olds, so the group size changed all the time. We were about 8 at our smallest, and 30 at our biggest. Some people did the whole 6-months like me, others just a few weeks.”

“Did you all get along?”

“We became family. We loved and hated each other.”

“Was it safe?”

“I was lucky enough to pass as a local so people didn’t bother me. I never felt in danger of my life. With that said though, some people on my tour did run into trouble. Like getting pick pocketed. One guy was bashed for his iPhone. Another guy tried buying coke, only to be stirred up for more money than the initial price quoted. Turned out the coke was fake.”

“Where do you want to go next?”

“Central America.”

Love, Noeline

xox

Lake Titikaka, featuring a most adorable baby.

Lima, with my mate. 

4 days trekking later, Machu Pichhu :) 

Sandboarding in Huacachina.

Un-Boliviable!

With its contrasting landscapes, here's 3 times beautiful Bolivia literally took my breath away.

1. Salar de Uyuni
It's out of this world. It's like being in a dream.

2. Death Road
No place like Death Road (aka the World's Most Dangerous Road) to ride a bike for the first time in 12 years. It's 64km of mostly downhill dirt road, and only 3.2m wide in parts. Tested the theory that once you learn, you never forget how. Worst thing that could have happened is that I plummet up to 600m to my death. But I survived!

3. La Paz.
Where Christianity meets witchcraft. Witch doctors are highly respected. I had my fortune told for the first time by one. His predictions were eerily analogous to my personality.

Love, Noeline
xox

I left my heart in Buenos Aires

B.A., I'll be back one day.

Love, Noeline
xox

My chilly relationship with Chile

It was bound to happen eventually. I was having such a great time. And as eventually happens when you're having a great time, shit happens.

For some people it happens literally, through bouts of diarrhoea that seem to swoop on my tour group at unexpected intervals. For another it came in the form of accidentally leaving their passport behind… with a border crossing the next day.

My downfall began on the drive between Ushuaia (Argentina) and Torres del Paine (Chile). We had what I like to call, a mystery camp. Let me explain. 

So you know how the South American content is massive? Sometimes city A and city B are so far apart, the tour bus will drive for as long as it can before stopping at any spot alongside the road that looks good enough for us to spend the night. 

One time we camped in the middle of a football field. Oftentimes we've camped behind or alongside gas stations. On this particular occasion, I couldn't even describe to you where we ended up. All I remember is a grassy field with fences behind some wooden buildings, maybe they were fully-functioning, maybe  they were abandoned. My mind seems to have blocked out what it could.

What I do remember (and what I'd do anything to forget) is the cold. I've never felt such freeze in my life. Despite having brought one thick, trusty coat with me, the same coat that served me well through a European winter, I was not prepared for this. This was a whole other level.

It was so cold I couldn't look at my iPhone without condensation obscuring the screen. My teeth were chattering. My joints were aching. My thermals and sleeping bag were futile. It was so cold I couldn't didn't sleep. 

And that was the beginning of my 2-week decline.

A dry cough from hell ensued, causing countless more sleepless nights. The hours I lost sleeping, I made up for in guilt - for keeping everyone around me awake with my uncontainable exorcist-level coughs. My nose, when it wasn't clogged with mucous, was a dripping tap. The skin around my nose peeled from the sheer amount of nose-blowing. 

On two occasions I forced myself to go hiking (one big, one small) because I couldn't bear the thought of not hiking at one of the world's most famous destinations for it. People come from all over the world to hike Torres del Paine. And there I was being a sick bitch. Resenting myself if I did. Resenting myself if I didn't.

My whole experience of Chile was shattered. I will forever remember the beautiful mountains of Torres del Paine as Torres del Pain in my Ass. I will forever remember idyllic Patagonia as Patago-and-fuck-off. I was that utterly miserable.

After so much first-world suffering, I couldn't wait to get to Santiago, where we booked into… wait for it… not a campsite... not hostel rooms, but hotel rooms. ACTUAL HOTEL ROOMS. WITH ACTUAL FLOORS AND WALLS AND CEILINGS TO PROTECT YOU FROM THE FUCKING COLD.

It was like a gift from the universe for finally starting to feel better.

But then the hotel room had bed bugs. FUCKING BED BUGS. At first I thought it was just a mosquito, so I let it go. I was already in a silk slip. I applied repellent. I sprayed my bed with bug spray. But then the succession of emerging new stings wouldn't let up.

Distraught and sleep deprived, at 4am I pulled the spare blankets from the wardrobe and slept on the floor.

I woke up with my neck, shoulders, arms, and face had swollen from bites. I went to reception first thing that morning to ask, on the verge of tears, to change rooms.

To think I had envisioned a good night's rest before a productive day of exploring the city. With only a 2-day stop-over in Santiago, I dragged myself to do a walking tour but struggled to give the city the appreciation it deserves. I was tired and teary. I was fed up defeated.

Perhaps the only positive thing that happened during my time in Chile was catching up with an old room mate from my year abroad in Spain. We had terremotos (white wine with pisco and pineapple ice-cream). The name translates into "earthquake," because that's how the ground feels after you drink one.

Apart from that my time in Chile went from bad, to worse, to "fuck this shit."

Chile, maybe one day we can start all over again?

Love, Noeline
xox

3 reasons why I'm not travelling solo

A question I get asked a lot, is why I chose to travel 6 months through South America with a travel company rather than alone - especially when I speak a proficient level of Spanish. Especially since after all - yes, it's more my travel style, and yes, it would have worked out cheaper. Here's 3 reasons why I'm not travelling solo.

1. Travelling is like any other addiction, sometimes you need to put the structures in place to keep yourself from overdosing and going broke.
   I love travelling so much, that had I gone by myself with the freedom to go at my own pace - I'dmost likely never leave. I need the discipline and structure of a planned itinerary to force me to pack my things and move on, from one city to the next. A pre-paid, mostly non-refundable cost structure also helps keep one from getting cold feet or jumping ship midway.
    
2. Lack of time, or maybe bad timing.
   The timing of my travel epiphany (that there was no better time than then to go now), didn't leave me enough any time to research, book and plan ahead far enough to ensure that point no. 1 didn't happen.
   
   During this time I was still working full-time, commuting up to 3 hours per day, and my Visa applications were causing enough stress and trouble in themselves.
   
   From experience, given the amount of man hours I put into my boyfriend and I's weeklong getaway to Vietnam and Cambodia  - I would have needed to quit my job a few weeks in advance so I could read every review, compare every hostel, analyse the pros and cons of every travel option to and from every city, compile a spreadsheet of plan A's and plan B's… you get the point.
    
3. I have things to come back for.
   People travel for different reasons. To "find myself" has never been one of them. The only thing better than having a strong sense of self-identity - is being content with it. As a result, I have nothing to "run away" from. Rather - I have reasons to come back to: my family, my friends, a debt of kisses owing to my loving boyfriend (hai bf!), plus a career in an exciting industry to resume.

So there you go. I thought it would be fun to go back through my Instagram and go through the last pictures I posted with some of my favourite people before having left.

Love, Noeline
xox

The last 'gram of my bf and I before leaving for South America. Yes, it's been tough being apart. But we've made it work!

Last 'gram before leaving with my fierce, strong, independent ladies. Sorry for the grains. It was dark and we were in a nightclub.

Last 'gram before leaving with my family and I at my quarter century birthday. Half-half birthday cakes rule.

The two types of female travellers

Tour guide: There's lots of mosquitoes at The Pantanal.

Me: *Dresses like a nun*

Other girls: *Wears booty shorts and crop top*

-_-"

5 rules of the universe I've learnt while travelling

1. Your local currency rate, which was doing marvellously just a few weeks ago, will turn to shit just when you need to exchange money.

2. The person who is most scared of bugs, will also attract the most. Or maybe just notice them more.

3. The people with the smallest budgets will end up paying taxi fares double to triple more than what everyone else paid, because they wound up with the driver with almost no vision and/or no clue as to where they're going. But this doesn't become apparent until about 5 minutes in. And they're doing circles, asking other locals for directions, with the meter on.

4. In a tour group, there will ALWAYS be someone who is not quite "all there," and drive everyone insane.

5. This will happen to you. All the time. And usually at the most iconic tourist attractions.

Love, Noeline 
xox

Why I travel (and you should too)

One of my mother's fondest stories of me as a child goes a little something like this:

I was sitting in the baby seat with my parents up front (back then they were still together).

I would cry hysterically one minute, then be at peace the next.
Within moments I'd be crying again, only to calm down as quickly as my tantrums came.

After putting up with a few cycles of my odd behaviour, my mother figured out the pattern.

Whenever we were caught at a red light, I'd cry. Once we got going again, I was fine.

The loophole in this, was that she would shake the car seat whenever we were stationary, fooling me into thinking the car was still in motion - in which case all was good with the world.

Not much has changed now that I'm 25. Except I've upgraded from cars to airplanes.

I'm so addicted to the feeling of a plane during take-off, that I can’t afford to drive nor own a car.

That's right. I've traded-in the convenience of driving myself around to the local shops, so I can traverse the world instead.

Even when I was throwing up on the boat from one Greek island to next, even when I'd turned into a lifeless excuse of a human being whilst winding through the Atlas Mountains - at each of these moments I wouldn't have had life any other way.

Even when I was scammed in Thailand or bag-snatched in Vietnam, I'd never once wished I was back in the "safety" of my own home. Things like that can and do happen anywhere.  I have Australian friends who've had their belongings stolen, in Australia, by fellow Australians.

You don't have to be brave to travel, you just need to be realistic.

Forget your small town gossip and your small town drama. Forget about your "haters," and your ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. Instead of buying another pair of Christian Louboutin heels, buy a ticket. Go somewhere new. Preferably a place that offers more than cocktails by a closed-off pool. Preferably a place that serves more than Western style burgers and pizza.

Do it, and realise that there's so much more to this world than "home". That there are people happier than you, with so much less than you.

Sending my love from Salvador (Brazil's most violent city).

Noeline

xox

But where are you really from?

Only in South America would people not question me on where I'm really from.

They have an evolved form of multiculturalism from that which is found in Australia.

Their ancestors might really be from somewhere in Africa, and my ancestors might really be from somewhere in Asia - but they get it. They just get it.

And it's beautiful not having to explain or defend my identity.

It's nice not being a novelty.

Venezuela: 1 country, 2 exchange rates

Unlike its neighbour Colombia which oozes in colourful colonial charm, Venezuela's buildings are a dull, tattered kind of modern.

Fighting through my initial disenchantment, I realised I'd been looking in the wrong place. Turns out the magic wasn't the street itself, but in the cars passing through it. Old, beat-up cars - or let's face it - pure shitboxes - were traipsing through the streets. I was surrounded by a patchwork of parts, broken indicators and masking tape where glass windows once were.

Cars that should have either been glorified in museums or retired in wrecking yards (I'm not sure which) were somehow still active, en masse,  in Venezuela. There are more bombs than there are cars made in the last 10 years.

Often upon questioning the roadworthiness of a car, there'd be a 'TAXI' sticker on the windshield. Still good then, I guess.

Were I a vintage car aficionado, I would have probably been frothing at the mouth.

I sorely wish I could have taken more photos than their political situation would safely permit me. Which brings me to my next point. Without getting carried away and turning this post into an essay on the political situation in Venezuela (I'll leave you to Google it in your own time) - let's just say they're going through a lot.

Things are so dire that basic medicine and supermarket goods like toilet paper and cooking oil have become scarce (read more). People will queue for hours at a stall selling a single product no longer available in the shops. All of a sudden their grocery run has turned into a days-long ordeal lining up at numerous stalls in order to gather just some of what they need.

Go to a restaurant, and menus are a graveyard of things that used to be served - as waiters reel off the handful of dishes you really have to choose from.

I even went to McDonalds for the first time in Venezuela - and they had "run out" of chicken, hot chips and Coca-Cola.

What is available, is expensive - driven up by inflation and a double exchange rate.

1. The official currency

This is what you'll get by taking money out of an ATM, making a card transaction or going through a legitimate, authorised money exchange vendor.

$1US = 7 Bolivars

2. The black market currency

This is what you'll get by exchanging US notes at the border crossings from men (shall we call them freelancers?) competing against each other to bring you the most competitive black market rate.

$1US = 110-150 Bolivars

This is great for tourists, but wreaks havoc of the national economy. Prices are adjusted somewhere between the official and black market rates - which still work out to be expensive for locals.

This makes tourists extremely high targets for theft - and flashing one's smartphone or digital/SLR camera around doesn't exactly deter that. We've been encouraged not to wear expensive looking clothes, watches or jewellery.

"If a hotel worker sees your camera lying around, they're probably going to take it so they can sell it. But can you really blame them?" - Venezuelan tour guide

Of all the things I came to witness, the most heartbreaking would have to be at the Colombia-Venezuela border crossing. In a country where petrol is cheaper than bottled water, boys as young as 6 years-old were siphoning fuel from Venezuelan cars to sell in Colombia at significant profit (read more).

As one of the world leaders in oil production - Venezuela should, in theory, be a thriving nation - not a starving one. However, years of mismanagement has landed them in a difficult situation… it will be interesting to see how they get out.

Next stop: Brazil.

I was lucky enough to try out the Coromoto ice-cream parlour in Merida.

2 scoops: "Lagrimas de Amor" (Tears of Love) and Café (Coffee)

Currently holds the Guinness World Record for offering the most flavours (more than 850).

On 26 December 2014, they announced they would be closing for the season due to a shortage of milk (read more).

Christmas at Playa Grande, Choroní.

Salto Ángel (Angel Falls), the highest waterfall in the world at 979m.

Nearly x20 higher than Niagra Falls.

How to spend all day on a bus, multiple days a week

21 days in Colombia. Sounds like a reasonable amount of time.

That is, until you subtract the number of hours, which add up to a number of days, spent doing nothing but driving from point A to point B.

We spend the equivalent of whole working days, sometimes even longer, sitting on our asses, alternating between screens: iPhone screens, iPod screens, iPad screens, and kindle screens.

Sometimes we even kick it old school by looking out the window screen, a hard-copy novel or PC laptop.

To pass the time I've read 3 novels in 3 weeks - which I would never have had the time for as an employed person.

Other people take it as an excuse opportunity for binging on movies and TV series. So if I suddenly stop blogging, it's probably because I've succumbed to watching Game of Thrones. I've watched the first episode and still have yet to feign any interest.

Our hybrid travel bus/truck vehicle has two built-in tables on which the crew will sometimes play card games, although I am so sensitive to motion-sickness I do everyone a favour by sitting out.

Combined with winding roads, dirt roads, one-way bridges, roadwork and traffic - it's not hard for ETAs to become stretched and re-stretched.

But it was worth it.

The old towns are so picture-perfect I often felt like I was on a movie set. Its colours leak into the neighbourhoods: houses with cement walls have exterior coats of unabashed fluorescent pink, lime green and taxi cab yellow.

I'm putting this charmer of a country on my list of favourites :)

From Queenstown, NZ to San Gil, Colombia: What they don't tell you about adventure towns

They're advertised as hotspots for adrenaline junkies. Such towns are gifted with the kind of cliffs that are perfect for jumping off, skies with a view worth falling into, or the kind of river you can't not raft through.

Skydiving had always been on my list of 'to do' things since I was 16. A friend suggested waiting till I was older (i.e. richer) and do it in Queenstown, NZ - because apparently it was THE place in the world to skydive. I figured that if I was only ever going to do it once in my life, I may as well go all out.

Eight years later a travel buddy suggested our next stop be South Island, New Zealand. One of the cities we'd be passing through was Queenstown, adventure capital of NZ.

My time had come.

I had never been happier to part ways with so much money, nor more enthused to sign a death disclosure form. They drove us about half an hour out of town to a small airport, where a plane was waiting to whisk us 15, 000 metres above ground… so we could fall most of the way back down.

Just as they were about to fit us into gear, I was delivered one of the biggest blows in my life.

Despite perfect conditions that morning, the wind had suddenly picked up just enough to hit danger level.

My dream was postponed till the next day.

Except the next day, it was raining.

The day after that, our tour was moving on to another city. So my dream was pretty much cancelled on me. As a constant reminder of my pain, I spent weeks afterward trying to get my money back.

I was disheartened, to say the least. Majority of the reason for my going to NZ (apart from intentions of visiting a friend who also conveniently bailed), was to skydive. My hard earned, long awaited adventure holiday suddenly lost its purpose.

What the brochures don't tell you is that for every skydive that goes ahead - there are a handful of broken hearts that don't get to go.

I numbed the pain with other activities like glacier hiking, white water rafting, speed boating, and swimming with the dolphins.

Perhaps the greatest risk in travelling especially for adventure sport is that it may not even go ahead. I've since learned to balance anticipation and excitement with a healthy level of expectation and acceptance of unfavourable conditions.

Putting this into practice a second time around came a lot sooner than I thought.

Just this week my South America tour stopped by San Gil - adventure capital of Colombia, for 2 days. On the first day  I had booked myself in for repelling 200m down a waterfall, until the unrelenting rain said 'no.' The following day I decided to paraglide for 15 minutes through Chicamocha Canyon. Speaking too soon thinking it was finally my lucky day, the wind died down after just 5 minutes; which was 5 minutes more than the multitude of people still left in line behind me, whose plans of paragliding at all that day were shattered.

Where you can help it, I'd recommend spending at least a week in any adventure capital to allow for the rescheduling of cancelled activities due to poor weather. With that said however, during peak periods this may not be so easy if every slot for the next few days is already full to the brim with other hopefuls.

Take these things with a smile, and always look for a silver lining. It may force you to consider other activities you would have otherwise never intended doing, or if you really need to scrape for a morsel of comfort - at least you didn't die. Even dare devils have a safety limit.

Sometimes it just isn't meant to be, it just happens to be a lot more than any fancy website or glossy brochure will care to admit.

Love, Noeline

xox

The time I finally got to skydive, at North Wollongong.

Sucking it up in South America

Experiencing the beauty of South America comes with some first-world trade-offs. Here's 10.

Right thigh: 3 of 20+ mosquito bites I'm currently suffering. Numbing the pain with anti-itch cream and Lonely Planet.

1. Mosquitoes
They're everywhere. Compared to mosquitoes in Australia, their South American counterparts are a lot stealthier. You don't realise you've been bitten until after they've had their full of your glorious gringo blood and fled.
My bites tended to be itchiest on days 2-5 before calming the fuck down.
A friend on the tour was adamant that her repellent was attracting mosquitoes instead of deterring them. So she experimented and went a night without it. Mission failed.
Use repellent and suffer 10 bites instead of 20.

2. Lack of insect repellent
You think they'd be stocked in most supermarkets. They're not. Head to the pharmacy and stock up there.

3. You will be on a constant search for bottled water
Be prepared to go through about one million of these whilst on your quest to stay hydrated. You can't drink tap water here (unless you're trying to make yourself sick, by which means go right ahead). In some places the tap water will actually have an orange tinge to it. Buy 5L bottles from the supermarket to refill smaller ones to carry with you during the day.

4. Few hot showers
When it's hot, cold showers aren't so bad. When it's cold, you start reassessing the urgency of needing to take one at all.

5. No toilet paper
Most public bathrooms don't have toilet paper. Always carry a packet of pocket tissues with you. Take spare toilet paper rolls from hostels/hotels and use that.

Some bathrooms charge a small usage fee. There'll usually be a lady at the front entrance collecting fares, but on the plus side this means they're more well-kept and toilet paper is provided.

6. No toilet seats
This may not be such a problem for boys doing a number one. Girls, practice your squats because you'll be doing a lot of "the hover."

7. No running tap for which to wash your hands
Carry wipes or hand sanitizer with you. You don’t want season your next meal with toilet germs.

8. Being charged gringo (tourist) prices VS them not having enough change to give you due to the huge ass notes dispensed by ATMs
It's a catch-22. As tourists, it's in our interest to withdraw larger amounts to reduce the amount of transaction fees. Yet we end up with wads of the biggest notes possible. Then we struggle to make small purchases because no one has enough change to give us, so we either:

(i) buy lots of crap that adds up to a larger, more acceptable amount;

(ii) sadly go without street food (usually mystery questionable meat on a stick); 

(iii) be happily overcharged in the name of street food. In the grand scheme of things, this will usually only be a few dollars, if not a few cents; or

(iv) pay as a group, followed by hours of discussion trying to work out who owes who how much.

At the artisan markets in Otavalo, the starting price of pretty much everything for tourists was $22US. This meant a lot of the things I could get cheaper back home. Stand your ground and bargain. What we will eventually settle for as a fair price, will still be more than what an Ecuadorian travelling domestically would be charged. By paying a little extra, you can help support the local community without being completely taken for a ride.

9. No English
Be patient, take it as a challenge and opportunity to learn Spanish. Either that or learn to treat the ambiguity as an adventure.

10. The locals will stare at you

It was a hot day and my tour group (there was 11 of us) decided to cool down at the local pool. There were a handful of locals already in the water, but the moment we went to join them they all hopped out. I'm not sure if it was out of courtesy, or if it just conveniently happened to be lunch time. They lined the perimeter of the pool, took to their packed lunches and watched us frolic. Within minutes, word about us had spread, and parents and grandparents had also gathered round. 

They don't mean any harm, it's more of a friendly curiosity. They will try speaking with you in the hope that you know more Spanish than they do English (which is little to none at all).

Or it could just be the fact that you're wearing shorts and Havianas despite it being cold and raining.

Love, Noeline

xox

4 days in Ecuador

If you're going to join a travel tour, it's worth arriving a few days early. Here's a few reasons why.

1. If any of your flights are delayed and you miss a connection, at least the tour won't have left without you. Give yourself one less thing to worry about.
2. Depending on the time difference, this will help you recover from any jet-lag.
3. You'll have a few days adjusting to the local conditions. I'm not used to high altitudes (Quito is 2,800m above sea level). I had a slight headache and nausea for the first two days. Whilst not paralysing, I was able to go at my own pace rather than trying to keep up with others.
4. The first city usually only serves as a meet-up point, rather than a destination with planned tour activities.

I arrived in Quito, the capital of Ecuador three nights before the tour officially started. It's worth noting that most flights into Quito arrive late at night - by which time it is too late to check-in to most hostels. Not only that, but the city centre is about an hour drive away from the airport. So unless you're game enough to trust that the taxi driver will drop you off at your exact destination, rather than somewhere "close-enough" for you to navigate the rest of the way by yourself in the dark - I highly recommend staying at a hotel close to the airport. They cater specifically for late arrivals or passers-by with early flights. Most offer a pick-up service for a small additional price. 

I stayed at Hostal Colibri Aeropuerto, and highly recommend them. I paid $30US, plus $12US to have them pick me up from the airport. I garnered my first impression of Quito from my driver. He didn't speak an ounce of English and was not in the least embarrassed or apologetic about it. I came to realise that he was a microcosm of Quito's attitude towards tourists. 

You're welcome to visit, but we refuse to bend over backwards for you. Few of our restaurants will have signs or menus with English translations. Go by the pictures if you must. Don't make it hard on yourself by trying to look for a place that serves English big breakfast or skim soy lattes. So you want to check out the Presidential Palace? The tour may or may not be in English.

If you don't already speak at least an intermediate level of Spanish - Quito forces you to learn fast. Needless to say, I haven't spoken this much Spanish since, well, living in Spain. 

Quito has a charm of run-down luxury. A relic of Spanish colonial architecture, the streets make you feel as though you're in Europe than in South America. That is, until you spot Quechuan women of indigenous descent in traditional dress walking around selling scarves. Dos por cinco! Dos por cinco! In a city where Catholic churches and monuments were built on top of sacred Quechua ground, it's hard not to admire their resilience and pride in upholding their ancestry.

La Basilica 

View of Quito from La Basilica 

Colonial architecture

UNESCO has declared Quito a World Cultural Heritage Site, having the largest most-preserved and least-altered historic centre in Latin America.

El Panecillo

This metal statue of the Virgin Mary is said to have been built at the top of a hill previously used by the Incas for sun worship.

View of Quito from El Panecillo 

Tip: Catch a hop-on hop-off tourist bus ($12US) to the top of the hill. Tourists have been known to be held at knife point for their valuables while choosing to walk up. You could catch a taxi, but drivers generally don't like waiting, which makes it hard to get back down.

El Palacio de Gobierno

I was lucky enough to catch sight of President Rafael Correa waving to the Ecuadorian people.

In Otavalo, less than an hour outside of Quito, a community of Quechuans can be found. For the older generations, Spanish would have been their second language (if at all), with Quechua being their first and primary tongue. The town is known for its artisan markets and relies heavily on tourism. The colours and patterns of their wares are so beautiful I wanted to buy just about everything!

I definitely plan on coming back to Ecuador, especially to do the Galapagos Islands, which I didn't have the time or budget for this time around.

Next stop, Colombia!

Love, Noeline

xox