My last few days in Quito were somewhat of a whirlwind and now I am feeling all out of sync and surprised to find myself with a new set of people again, and in Peru. I am in a little town on the coast about three hours from Lima, but I forget that name - that is the problem with organised tours I suppose! I haven´t yet decided whether this was the best decision, but the guide does seem to know a lot and after the traumatic time I had on the way here, it is actually quite nice to have stuff organised for me and not to have to think straight.
Last Sunday I climbed Pichincha, the volcano just outside of Quito, despite my promise to myself that I would rest up in preparation for the busy week ahead! It was such an immense achievement, and the altitude makes you feel so light-headed that I had a whale of a time up there (it seriously makes you feel drunk!); it was worth all the strange shortness of breath and effort to reach the summit, even when I had to be practically carried back down due to my nuisance runner´s knee issues! Apparently we had taken the difficult route (typical) and ended up scrambling up some rather dangerous rocks to get to the very top, but we made it!
I took part in a very intense travel writing course with Viva this week, which was truly wonderful and I know all the tricks of the trade now!! But seriously, travel writing (at least for guidebooks) is so much more fast-paced and stressful than I had realised. I am still pretty keen to get into it though, and will probably return to South America at some point in the near future and teach English while I submit work and give it a proper go. Anyhow, on Thursday we went on a sort of field trip to Cotacachi, which is near the market town of Otavalo, and I bought a beautiful red leather jacket very specific to the area and so incredibly cheap considering the high quality. The jacket got stolen at the airport by some dodgy Austrian geezer who had been droning on at me about how his credit card had been stolen (god he was boring!) and that he needed ´something to sell´(alarm bells should´ve rung!) and I just didn´t pay enough attention, hence my beautiful jacket is gone and I was just devastated - I don´t know if it was the theft and the feeling victimised, or purely the fact that I had said goodbye to everyone in Quito and was completely alone again, but I sat and sobbed into my hands for two hours straight - what a sight!
It is true to say that bonds form quicker when you are living away from home, and I really felt so close to my friends here and felt as though I had known them for years. On Thursday night I went out with all of them (feeling good in my red jacket - the only nice piece of clothing I had, boohoo!) to a fantastic jazz bar-restaurant called El Pobre Diablo and it was the perfect last evening. The food was superb and afterwards Hannah, Erin, Carlos, Vince and I stayed for the live band, which was wonderful and played hits like Stevie Wonder´s Superstitious. Although I was exhausted from the week´s assingments and lectures, I was transfixed by it all and by the intense happiness I was feeling, and the saddest thing was that I knew as soon as we left the bar my time in Quito was officially over.
However, I am making a conscious effort to snap out of the nostalgia and enjoy the moment again; unfortunately STA travel have messed up yet again, and it looks as though I have been kindly opted out of the jungle trip part of the tour (unbelievable!) so I am quite furious with them but determined to go whatever happens, even if I have to arrange my own tour at Cuzco - this is one thing that goes against these tour operators; I just feel as though everything is out of my control!
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