Day 1: getting to know Quito

After a pretty long delay in Madrid, which did get me a free meal by the way, and a stop-over in Guayaquil, I finally ended up in Quito this morning around 10 am local time (time difference appears to be 7 hours, due to summertime). In Guayaquil I got in touch with some Dutchies, but they went their own way in Quito. One of 'em owes me a drink though, because he forgot to get his dólares before flying.
In any case, I walked to the exit and there was no-one with a sign with my name. So I waited a bit, but nothing. Turns out I had to go to one of the desks and had been waiting some days before. A car (big van!) came soon enough and drove me in about 25 minutes to Hotel Folklore. A whole night of little sleep and a 7 hour time difference almost got to me, so I rested a bit before going out.
Bernardo, the owner of the hotel showed me some good places to go to. So then I explored the city a bit. Walked around "la Mariscal" a bit. Apparently one of the more dangerous places in the city (more theft, because of all the tourists there). But nothing happened, and I found some spanish classes for the coming 2 weeks at Galápagos Spanish school. I explored the types of restaurants in the surrounding and I must conclude that eating vegan will be a challenge in this country. Luckily, I may use the hotel's kitchen during my stay.
After a coffee at Magic Bean, I headed to the park (el Ejido), where I met the first beggar. All in all the city Quito doesn't seem much different from any other city. Though the roads and buildings look like they could use some more maintenance, you see the same kind of cars, prices are mostly the same (just in $) and roads are busy. A total different place then any city in India for instance. There surely is poverty, but it is less visible, it seems.

Tomorrow my first Spanish Lesson in Quito. The rest of the day I will spend confirming my chocalate case here and hunting for a mobile phone. I'm pretty broken now, so I'll just do some RosettaStone Spanish and then hit the bunk.
Hasta luego!