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Blooms and SAE

Beer: Not so easy to find a good one here so we end up drinking the Pilsener. I think I drank about 11 bottles yesterday - and didn’t really feel it all that much. I guess I’m used to the 3 bottles and you’re moderately sloshed variety. I prefer it.

We went to a Mexican Restaurant for dinner. Super tasty. It was cute. I was teaching the Kiwis spanish. So it goes.

Monday night the bass from the Blooms, the dance club across the way was keeping us all awake so we decided … if you can’t fight ‘em, join ‘em. $6.00 for all you can drink Pilsener or Tequila or whatever and a DJ who was on and off and on. You can’t cut off a Rage Against The Machine song in the middle or follow James Brown with the Four Non-Blondes. wtf? Tony and I had a good time making fun of the pretty British boy who was dancing on the bar. You know the type, wants to be above the crowd. Hands always in the air. Taunt taunt. You’ve got to find something to do while the music is lacking. The occasional Outkast or Arrested Development remix kept me sane.

Getting back to the Magic Bean hostel at 2:30 in the morning the doorman was presumably passed out and we had to climb over the wall in order to knock on the door and wake the guy up. I’m glad he wasn’t passed out the night that I arrived. That would have been a bit of an adventure being locked out with all mny gear.

Today we moved to a cheaper hostel across the street called Crossroad or something like that. We’re hoping the music is quieter. The boys went to Otavalo while I hit up the

South American Explorers clubhouse. Wow. Wow. So much info. So cozy. What a great place to do planning and hook up with fellow travelers for some adventures. Map rooms, book exchanges, a library, volunteer info and volunteer reports, thursday movie night, current newspapers, a kitchen. It’s sweet. I’m happy to be a member and can’t wait to see the Cusco and Lima branches.

Damn campstove, I cannot locate any white gas in for my Whisperlite. I really really should have made [tmo] buy it and purchase a Whisperlite International or something. I’ll keep trying but my hopes are vanishing. There are some reports of white gas being available so I figured I could probably wing it somehow. No luck so far.

I think I’ll head to the hostel and relax for a bit. I’ve been on my feet all day. It’s time to do a bit of reading and consolidate all the info i gathered today. Map out where the spanish schools are so I can stop by a few of them and check it out. I’d like to start that next week. We’ll see. Maybe 2 weeks in quito. Travel a bit and then 2 weeks in Cuenca or Banos. Go with the flow, right Parker?

Mountain Biking at 8am tomorrow - I’m psyched. More on that when I get back. There’ll probably be some worthwile pictures by then as well.

I hate pulling out a huge pocket of change to pick out a dime for the kid that’s washing windows on cars in the street and then hits me up for some monedas. I’d rather reach in my pocket and pull out something small automatically. It’s kind of hard where there are dollar coins and I don’t want to taunt him with $5 worth of change.

I’m not seeing many street musicians, maybe I need to head to Old Town again. That seems to be more of the spot. I gladly give them $$. Even if it was the guy in the park playing the recorder with skills classifiable as mediocre at best.

Posted by volker at January 28, 2004 06:55 PM