How about them waffles

Hola!

So we got stuck in Atlanta overnight. The hotel had seen better days, but was a free bed. The next morning Sara and myself were awoken by the cleaning staff at around 9am, but Peter and Marilyn were left to sleep, so that is when we filled in the blog and wrote some emails. After meeting up with my folks we decided to get some brunch and/or go for a walk. We walked to this green space, but it was really just green space seperating the hotels from the freeway, and there was people already living in there, so we decided to leave them alone. Across the street was the "Waffle House" so we went in. It was a perfect southern spot, with a few booths, people eating at a bar, and packed with people that did not look like us (Big jewelery chains and baggy clothes) as well as young families ya'll! Dad you would have loved this place it was totally gangstar and all African Americans in the entire restaurant. There was one other white person in there.. it was AWESOME! You should have seen how they ran this joint yelling orders around. The waffles were delicious! This older woman served us. Marilyn asked for herbal tea, or low fat milk, neither of which they had. We all ordered OJ, waffles, and hashbrowns. The food turned out to be delicious, and the atmosphere, was right out of the movies. After brunch we packed up and headed to the airport, where Sara and myself spent a good hour or two determining the best way to blow the remaining $21 of Delta food coupons. We decided on chips and guacamolie, frozen yogurt, and mixed nuts and fruit. We killed the time, and boarded our plane to Quito.

We arrived in Quito after enjoying Slumdog Millionaire for a second time. Cleared customs without a problem, to find only 3 bags had made it. Tyson's bag was nowhere to be seen. So we started to fill in the paperwork, beside a very upset business man who also lost one of his bags. Serves him right, he kept turning off my tv on the plane. Anyways while waiting for them to photocopy my passport, the guy thought to look in already received baggage room, and what do you know. There was my bag!!! We figure that Sara, Peter, and Marilyn's bags had made the original flight to Atlanta or the same flight we actually sat on, but mine didn't. Mine ended up getting transfered through LA on another airline, but whatever, it made it before me.

Got to our hostel late, and went to bed, in a very hard bed. It is surprisingly cool here, and there is no heating in the rooms. It rained and dogs barked, but we made it through the night.

We enjoyed scrambled eggs, a banana, a bun and jam, and a fruit smoothie for breakfast, before setting out to explore Quito. We walked South along Amazonia street through the park to the start of old town. Then we turned west and headed up a hill. See the bottom of the valley is flat, but there are lots of hills around and Quito extends up most of them. We walked up steep streets and stairs until we ended up on top of a hill by a soccer pitch and a soon to be opened fancy restruant. We had a great view of the city from there. After enjoying the view we headed down to Basilica del Voto Nacional, a huge gothic catherdal built in 1926. Notable: instead of gargoyles it has iguanas and turtles. The highlight is the massive clock towers that you can see from most of Old Town. Me and Sara paid our $2 each to climb up them, and by that them mean all the bloody way. You start up steps, then on a spiral staircase, and finally you are on ladders, until you are above to clock, the bells, and even the stone. You finish up at the beginning of the roof tiles. We had to dare each other to climb the last ladder, but we did it. On the way down, you can go over to the spire over the center of the church. So you walk on a wooden boardwalk above the nave of the church, then climb up three sets of ladders until you are on the spire. Not as high as the clock towers, but a good view of the clocks.

After that we walked down to the Grand Plaza. Just as we got there it started to rain. So we took cover and figured out where we were going to eat. We decided on a LP highly recommended place, and it turned out to be very good. Potato soup with popcorn on the side (Sara thinks you are suppose to put it in the soup, which while tasting good, is weird). A fruit plate and an empanada. After we finished we thought the rain would have stopped, because we had been told that when it rains it only rains for 15 minutes. What a lie, it rained for the rest of the afternoon. We checked out a number of other plazas and churches, but they were all pretty quiet due to the rain, and because it was Monday and half the places were closed.

We decided to start walking back to the hostel so we could stop on the way and ask some travel agents what we could do to get into the Amazon, but without knowing exactly what we wanted it turned out not to be a good way to spend our time. So we walked all the way home in the rain, and were quite cold when we got back. I had a shower, to warm up, which helped while Sara shivered and had a snack instead.

We then had a meeting and decided we would go to Tena for the rest of this week and then go with Leann to Otavalo when we get back from the Galapagos. After this we went for dinner. The first resturant was too expensive so we walked out before ordering. We had planned on going there, so we didn't bring our guidebooks or a map, so we walked around for a while looking for a busy place. We ended up a Mama's which was Ecuadorian, and decent. Sara says it lacks flavors and they were a little cheap on the Avacado but the potatos are very good here! The cheese however is not that good it tastes like tofu cheese if there was such a thing. Also who would have thought you can make corn in so many different ways. For example.. i thought it was cauliflower on my plate but it was white corn that tasted like soggy popcorn... but it meshed well with the mashed potatos.

So tomorrow we head to Tena by bus (shiver... )

Tyson and Sara