from the desk of mike develin...

so here i am in quito, ecuador for 10 days. it's interesitng; this is my third experience in a third world country. devotees of this blog may remember that i found barbados depressing on account of the living standard, and that i thought the food sucked; thailand had both of these problems, except it also had the added problem of insanely bad air quality.

quito is i guess better than both of those from a human interest standpoint. the air quality is bad -- i notice that this makes the entire place look run-down, because if you put up a building that looks new it becomes sooty in an instant. cars belch smog and people belch smoke, not like the eco-conscious california i'm used to at all, but it's not like bangkok where walking around for any amount of time made my eyes burn and made me feel incredibly dirty.

today we went up to the top of a mountain overlooking the city, which was pretty neat. the view was actually basically non-existent due to being in the clouds/fog (maybe smog, but i actually don't think so even though it would make total sense), but it was neat to be so high up. of course, due to the altitude, we've all been variously experiencing headaches, stupidity, and light-headedness.

still, it was cool to be so high (like 13500 feet), and it was also nice up there because away from the cars, the air was actually breathable, or at least would have been if it contained enough oxygen. then at the foot of the mountain there was an amusement park, so we rode a roller coaster, then john and i went on go-karts and played a carnival game. nice.

my guidebook (let's go ecuador) is proving to be rather useless. in particular, i think the salient facts, none of which are revealed in the guidebook, are:

guinea pig does not taste good. don't bother.
you can get around here without knowing spanish, but it will be a constant trial. i'd recommend at least a travel crash course (like knowing how to ask for prices, etc..)
it's polluted: everything is dirty including the air.
the effects of altitude sickness (mostly you just need a couple of days to adjust.)

i'm sure there are more, but we wasted an entire meal on the guinea pig, which was just awful. not that you would necessarily expect it to be good, but they do eat it regularly here, so i would imagine it would be worthwhile. on the bright gustatory side, there are cheap schwarma places everywhere, which rules.

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