Day 1 in Quito

That's 'Day 1' that I actually left my hostel for more than 30 minutes. I've actually been here 2 days now, I think. My brain is still a little fuzzy.

It's Sunday, no cars are allowed in the Old Town of Quito, the sun is out, and I'm going to try to do the walking tour from the Lonely Planet.

It took me until 11am to get out of the house. I went to the market to find some food and ended up getting some random liver/kidney/stomach of beef mix. URGH! Every food stall was selling stomach. I thought I got lucky by picking something that wasn't white, spongy and frilly but they TRICKED ME by disguising it. Oh well, the rice, boiled egg and potato with the spicy salsa I heaped on top was tasty.

I'm excited, I only finished half the walk but I managed to find a good (great!) coffee place, see various churches - but the best one was La Compañia de Jesús which is FILLED with gold (apparently 7 tonnes of it), hang out in the really really pretty and relaxed Grande Plaza that even had a selection of live music and have an argument (persuasive discussion really) with the watch-fixer-man who was trying to tell me east was west, and west was east. I convinced him I was right and he fixed my watch. I found a place called Fruteria Montserrat that sells fruit salads, cream and ice-cream (amongst other irrelevant things on the menu), barely anyone whistles or calls out to me here (haha! maybe I just look noticeabley worse!) and everything feels safe and relaxed. I don't want to get too careless, but WOOT!!! my watch works, the pedestrians crossing make bird noises, everything is great.