Ecuador - Quito

Heather:
Quito - a breath of fresh air. As soon as we stepped off the plane the difference was noticeable. Quito is full of parks, the buildings are all finished (in Peru if you build a house you have to pay tax on it once it's finished. So they never finish them! Almost everyone lives in a building with big, ugly metal supports sticking out of the roof and surrounded by piles of rubble), the roads are clean (Peru - rubbish everywhere), the cars do not threaten to mow each other down at every opportunity and it's quiet - no car horns or desperate whistle blowing!!

It's like coming home. Only nicer! I mean it, I REALLY like Quito. It's a modern, relaxed, green, friendly, small - one million people, city, and it's got way better public transport than we do (plus it's all wheelchair accessible). I love it, I want to live here, and the food is amazing, and the people have all been really friendly and it's really cheap (well compared to home anyway). Plus we arrived in the middle of a huge fiesta so the streets have constantly been filled with parades and brass bands playing on the roofs of trucks. A boy in a suit gave me a rose and we were both forced join in and dance with costumed folk!

OK maybe I'm getting a little bit over excited, it is just a city after all and actually the old part is not as nice as we imagined it would be, but I think it just goes to show how unbelievably badly governed Peru has been as Ecuador, it's far less rich in natural resources neighbour, is clearly prospering so much more.

Having said all that... Ben has been a big fat slacker on the photography front so you're going to have to take my word for Quito's fabulousness as we don't have any pictures to prove it :0(