The Quito Times
Friday, October 19th, 2007I left my two travelling buddies Sharan and Marco on our second day in Quito and headed off across the city, rocking back and forth from the weight of my luggage. First I headed to the Marsical district, the area the Lonely Planet is most often frequented by tourists because of it´s hoard of hostels, restaurants and bars. Annoyingly enough, the book didn´t have a single hostel listed and after walking around for 45 minutes I didn´t come across anything that even smelled like a backpacker´s hostel.
So after a quick juice, I headed off again. This time I decided to try the historic old town and maybe see if the Secret Garden, the award winning hostel I´d heard of, had any space for me. The hotel I´d stayed in the previous night had overcharged us and I was determined not to get ripped off again. So I told the taxi driver to keep moving when they saw me coming and headed for the trolley bus (what any other country would call a tram).
It never occured to me that maybe I was lugging too much stuff for over crowded public transport. At that stage I had my massive backpack on my back, my schoolbag full with books and a laptop on my front and a power converter cradled in my arm which weighed as much as either of the two bags.
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