Tuesday 3 April 2012

I think I was scammed (or an attempt was made on me) this morning in Old Town. I was just finishing off the last bits of my sightseeing in Old Town that I hadn't managed to do, like Plaza San Francisco, which my Spanish teacher had recommended and which the guidebook said was arguably the prettiest square in Quito, as well as the mercado central.

Well, I got onto the Ecovia (after trying to use the Trolebus, but the problem with the Trole is that I think the onward and return go along different routes. As I haven't got extensive experience of the Trole and having paid my $0.25, and gotten onto the platform, I found that I was heading in the wrong direction, so after waiting (deciding if I should try and get to a station where there was a convergence of both directions on the same platform), but there being no trole in sight, I decided to get out and stick with what I do know: the Ecovia.

I made it to the Plaza Marin stop no problem. I had a spot of fruit salad and orange juice for lunch, and then made my way up Chile, to Cuenca and the Plaza San Francisco, where the Monasterio de San Francisco is. This is almost as heavily decorated as I remember the Compania being, but as I didn't bring my camera, I haven't taken any photos (plus, no one here seems to do that in Ecuador: churches are taken quite seriously; it's always busy with people sitting down and praying if they´re not at mass. You never see anyone brave enough to take photographs in the churches). There was lots of gilding (no stained glass windows), a blue decorated dome above the altar and lots of figures and pictures of what I assume are holy people: saints and bishops around the altar.

Afterwards, I thought I'd try and find the Iglesia part of this apparently large religious complex, but hadn't really consulted the guidebook and instead went towards the Compania. Backtracking to find the Iglesia, I was suddenly stopped by a woman behind me who pointed out a brown liquid stain on my backpack and who then mentioned that I had it on my hair, down my T-shirt and trousers. I didn't know what it was and how I could have gotten it until she mentioned paloma (pigeon), and then I smelt it: definitely poo of some sort.

She started trying to clean it off me and my backpack and I immediately got out my pack of wet wipes, and started to do it. However, she kept trying to take the backpack from me to clean, but I kept taking it back from her.

She suggested going to the baños of a nearby corner hotel, in the foyer of which she continued trying to help me, putting my backpack onto a bench and trying to clean me and not allowing me to keep hold of it, which I was insisting on doing.

In front of a bench in the foyer was a mirror and I couldn't see anything on my hair (and I had wiped it as far as possible), but I had seen the back of my T-shirt and trousers, both of which had brown stains and streaks.

I wasn´t really suspicious of anything, I was too busy trying to deal with her attentions as well as trying to clean myself off, but I wasn´t happy with the number of times that she kept taking my rucksack out of my hands to clean it, and I would be trying to keep hold of it. She even told me to be tranquila (calm) and that my backpack was seguro (safe).

Another guy inside the hotel then tried to help too - I don't know how he got involved, only that he started asking questions, and trying to help. At some point, however, I then felt a damp patch on my hair and a massive amount of brown stuff came off onto the wet wipe I immediately used. They were still insisting at this point that it was a pigeon. It was then that I was sure I became very suspicious and was sure then sure I was the victim of a scam (or intended victim): how a pigeon got me inside the porch of this building, I'd like to know! Plus, most of the pigeon poop I've seen and been unfortunate enough to have gotten onto me, tends not to be a uniform brown colour, but a multi-green, black(?) and white stain, unless, of course, Ecuador's pigeons are totally different. Thank goodness I was a bit paranoid about my bag.

I do know/remember from reading about Quito before leaving the UK that there are scams involving blowing powders, etc, onto you and that this often involves more than one person.

I think this must be a variation of the scam that I had read about from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Even after the woman left (and I´m pretty sure that that last squirt of "paloma" juice inside the hotel was spite because of their failure to separate me from my backpack), there were still (other?) people trying it on. As I stood there on the pavement, wondering what to do next (well, trying to figure out where I could find a bathroom to change into the pair of jeans I had in my backpack), another (?) guy started asking me what happened and trying to clean me up. Even as I half-let him and had started to get my wet wipes out, putting my backpack on floor by my feet, someone from inside the hotel, was trying to grab my backpack from the side!!

I walked away from all of them, poured most of the contents of my water bottle onto my hair, and found a quite backstreet corner where I just changed into the pair of jeans I had, and tucking away the stained trousers in a plastic bag. (I was intending to go to do laundry on Thursday but it may have to be advanced a couple of days depending on how smelly the trousers are when I get back).

I then managed to buy a long-sleeved cotton top - which I had been searching for, for the last day in Cuenca, bearing in mind the coldness of Quito and lack of wearable tops I now have (wear and tear of a very limited wardrobe) - which I then changed into, in the shop. I dumped the stained T-shirt, which was bound for the bin in the near future, anyway. Needless to say, the experience gave me a disinclination to continue sightseeing in the Old Town and gave me a bit of a dislike of it, and I basically just hurried back to the hostal to wash off the horrible smell in my hair…

Apart from the mercado, which I assume is like every other one I've seen everywhere else, I think I've done Old Town, in any case, and won't be going back there again!