Since visiting the center of the planet, I have explored more around Quito, went to a local soccer game at the stadium, an indigenous market in Otovalo, and completed another week of spanish school. They have rules in spanish that don't exist in english and trying to figure them out during conversations in buses, noisy nightclubs, and from taxi drivers is like trying to teach myself advanced quantum physics. So it was back to school for me.

Last Sunday, I took off to explore Old Town Quito with one of my new roommates, Claudia from South Africa. My first venture to Old Town in the prior week was with a British bloke with asthma, a mild case of altitude sickness, and a strong dislike of walking places... a very unideal combination for city exploration. For having just arrived, Claudia had no problems with the altitude and we covered a lot of ground, the best thing being The Basilica which provided some great views and photos.

Spanish school ... more homework and brain exercise than I care to expose myself to at this point but well worth it. I am now armed and dangerous and ready to expose native spanish speakers to my ****-poor use of the subjunctive tense, which we really don't have in english, and hope they understand half of what I say. How this will go ,only time will tell...

And finally there's the hostel. I'm staying at Centro del Mundo, owned and operated by a French-Canadian business and marketing genius. If you are looking for a nice, comfortable, quiet, low key place to kick back, relax, catch up on some sleep and reading ... this ain't it. My estimation is that he has made many thousands of dollars in the past few years just by offering free rum and coke drinks to all guests every Monday Wednesday and Friday. The resulting hangovers generate a lot of extra revenue by having to pay to stay an extra day to recover from the previous nights hedonistic behavior. And just when you are recovered and ready to move on, guess what? It's rum and coke night again. As a result, I've been here way too long but so has everyone else which means I have a lot of great new friends from just about everywhere. I will be moving on soon now that spanish class is finished....next stop, "The Bathrooms" ... you'll see what I mean.