El Rincon Hostel

Our experiences at La Posada Colonial made us decide to downgrade to a hostel in the Old Town near La Ronda. We kinda felt we would like a bit of company! So we found a great little place complete with our own little balcony. Really friendly people. We even had a view of "the Virgin of Quito" which was on top of "El Panecillo". Decided that we would walk up to see it. "Ha !" The family who ran the hostel fell over laughing. It was a 4km walk which seemed fine, but they said we would be mugged 10 times on the way up! " Get a taxi" they urged. "Ask it to wait for you. Look behind your back!" After our recent experience we took their advice.

The views from the top were breathtaking! Our anxious taxi driver wizzed us back down and after half an hour we were back in the hostel planning our Galapagos trip.

In the evening we decided to eat at a restaurant highly recommended by Lonely Planet. Mmmmm lonely was again the operative word. We were the only people in this grand restaurant that could easily have housed 200 people! The food was pretty ordinary and by local standards quite expensive. The owner of the restaurant proudly showed his private wine collection of over 300 bottles of prestige wine!

The owner of the hostel was worried about us walking down one section of the street that lead to the restauant and so escorted us down there, making us promise faithfully that we would get a yellow cab home. When we returned the family were waiting for us... the son anxiously pacing up and down the street. Broad smiles lit up their faces as we emerged safely from the cab.

mmmm another day in Quito.