The Eyrie
7 December 2006
Quito has two city centres: the Old Town and the New Town.
The New Town is filled with modern restaurants, travel agencies, internet cafés and foreigners. South American Explorers is based there and it’s where the gringos hang out.
Down the road, Quito’s Old Town is classier, cheaper and one of the world’s most picturesque urban centres. Its Historico Centrico is based around the Plaza Grande and flanked by the Presidential Palace, the Archbishop’s Palace and the Cathedral. Off to one side is a hill (and local landmark) called El Panecillo (‘the little bread loaf’). At the hill’s summit is a statue of the Virgin and built against its side, amongst a jumble of corrugated iron roofs and shanty-style box houses, is my apartment.
The apartment has four rooms: kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and rumpus room. These are joined by a balcony containing a table, two benches, a pot plant and room enough to swing several cats. That balcony sits above a courtyard. On the other side of which (and below) live Nella and Henry – my landlords and newly adopted Latin American family.
Nella is Dutch, speaks six languages and works as a guide leading tour groups into the Amazon. Henry is Ecuadorian, an artisan, plays harmonica in a band and when not indulging his new English brother with ad hoc Spanish lessons, sits in a workshop beneath my balcony making jewellery out of amethyst and silver.
The apartment comes with a stereo. I have two CDs: one is Peruvian pipe music I bought from some street musicians at the Plaza Grande, the other is an astonishing fusion of Spanish guitar and hip hop mixed by Japanese DJ Mitsu which was given to me when I left Sydney. I’m spending my time gazing out over the Andes, writing in my big black book, conjugating Spanish verbs and dancing around, all by myself, in my new hilltop home. Hip hop, I’ve come to understand, loves me 100 per cent.
The Eyrie is an elevated location in a city built onto the side of a mountainous valley. That valley is nearly three kilometres above sea level, so the views from my balcony are utterly and comprehensively spectacular. When I went to look at the apartment during my first week here, Nella described it as “A good place to dream.” She hit that nail right on the head.
Days since leaving London: 561
Population of:
London 11,624,807
Istanbul 11,332,000
Sydney 4,331,000
Quito 1,399,378
‘We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.’ – Richard Feynman
