The Gringo Hood

A lovely building in Quito
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La Mariscal is the place to go if you are a gringo (anyone not from Ecuador) or if you are a gringo preditor, of which there are many. It is the cute and bustling neighborhood of Quito where most of the hostels, restaurants, bars, clubs, and internet cafes are located. It´s a great place to really familiarize oneself with the Ecuadorian bacchinalian behavior. It´s also a good place, like every other place in Quito, to get run over by a bus, taxi, or any regular citizen in a loud and-or very smelly car. My only real gripe about Quito is that it is very polluted here. There are no rules, or at least no enforced rules, that disallow 30 year old diesel busses to spew their black smoke day and night. The same goes for cars and trucks. It´s just not a priority here to have pollution checks or green vehicles. In fact, my wonderful Spanish teacher Nancy said that Quito is the 3rd most polluted city in Latin America. (Mexico City and Santiago, Chile are first in line, with Sao Paolo, Brazil right behind them all.) Quito´s geographical topography is similar to that of Mexico City´s - a sprawling city in between high mountains that prevent enough air exchange, thus ensuring that all the diesel smoke just hangs in the air in the city itself. Add to that the high altitude of the city itself, and you´ve automatically got breathing problems. I walk up and down the hills to get to my family´s house, and once i´m there it´s 3 stories up, and I could definitely use an inhaler after that trek. But far worse than that was the capoeira class I took on Tuesday - I was heaving and wheezing and couldn´t catch my breath. It was rough. But I suppose I am getting used to it, since i took a class today and did much better.

Some more about Quito