Day 238 - Monday 15th May 2006

I rose early again with the intention of catching a bus to Quito. Leaving the hostel at about half eight I took a taxi to the bus station where I immediately boarded a bus operated by one of the supposed better transport companies in Ecuador.

All I can say is it wasn’t an Argentine bus. It wasn’t overly bad, but it wasn’t overly good either.

A unremarkable journey later (sat next to Ecuadorean girl, reasonably pretty but hairy armpits), I arrived in Quito. The last part took forever. I was about to get off the bus at the main station but I asked someone something and they told me that I could stay on the bus and it would take me to the area of the city that I wanted to be in.

When I got out of the bus I thought I needed a taxi so asked the first one I saw to take me to the address of the hostel that I had decided upon the night before. He told me – in a remarkable moment of honesty from a taxi driver – that it was just around the corner and I didn’t need his services. Too shocked to concentrate, I walked right by the hostel before realising I was there.

I walked in, looked into the main social area, and who should be sitting there but Aaron, looking distinctively sheepish and unhappy with himself. I tapped him on the head and said hello, and after a minute he explained why he was there and Jon wasn’t.

The previous evening they had hit the town, attempting to stay up all night to catch a 5am bus to the Colombian border. Apparently Jon had made it, but Aaron had stumbled around the streets with his backpack pissed and couldn’t find the station. In the end he just sacked it off and returned to the hostel. Later in the day, once sober, he returned to the bus station and booked another ticket for the following day at the same time.

He didn’t have a bed and was planning on doing the same thing as the previous night. He wasn’t planning on drinking, but the free rum and coke night at the hostel, right in front of his eyes meant that he was bound to buckle. When I said I’d come to Colombia with him the following day, but I wasn’t going to take a 5am bus, I would take one later in the day, he agreed and we set about drinking the vat of rum and coke that lay on the table before us.

Rest assured folks, it wasn’t just the two of us participating in said rum and coke night, there were about 15 people, and hence the vat was soon running dry. Everyone chipped in a dollar and we got a refill of the vat. By the time the refill had run dry everyone was pretty much oiled and it was time to leave the building.

We went to a few bars but everywhere was empty so at about 5 I headed for home, leaving Aaron at the bar.