Black market, Basilica, and the Equator!

It's Wednesday but I'd like to take a few seconds to write about my weekend!

I heard a few weeks ago about this elusive place in Quito, aptly named the black market, where my friends bought some replacement phones and computer chargers for cheap.  Before saying anything else, it must be mentioned that buying anything in Ecuador that was made elsewhere is insanely expensive.  Import taxes are jacked up, making the clothes and electronics heres absurdly expensive, especially when you know how much you'd pay back home.  Unfortunately, sometimes spending is inevitable and for that reason, we were all happy to find out such a place as the black market existed.

My friend Lauren and I went on Saturday.  No, it's not a back alley where shifty-eyed vendors covertly pull their jackets to the side to show you the goods.  Nor does it feel remotely illegal.  It's in this "shopping center" - called el Centro Comercial Montufar and it's 4-stories of small shops with normal-looking, friendly(-ish) vendors.  The catch is that nearly all the merchandise is stolen.  You can tell by the some of the worn edges of cell phones, the fact that nothing comes in a box, or like in Lauren's case, when iPods still have music on them from the previous owner.  The suggested prices by the vendors were nearly always market value in the US, but of course, that's considerably cheaper than anything you'll find here for new.  So Lauren bought a camera and an iPod - we negotiated each of those down $10  and she was happy with her purchases.  I asked around...there were iTouches for $150, and cheapo phones like we bought here for $30 (we payed $60).  It was a great place to find!  I think I may go back because I need a new memory card and will surely pay less there.  And that might actually be new...

This is what it looked like inside.

On a funny side note, we only roughly knew where this place was.  We were at the right bus stop, right in the middle of the historical center of town, but decided to ask around.  Of course my friend Lauren goes straight to a cashier and says, "Donde está el mercado negro?" to which the lady just laughed, shook her head, and walked away.  I laughed soooo hard.  I'd imagine you don't go to New York City either, clearly a tourist and ask a stranger, "Excuse, but where is the black market?!"  With a little more tact, I asked some men in the bakery where we were snacking if they knew where we could buy electronics, like a camera?  One man caught our drift and nicely walked us there, warning us that there are lots of thieves around so to be careful.  So side note - be subtle when looking to buy illegal things.

After our adventure at the black market, we joined our friends at the giant beautiful basilica a few blocks away.

Me & the front door

The inside was very impressive.  We got  to climb to the top, up several scary ladders, but the view was so worth it. 

View from one tower of the other two

Stephen, Brein, me and Lauren

After, we had dinner in a small restaurante right outside the basilica and then returned to Lauren's house to watch a movie.  We flipped channels on Directv for a while, and settled on Taken, which was terrifying!!  Not the type of movie to watch while living in a foreign country, not to mention being a 20-year-old girl!  Regardless, we had a fun night.

On Sunday, I met up with Lauren, Molly, and Joe and we went to Mitad del Mundo (literally: middle of the world) - in other words, we visited the Equator.  It took about 2 hours of transit time for me... 3 different city buses then the 22 km bus ride to Mitad, north of Quito.  We did the typical tourist thing and took pictures on the line...

Lauren and I

Molly, Joe, me, and Lauren (picture taken by some people from Alabama... also fun and unusual to meet Southern tourists...)

So that took all of 10 minutes.  The fun was kind of lost too, knowing the ACTUAL line is about 240 meters north (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitad_del_Mundo)  No worries though.  We got lunch then wandered around, buying souvenirs at the shops and listening to the live music.  Finally we found a playground and decided we were 12-years-old again, and played on everything.  It was decidedly the most ghetto playground we'd ever encountered - the swings were made of old tires, the teeter-totter didn't have anything to hang on to, and half the games were not even recognizable.  Oh well, fun times.

This is just me looking cute.

After this fun, we went back home... another 2 hours of crowded buses, getting uncomfortably close to sundown (when we're not really supposed to be out) but I made it home just fine.  On our second bus, a guy our age whispered to us in English to be careful because the guy next to him wearing gloves was a thief.  Nice warning - no one lost anything that day :)

Unfortunately, by the time I got home I was freezing and felt like another cold hit me.  Since then I've been coughing and plagued with a sore throat, so that's no fun.  Seems I'm always sick here, one way or another!  Anyway, this week has been easy enough so far.  Tomorrow night we are going out on a chiva for Julie's birthday (a party bus!  with room for 30 so hopefully all of our friends come out!)  No real plans for the weekend yet either, but we're not going too far away if we do figure something out.

So that's all the news for me!  Hope you guys like the pictures on this one!  I think I'm going to go back and add some to my previous entries too.  Later though, now it's time for bed.

Good night!

PS.  Ohhhh right.  I can see who reads this blog by country and I just want to know... my reader in Russia... who are you????  Please comment or something I am so curious :)