( Do you know where you're going? What's your polestar?) (Old sailors love their sextants.) (Closed until at least August. The home of the dissolved Assembly.) (Aristotle weeps) (No, no fucking way.) (Wow, just wow. And, this elevation sucked a lot less than it would have last week. 4,000m+ Still left me winded. And, awestruck.) (Doors seem to pull me in.) (Contra the advice of Lyle Lovett, do NOT 'step inside this house.' 'The House of Grief') ($5, including the first, and best, beer in memory) (I turned the corner and just stopped. This picture fails to capture the moment. Nonetheless,..) (It feels to me as this captures my experiences here quite well. Don't ask; I could never explain. It just does._
Quito, ~1545 Exhaustion is setting in and I'm doing my best to pay attention. Honest, I am. It's also about accepting limits and being smart. That's very hard to do here. Elevation is tough on a fat (but thinning) and balding dude. Today's sole destination: Science! (For kids) My two favorite museums, in the world, are Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and Muenchen's Deutsches Museum. [Immediate digression, to live in the moment: While it has rained here everyday, it sounds like a doozy is about to blow in. Thunder for the first time. Big temp and light drop just now. Glad I'm blogging rather than logging footsteps at this moment. I hear the stores shuttering; I do not hear the touts. Oh, shit... 20 minutes later... I now have 3 bananas, some cookies and chips - perfect for a rainy night dinner. Plus about 4 litres of various fluids. Hydration matters at elevation. Supermercado Santa Maria must be one of the nice girl Santas Maria. Much
Day 3: - 01Jun23 Written: Quito, ~1500 First: Happy Birthday, Dad! What a day so far. I thought I'd head to the other end of town. (No, I cannot remember if it's North or South.) The Cathedral (OK, that makes it the southern end. I think.) side. About half way there I though a bird shit on me. Then two guys started to try to help clean off what was more like mustard than bird poop. I knew something was wrong. How could it come from above only touch my hat brim above but stretch down my neck to my right leg. Makes no sense. It must have come from behind. Bells and whistles started in my head. One guy started cleaning my left leg. Which happened to have a zippered pocket on the side of my thigh. And did not have stinky stuff on it. Alarms, klaxons, and "hooters" (So. African for a klaxon) started SCREAMING. Full alert, this is not a drill! I looked. The pocket was open. I slapped a hand; my wallet fell to the ground. I stepped on it. Suddenly my helpers
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