Random Brush Strokes

Backpackers and Traveling by Gender (potential trigger warning)

Its no big surprise that there are more male travelers than females. Sometimes it becomes hilariously off kilter, where a hostel will have like 25 men and 3 women. Needless to say those ladies get a lot of attention.  Female travelers tend to travel in groups or with a friend/significant other. The upside of traveling with a partner is obvious, everything from someone to rest your head on when taking a long bus ride to extra security at night. However I´ve noticed most couples tend to have a harder time socializing with the larger group. Even the perception that a pair might be a couple can alter a social dynamic. 
But what I really want to talk about is something I will likely never have to experience while traveling... harassment.  
In South America it is considered normal for men to cat call women on the street. Female travelers get used to it, and do a really good job of ignoring the whistles and one liners. Sometimes though, men will take it a step further and start to follow the women. This is where it becomes really hard to be a female traveler. 
A young woman I met yesterday spent 4 hours telling a guy to go away. For part of the time she was in a fairly isolated area, but even when she returned to a crowded area the guy would not let up. People he knew said hi to him, recognized what he was doing and said nothing. Others commented that it was normal for a man to pursue a woman. I asked the woman (who has been to Ecuador three separate times for several months each) how she felt about it. She was extremely frustrated but never knew what to do, she complained that it happened all the time.
On my first trip backpacking (12 years ago-I´m old) I met exactly 3 women who were traveling alone. In all cases they would meet male backpackers at the hostel and ask them to accompany them for the day. This usually lead to awkward miscommunication of expectations, but was far better than the alternative. In the years since, I have been surprised by how many women are traveling both in all female groups and alone. There is very little acknowledgment about just how much more difficult it is to travel as a female.  It should go without saying that almost all of these women are exceptionally courageous.

Music in Quito

A woman named Maizy brought this up to me. She had been living in Quito for a few weeks and said when she first got here she loved it, but quickly began to loathe the music played in public. I am paraphrasing her observations...

The english music they play in Quito is at least 30 years old, and generally older. Maizy described it as the music her parents grew up with. On one bus trip I heard the following: Beat it, My Sharona, Eye of the Tiger on another bus they played 4 songs from the Grease Soundtrack and then played Winds of Change. Its hilarious because there is no reason that the music should be so far behind. Maizy suggests that they are just slowly catching up decade by decade. I have been to other countries where the culture got stock on an American/British Music Decade (in the Czech Republic it was 60s and 70s jam bands and protest music) -this music was illegal during the cold war, so it was the ultimate cultural rebellion to love it.

They do have updated latin music, they play that everywhere, but everything in english is older.

To me this fits in with other aspects of Quito´s culture, namely that the city is somewhat conservative. I don´t know if all of Ecuador is like this but I will soon find out.

Fashion in Quito

This observation may straddle the border between lookism and anthropological observation.  The people of Quito have a different sense of style (though there are many traditonally dressed indigenous folks, I am not talking about them in this post). After coming from highly fashion conscious Colombia to highland Ecuador I went through a bit of a shock. The clothing style in the city is subdued, plain, old and honestly a bit frumpy.  I asked other people what they had noticed and they said "the people don't know how to dress for their body type. The larger people wear skin tight clothes and the skinnier people wear clothes that don't fit. They don't wear makeup except to draw on eyebrows that don't look good." -a German girl living here. 

Many people are simply wearing their work clothes, lots of uniforms, sweat pants and layers. It's as if they are dressed for winter even though It is 70 degrees during the day and they are eating ice cream. 

There are exceptions but it is rare to see someone who stands out from this description. Rare enough that you stare (honestly). It got to the point where when I saw someone who looked "fashionable" I assumed they were not Ecuadorian and most of the time I've been right.

The other big exception is the youth. The youth definitely have all the style of youth elsewhere.  Interesting hair styles, clothes that look new etc. 

But the funniest part of this is that I look at my own illfitting, very worn clothes and recognize that I fit right in.

Class, the Mall and Transportation.

Quito is quite spread out from north to south, similar to other cities I've been to there are areas of town that have more wealth than others. Yesterday when I was pointing out that the biggest mall in the area is further out than the bus system a traveler with more experience in the city than I, said "yeah but this is the richest area of town, they all have cars."  She started pointing out all of the big stores and how they looked more welcoming than the stores further in.  It dawned on me that the buses intentionally didn't reach this area, they were keeping the poor away.  

The bus transportation system though cheap is kind of inconvenient. The three main lines (with access to tons of other buses) run north/south but a trip from one end to the other can take hours. 25 cents for a 2 hour ride on a fully packed bus, it can be kind of miserable.  

Tourists are encouraged to take taxis especially when traveling with bags. Even the toughest looking guys on the bus, ride with their backpack on their chest to ensure no one goes through their stuff.

Areas of Town

For travelers there are two areas of town and then bus stations way further out that seem like they are in the middle of nowhere. The Old Town is where all the great churches and beautiful plazas are. The area is a UNESCO world heritage site, so they are encouraged to keep it looking old. Even the KFC is houses in a building that looks 400 years old. Classy KFC.

The other major area of interest is called uniquely enough the new town. The area most familiar to backpackers is a neighborhood called La Mariscal.

There are museums and parks and lots of shops and things in the new town, but backpackers get stuck in La Mariscal because it is a roughly 4x4 block area (surrounding Plaza Foch) filled with nothing but hostels, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and tiny tiendas that sell snacks and alcohol. The surrounding blocks are filled with other support services such as tour companies, craft and souvenir stores, book stores and more restaurants and hostels.  I have never seen anything  like it in all my travels, and when I talk to others they say the same. 

One of the interesting things about it though is that even though it seems entirely made for tourists, it's frequented by locals heavily. There are actually more locals in the bars than tourists.  It's a nice way to interact with ecuadorians if you are into partying, otherwise the whole area seems a bit dodgy and unreal.