Finding a Suitable Place to Sleep is Not Always Easy (Ecuador)

Despite not being able to make it to Quito that day, we had a fun tourist destination in mind on the way..the equator!  A bit after dark, we pulled into Cayambe, the town on the equator.  We had Chinese food, as that was the only restaurant open, before heading back to the hostel for bed.  A gloriously hot shower, and then bed.
The next morning, we planned on leaving at 6am, but Jared and I were pooped, and opted to push back until 8am, a very smart decision in the end.  We grabbed breakfast of coffee and biscochos, which we discovered were A) biscottis, B) very popular there, and C) delicious!!   About 15 minutes down the road, we saw the sign for the equator.  We parked, and found ourselves standing in a giant sundial with a large hollow cylinder in the center.

We were able to get a bit of an informative tour before taking lots of goofy pictures.   We settled back in the car; the drive to Quito was long overdue, and nice and easy.  The Ecuadorian country side is stunning, and we were taking blurry pictures the whole way. When we finally arrived into Quito, we had some trouble finding the hostel that we had researched, so we drove around a bit, until I finally decided we were definitely in the correct area, and I would try on foot.  I walked around asking, and was quickly steered toward a hostel.   The intersecting corner seemed pretty popular, with lots of women dressed in spandex aimlessly wandering around, but it's South America, people often dress in inappropriately tight clothes...right?  (This will be significant later).  I walked into the hostel, which looked nice, with a central commune area, and rooms along the periphery.  The woman said there were rooms available, and started upstairs, when another girl walked past her, obviously a fellow hosteler...right? And the woman guiding me proceeded to fix her tags on her spandex outfit, no bigs.  We walked upstairs, which did not look like the downstairs at all, due to all the crazy construction!  Most of the rooms had signs of condemnation, and she showed me a room with dirty sheets still on the bed!  That's when it hit me...oh my god, I think this is a whore house!!!
We finished up there, and I left in search of another hostel, was pointed in the right direction, and found a new place a few blocks away.  This one had about the same look, minus all the girls loitering outside.  The beds were kinda crummy, but we could just sleep on our bed pads.  The cost was $6 a night, so I went back out to report both locations to Jared, Kenny, and Alex.   Kenny and Alex opted to check out the first place with me, unconvinced that it was a whore house, and optimistic about the $4 price tag.  After looking around, we were not too happy, but still craving a cheap nights sleep.  While we were debating outside of, what we decisively now categorized as a whore house, the host woman came out explaining that she had a much better place with private baths and hot water.  She guided us over, and it turned out it was the same place I had just been to!  We did notice that most of the people coming in and out were guy-girl pairs, but as we had already driven around for about an hour, decided it was good enough for a few nights.  We unpacked the car, and settled in, making sure not to put our stuff anywhere on the bed...or chairs, or tables.  The "private" baths she was referring to apparently meant completely unprivate to anyone else in the room as there was no partition between the toilet-shower area and the main bed and no curtain on the shower.  Jared went to the bathroom, and discovered a dirty condom in the toilet, and apparently Kenny also found something in his toilet.  This could not be the best Quito had to offer for travelers!  We decided quickly that we could not stay there, as it was obviously a place to bring a partner for an hour, re packed the car, and as we were on the way out got a "yea I didn't know what you were thinking" look from the reception woman...oh who was also encased in glass in her desk area.   Back in the car, we drove around in circles again for ages before trying it out on foot again.  We finalllyy found an actual travel hostel, with indoor parking!!  This was our gem!  By that time, it was a bit late, so we settled in and went looking for food and an atm.  My stomach had been giving me issues all day, so I opted out of food, but they were able to grab a super cheap steak dinner for $3.50.  That night, we met some fellow hostelers, and Jared made plans to fly to the Galapagos Islands for the next day. All long day, for such a simple task!