Quito

Hola from Quito in Ecuador. Have been here for over a week now and am really enjoying it. It's a pretty hectic place with 7 mill living here. The city has a great old area with some impressive plazas and churches. One of which, San Francisco allows u to climb right up inside the spirals and actually out onto a super scary tiny ledge 20 floors up! Of course there are so safety rails just a sign in spanish and english saying 'Take Care'!!!!



The city sprawls along a big valley surrounded by mountains and yesterday i took the nearby telefrico up to a 4100m lookout and then hiked for a couple hours up to the a peak of Pichincha at 4700. It was a great afternoon - I left at 2 and was back by 7! Tomorrow am off on a organised hike up the glacicated peak of Chimborazo, Ecuador's highest peak at 6300m. Its a weekend trip and we cheat a little as we drive up to a refugee at 4800m before getting up at 12am to tackle the summit. I've been chowing down the pasta so feel fully carbo loaded up. Yes this city is the place to do outdoor stuff. NB The South American Explorers Club is a great place to hook up with other outdoor freaks http://www.samexplo.org/

Is also great to be in one place for more than 4 days. Am staying in yet another top and cheap South American hostel with million dollar views of the city for a bargain basement price of $5 a night! Everyone here is super friendly and a lot are teaching english so people tend to stick around for a while. I've been taking spanish lessons with a tutor so will be talking like a local soon!

Coming from Popayan was eventful. It all started when i woke up early and decided to get a early bus. It was still dark and i crazily thought it would beok to walk the 20mins to the bus station. After all the town seemed chilled enough. Wrong. I was just getting my stuff out of the hostal door when this dodgy looking guy called out from down the street and started heading my way. Hmmm i thought and started to make a retreat when the dog belonging to the owner of the hostel shot out from the door and started barking crazily at this guy. The guy responded by pulling out a mother of all machetes (obviously intended to convince me to part with some dinero ) so i speed up my retreat and managed to get mysef and the dog safely back in before closing the door..Moral of the story - always use cabs in south America.. Anyway the rest of the trip was long but incident free. Managed to stop on the way and check out this huge church build in a gorge called San Blas. Arrived in Quito later that night and of course caught a cab to the hostal.


Gotta get some sleep so adios....nb pics coming soon...

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