Posada Del Maple Quito

I think that it is something to do with Quito being so close to the Equator that is drawing me back here like a magnet. I don´t want to leave. I´m weary after 4 months travelling, I want to hang out somewhere for a bit, and I love Quito!!! The reason I´m sure that there is a very good reason for returning to Quito, apart from wanting to get tickets to a Miss Universe presentation, and I believe that good reason was to break the kissing drought. It had been over a month, and in Brazil to be pr...

www.volunteersecuador.com www.intiwarayassi.org I'm back to where I started some 14 months ago. Same city (Quito), same hostel (Posada del Maple), different room (15 if anyone is wondering). I've arrived with more memories, more bites and a mild concussion, so maybe I havent arived with all the memories. Estoy aqui donde comencé 14 mesas atras. El mismo ciudad (Quito), el mismo hostel Posada del Maple), un cuarto diferente (15 si gustas conocerlo). Llegó con mas memorias, mas picas y un conmo...

Just half an hour or so outside Quito is Mital del Mundo, which means Middle of the Earth in Spanish. Here is the equator line. When you arrive it appears that the equator is marked by a big monument, however, this is a lie. This monument marks the equator as identified by Charles Marie de La Condamine in the early 1700s. In fact, the real equator lies a 200 m away, and is celebrated by the Museum Inta Nan (the indeginous word for the equator). At this museum you can do all these crazy experi...

A couple of hours outside Quito is an ecological reserve called Mindo. First we visited a butterfly farm. Needless to say it was full of butterflies some of which were massive. There was also an odd frog or two. We then went for a walk through some cloud forest, which we accessed by way of a rickerty metal ´box´ which whizzed along a wire hundreds of metres above the forest. Finally we finished the day with a visit to the humming bird cafe, which for me was the highlight of the day. As we sat...

After a very early start we caught our flight at 7.30am from London Heathrow to Quito, via Madrid. The flights were fine with only slight delays. For some reason we were sat in the area with loads of kids making loads of noise, making it difficult to sleep. The vast majority of the flight from Madrid was South American passengers who you´d think had never seen blonde hair before. This was to be the start of A LOT of staring! If any blondes out there need a confidence boost, come here they lov...

From aboard the aircraft the first glance of this river of lights sweeping through the valley is one that is simply breathtaking. I am confident that my long day of delays were graciously rewarded with the sparkling of the city lights.

The Secret Garden greets me with an abrupt awakening to the extent of the altitude here. I am tired after 19 hrs of travel. The hostel is an old apartment building spanning five floors with only staircases of various sizes leading you to your place of re...

Quito is my first destination is S. America. After quickly brushing up my ear to hearing Spanish Rachel and I explored colonial Quito, La Mitad del Mundo (a monument on the equator), booked our trip to the Galapagos (yeah!) and has some delicious Ecuadorian chocolate at the gourmet chocolate store next to our hostal. We stayed in the homey colonial hostal called Posada del Maple. The best part was the smell of chocolate that permeated throughout the building all hours of the day.

Amy and I arrived in Quito at 11:30 pm on Friday Dec 4th. Everything went great starting with our free ride to the airport with our next door neighbor at 5:30 am and my killer disco night at the coach. Needless to say I didn´t sleep at all that night but the extra money I earned will be put to good use in Ecuador! I was a bit worried about my paraglider arriving but when we got off the plane it was right there at baggage claim. All the people probably thought I was just a gringo with an enorm...

Well fiestas are over....thank god. Now it is time to get down (up actually) to business. Within Quito is a 4000 foot gondola called the Teleferiqo which rises to the top of a 13,000 foot active volcano. We went to the Teleferiqo on Sunday but so did the rest of Quito so we decided to hold off until today. I was realy pumped as conditions appeared good to fly, but as we tried to get on the gondola the director stopped me and said paragliding is prohibited due to some recent accidents. We left...

As I arrived at the Posada De Maples hostel safely back in Quito a sharp pain occurred in the left side of my chest. Thinking that this was simply heartburn or, more likely muscle cramp from the excruciatingly uncomfortable 7 hour bus journey from Tena, due to the dozy old codger at the helm. (the way there took but 5 hrs even with hold up!) So I tried sleeping it off which, seemed to work for the time being and put the problem in the back the back of my mind while Cam and I went out for dinn...