Akros Hotel - Quito

I arrived in Quit* *n Thursday the 15th Oct*b**...its n*w Sunday and I feel like I´ve always lived h**e. The pe*ple are SO friendly, ev**y*ne wants t* talk t* y*u and practice their english (d*nt w*rry mum, I´m being careful and n*t talking t* c*mplete strang**s). On the plane ride h**e I met ab*ut 3 pe*ple, *ne French girl wh* is keen t* take a trip t* the Amaz*n with me. Arriving at the Airp*rt was easy, Anylu and h** husband Pedr* picked me up. They have a 2 ...

... impression of Quito, is that the polution is very high and poor.

The next couple of days we will go on an organized jungle tour in Cuyabeno. Tomorrow, we will take a national flight to Lago Agrio and as from there on we will explore the Amazones, weaponed with Deet and pills against malaria ;-) After our return of the jungle, we will stay for another 2 days in Quito, to visit the Cotopaxi vulcano...

Hasta luego

Ellen and Astrid

... and personal strivings, etc.) in that which is our field, and this I intend to do, both after I’ve returned to Denmark and I’m retrospectively looking and analyzing my notes and memories but also while I’m here, in the occurring moments of observation when I manage to expand my awareness to this focus area, which I would like to call introspection.


Host families

Besides my work in the garden, with “La Clarita”, giving English lessons ...

... slowed to ‘normal’ pretty quickly and that was encouraging because it meant that we probably wouldn’t die after all.

We made the Refuge at 4,800m (about 16,000 ft). Thoughts of hot chocolate, coffee and snack bars we quickly banished by Chasqui urged us on further and marched off leaving us grumbling in his footsteps. We reached the start of the glacier at 5,000m (16,600ft) and, mercifully, further progress was blocked by the lack of technical equipment to climb ...

... Christmas) at a time. We thought that was rather a brave thing to do and quite difficult too, having to pick up where you left off and get your head into travelling on every new leg. He's probably most of the way to Peru by now, good luck Frank!

Today we took the bus into quito and boy were we glad we didn't cycle it. We also picked up mail from our friend James, who is now a few days ahead of us, advising us NOT to cycle into quito. Good job we ...

... br>We took a cab from our hostel to a supermarket (called SuperMaxi, no, not the sanitary kind) and met up with Mark and his family at 730 am. We all piled into the truck - 9 of us like sardines actually, it was very much mexican style transportation. After a while Ryan got in the back of the pickup with 4 of the kids and enjoyed the view and the breezes. Traffic was crazy - everything you´ve heard about driving in Latin ...

So today we came down from 3583m about sea level from a beautiful eco lodge in the andies. This was only 15km from the columbian border :!. This was just above a town called el angel, not said like that of course. We caught a ute down and got on the local bus which was SO packed but they kept on putting more poeple in, aparently we were lucky not to get one with chickens in it. We then got off at Otavalu and caught a taxi from where the bus dropped us off ...

... Brazil. So many different aspects.
After the Amazon we went to a place called Otavalo. On our way there we were going through mountains and came across so many landslides from the rain over the 3 days that we were in the Amazon. There was one REALLY bad landslide which actually held us up for 4 hours. Once they had cleared the road, it took ages for us to get through as the mud on the road was making all the trucks and buses slide and get bogged. It took Bea 3 attempts to get Swampy ...

After our time in the cloud forests of Mindo our next stop was Quito again - as this was literally an over night stay and we did nothing, this blog is about our next destination - the market town of Otavalo. Otavalo is a town 3 hours north of Quito and has the biggest craft market in Ecuador - the plan was to take this opportunity to buy souvenirs before sending a parcel back home. The traditional market day is Saturday however the craft market is on ...

... locals to a Medellin Sports Bar, and everyone was ordering Jelly shots. I think that they are just like the Jello shots from my former fraternity days, and were only $1, so we ordered a few. No, it was a shot glass filled with Tequila or Rum, with a scoop of grape Jelly sunk to the bottom. It taste twice as bad as it sounds. The weather never changes in Medellin. Its always around 70 degrees during the day and 65 at night. It hardly ever rains. Its ...