Hotel Sierra Madre Quito

Arrived In Quito.... Breathless.... Could be from the general excitement of starting off on seven months of travel and going round the world for the first time, but equally could just be because this place is so bloody high! The city sits at the same altitude as a substantial alp and the hill above the town is higher than Mont Blanc!

This will be the Andes then. Snow capped volcanoes and cloud forests abound.

The city itself is pleasant enough, but mostly quite modern and uninsp...

So flown in to Quito to begin my trip to the Galapagos! Feels odd to be back in town but so little has changed in four years its nice to be back. Plus it feels like my Spanish has somehow improved whilst i've been away?!

Only got a few days in town so time to get used to the altitude before heading back to sea level...but i get to revisit the old town during my stay which i can't wait for...a proper guided tour of this place should be awesome!

The Galapagos Islands have been a lot of fun. We have seen giant turtles, swum with seals, seen boobies and marine iguanas, climbed volcanoes and crossed the equator several times.

Having New Years Eve in the capital out on the street.

Internet cafe is closing for New Year so I'll post more later.

Well I finally made it. It was a 30 hour epic journey, firstly to Sydney for a three hour layover, then a LAN Chile flight from Sydney to Santiago, stopping at Auckland for an hour and a half.

Another 3.5 hours in the terminal at Santiago. There's only so many laps you can walk of the terminal, but there was a Starbucks to relieve the boredom. 7 hours flying north to Quito via a refuelling stop at some small place I can't quite remember.

Believe it or not when I arrived at Quito...

Bad luck tends to cluster together. My PDA mini SD card died after I arrived at Quito. There went my English-Spanish and English-Porteguese talking dictionary and phasebook. Gone also are the maps that I scaned. I am sure the trip can´t get much worse. I arrived at Quito in the afternoon and made my way to Sierra Madre the joining hotel for the Galapagos leg my of intrepid tour. I quickly headed off to the Old Town knowing my time in Quito will be limited. The city is more scenic then Lima. T...

We returned to a rainy Quito on Monday afternoon, instead of going to the Basílica del Voto National I stayed with the group to enjoy a last meal together. We went to an all you can eat and drink Tapas and Wine Bar for dinner and many of us had a bit too much to drink that night. The next day we had organized a private tour that brought us to Basílica del Voto National, most of Quito Old Town, El Panecillo where a huge statue of La Virgen de Quito stood before heading to telefériQo. TelefériQ...

Day 1 Getting on the plane and leaving San Diego was rather uneventful, despite my 6:20 AM flight and not getting any sleep the night before as I frantically packed and ensured nothing was amiss. I flew on American Airlines with stop-overs in Dallas and Miami before arriving to my final destination of Quito, the capital city of Ecuador high up in the Andes. During my flight I pulled out my trusty Lonely Planet South American edition to read up on what I had gotten myself into. Under typical c...

My most enjoyable time here in South America has finally come to an end, none the less, I know that even better times await me on my next leg of the journey. Quito has been amazing. Ecuador has been incredible, people have been beautiful and the language has been as sexy as the Latin dancers melting the grounds underneath their feet as they dance the night away. I can´t wait to come back here and I can´t wait to speak the language and dance the dance! My last night in Quito involved having di...