L'Auberge Inn Quito

Our 6.20am flight from Heathrow absolutely destroyed us. We didnīt sleep the night before, so by the time we borded the connecting flight to Quito from Madrid we were pretty much dead, despite still having 11 hours ahead of us. Itīs a bit of a blur due to the sleep deprivation, but basically our first plane had so little leg room it would have rendered a midget irate. The second plane was better on that front, but having looked forward to a veritable selection of films to choose from (Andy: "...

Weīd all woken up this morning by about 8am, and had had loads of sleep beacause we were in bed by 9.30pm the night before. All had showers then went to get breakfast in the hostel, which was very cheap and lovely - I had grapefruit juice (amazing), coffee, and pancakes and syrup. After a bit of internet (the hostel has a little internet cafe) we decided to head off to explore the Old Town. I was in navigation mode with my Rough Guide at the ready.

We wandered south west from the hoste...

We got up in the morning, expecting to have to find a new hostel for tonight. Brilliantly, however, we were told by an obviously more knowledgeable receptionist that we could simply move to a different room. We did this, and discovered it was actually nicer than ours, although it did smell of petrol fumes due to it overlooking the road. We then went to find out about getting a bus to Montaņita. This was a rather epic undertaking, given that there appeared to be very little information on bus ...

Finally arrived after brief night's stopover in Lima. Rucksacks weighed approx15 kilos on the airport scales! And all our baggage has arrived safely with us. Not noticed any effects from the altitude (supposed to be the world's second highest capital) and Quito appears to be a lovely city, certainly less polluted than Lima, less frantic and more wealthy (cars seem newer and in better condition) and they have a tram network. Early days of spring here and it apparently rains every day in the af...

As the heading suggests, we arrived back in the capital for a spot of Espanol.

Although we interspersed the lingo lessons with some sight-seeing, I won't harp on about the details here. Suffice to say, the tourist trips facilitated the need for taxis and so we met an interesting array of drivers. Out of which, one guy attempted to flog us an antique iron which my mum found hilarious – not on account of its strangeness - but because he chose to sell it to the one person who doesn...

Our flight to Quito was extremely pleasant, watched a great film for kids...and me...called īRacing Stripesī about a zebra becoming a racehorse!! Intellectually stimulating of course! We saw the most amazing sunset out of the plane window...so many colours...and started descending into a very sparkly Quito! It was a real shame that we didnīt land during the day as the first sight of the city must be amazing...itīs vast and set in a valley but sprawls out in all directions up the sides! We fel...

Pretty uneventful day except for the daft French people who were sitting in front of us on the flight from Houston to Quito. One woman had a ridiculously oversized piece of hand-luggage which wouldn't fit into the already full overhead lockers. She refused to put it under the seat in front and she refused to put it in the hold. We wouldn't have minded but this was actually delaying our already delayed flight even further. In the end, the hostess made someone else take their luggage down and p...

A nice and relaxing first day in Quito. A pleasant wander around the old town was only marred by the fact that Tara had a jumper stolen from her backpack while it was on her back! Unbelievable! We nipped up to the Panecillo hill to get some views of the whole of Quito (which itself sits at 2850m, so itīs pretty high), then headed down to the new town to try and find a replacement jumper! DAILY FACTS - Stayed at: L'Auberge Inn - Latin American Spanish learnt: Computatorda = Ordenador = Computer

Efter vores fantastiske dage i junglen, var der ogsaa noget rart i at komme tilbage til civilisationen igen. Godt nok var badevandet koldt, men pizzaen og bajerne gode og ved I hvad? - Saa er alt godt.

I morgen tidlig kl. 6 koerer vi imod lufthavnen for kl. 9.15 at flyve mod sidste destination paa vores skoenne tur, nemlig Bonaire.

Joe says: We finally made it here was a close call with a couple of very tight connecting flights along the way. We arrived at the airport after being up for about 33 hours straight to be told by the airport staff our bags wernt there we were so tired we didnt really care, all we were interested in when we arrived was gettin to the hostel and askin wheres the bed suffice to say we fell asleep the minute we hit da pillow and didnt rise til the next day. Not at much for the first few days just ...