telerifiquo

after about four hours sleep we headed over to the base of the telerifiquo... a mulit million dollar cable car that seems so out of place in this city. it took us to 4100m which was enough to have me light headed. got some great photos as the view was pretty amazing, but it was a bit of a box ticker.

the best part of the day was when the go karts we´d heard about at the bottom of the ride turned out to be pretty impressive. 10 dollars for about half an hour but so worth it and made nicks and my day.

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"i´ve just been fucking robbed"

...she said as she came up the stairs on wednesday night. there´s been a few stories and events that have opened my eyes, and everyone in the hostels´, to how dangerous quito can be. the girl was on the last day of her trip about to fly home in the evening, she was at the end of the street at about 6pm when 5 guys jumped her and put her to the ground - taking her camera with the weeks photos and a bit of cash.

so a few of us decided to head into the mariscal (gringo land), a place that the lonely planet and the foreign office warn to not go to. the 3 irish girls, nick (aussie) and i had a pretty good evening and although we could feel the eyes on our backs and we could see the hookers, pimps and fellow gringos a mile off - we were safe as a group.

so funny drunken antics insued and come the end of the night nick and i looked forward to promises of shepherds pie friday night a la irish girls... i think i can stay another few nights. latacunga can wait.

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mitad del mundo

if you come this close you almost have to visit the equator... i didn´t expect much but it was a great first experience of what i can expect from trips in the area. after a horrible bus ride we arrived to the official center of the world... not so much... someone obviously got their bearings wrong and decided to build a massive monument there, surround it in restaurants and charge you a few bucks to get in. great what next? well right next door, a few hundred metres down a dirt track roas is the real 0´0´0, as confirmed by the us army no less. a cute little ecuadorian (i´m guessing thats the right terminology) showed us some history and then smiled as we took in some of the tricks that can happen on the magical line. see the video here as soon as i find somewhere that it doesn´t take three days to upload.

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touch down

after the scariest landing ever, i arrived safely in stormy quito. this meant that when i got my backpack from the baggage claim - it was pretty wet. anyways... just a quick post to touch base as i have much exploring of the old town to get through. the hostel is beautiful... with amazing views of the old town from the balcony.

i do hope this altitude headache goes away though.

much love

(update) if you search ´quito airport landing´ you´ll see what i mean http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=quito+airport+landing&aq=o&oq=

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counting down

so i have 18 days left of the UK. my preparations are going mostly to plan. and i'm winding down at work...

first port of call is ECUADOR. my only knowledge of which comes from lonely planet. but there are some really great sites out there for the travelling like... some that have been useful include:

trip wolf
hostel world
lonely planet
sta travel buzz

but more importantly there are so many online tools that help you in your preparations... i'm going to put a list together, but the most valuable to date is google maps, google docs, google mail, in fact... everything. i'll explain this in a future post.

wish me luck with my 5 jabs on friday - ouch!

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