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Up early, about 6.30am, packed my bag, showered etc, then headed back to the internet place to try and download more photos, hideous! Then I rushed back for my 10am meeting with my new group. First I met Bob who is our leader, he has been doing this job since January, Donna his co-driver, who is a kiwi and had been doing a similar job in the Middle East with her husband, but this was her first assignment with Dragoman. The first two week section of my nine week trip, which is Quito to Lima, has just a small group; a couple from Ireland, Keiron and Sinead, Leah who is a teacher and Emma a textile student who were my roomies, Andy who had already been in the Peruvian Amazon Jungle for his conservation degree and Ian who had been travelling around since September last year, just come from Africa, so only nine in total which was nice.After Leah, Emma and I moved our stuff into a triple room we all went for breakfast down the road at The Magic Bean which did massive yummy omelettes, and where Ian joined us too. Everyone is seems really nice in the group, very easy to get on with and laid back which is great. We then got a taxi to the Basillica Cathedral which was quite impressive inside. We then went round to the side entrance where you pay $1 to be able to walk to the top.Some of the stairwells on the way were pretty grim with graffitti but the views were amazing of Quito. You could see across to the large statue of the Virgin Mary that looks over on a hill. There was one point where you had to walk across this wobbly rope bridge which I was very nervous about as there is is no such thing as safety nets by the looks of it! We made it up to the bell tower, you could go higher but that was about my limit with my fear of heights. We made our way down and headed out to walk round the streets and have a look at the Old Town, where some of the buildings and the Plazas were beautiful. I left the others to continue and headed back to the hotel as the altitude had hit me hard again and I was feeling very nauseus. But some water and nibbles sorted me out and I had a few more attempts on the internet until it was time to meet up with the group for dinner.Bob took us to a Mongolian restaurant just down from our hotel as we were near the main food and drink Area, called Mongo´s. It has a circular area where you put what you want into a small bowl, eg veg, chicken, meat etc and then you hand it to the chef who cooks it for you then its brought to your table. You could go up as many times as you wanted (which I did, I had missed vegetables SO much but my goodness I was full afterwards!) and it only cost $8 including a soft drink, brilliant! Afterwards we all hit the sack as we had to leave at 8am to drive to Otavalo.
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