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Quito
Day 92 - Tuesday 1st June
Quito is set amongst a fantastic mountain range and is incredibly long and thin. Consequently it took a long time to get into town and check into my hostel The Secret Garden (a maze of an old building that feels like a favela!!), where I met Joel from Rio!!!
It was wicked to catch up and kinda strange seeing as I think of him as a best mate (who may live with me in London in 2011) and at this stage I'd spent approximately 10 hours with in my life.
We wondered the new town and were amazingly disappointed that having stumbled across a laser quest it was closed!! Saw we saw The Soloist on repeat in the cinema instead, not as good as expected.
The nice thing about The Secret Garden is the communal dinner at 6.30 sharp. Sounds kinda lame but it means you get to know most of the 40 or so people in the hostel pretty well and eat food like your mother cooks.
92 days down, 92 days to go..:
Day 93 - Wednesday 2nd June
Joel and I, along with 3 guys from Leicester, headed off on multiple buses to the ecuator. First off the fake line founded by the French, but fair play to them for only being 200m off the GPS line when they calculated it 200 years ago using Pythagoras! The real line was far more interesting, giving you a tour about the local indigenous people, their penchant for shrinking the heads of their elders or enemies after their death to about the size of a tennis ball and wearing them as inspiration/trophies...You also get to see an openly fake 'demonstration' of how the korioli's forces drive water down a drain clockwise/anticlockwise a metre in the southern/northern hemisphere. Apparently you actually need to be nearer the tropics but anyway. More importantly I balanced an egg on the head of a needle, supposedly easier than anywhere else on earth due to these forces balancing...hmmm...at least they gave me a certificate!
The evening contained another great meal, some extreme drinking games from the Leicester boys and a trip to a wicked club called Bungalow 6...
Day 94 - Thursday 3rd June
Hungover. But met Dee again and headed out to explore the old town with her and Joel. Watched a couple of films in the afternoon, had more great food and then won the hostel pub quiz. Obviously. Our team won a useless (for me anyway) voucher for the sister hostel near Volcano Cotapaxi. The second placed team (with Dee and Felix who'd also arrived) got a free round of drinks and were much more satisfied!!
Day 95 - Friday 4th June
Highlight of the trip, met up with Alex, Paul, Helen and Mike from the hostel and headed up the cable car up to 4100m, giving amazing views of the city. A 3 hour hike beyond and you climb up tooth and nail through the clouds to the summit of a formidable volcano. I had walking boots but otherwise was in casual shorts, t-shirt and hoody. So it was pleasurable to beat an organised hiking group with all their equipment to the top. Until the weather came and climbing down in the mist and cold was really REALLY unpleasant. Also got to take some good jumping pictures on the way down too with the city in the distance below us.
Had a quick meetup with Dee and now Erika again!! Grabbed some empañadas for dinner, listened to an INSANELY good blues guitarist in the hostel from Austin and got persuaded out to Bungalow 6 again. Wicked night...
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