First couple days in Quito!

Okay, we´re here! The flight was uneventful. I met Gerry in Houston and we had a quick lunch. While we were waiting at the gate for the flight to Quito it started to sink in that we were leaving the country... Primarily because I could feel my personal space shrinking....

The flight was not full and Gerry and I had an empty seat between us, pretty nice. I read the whole way down, I think gerry watched the movie.

I´m going to stop using capitals because í´m using a difficult keyboard...

we landed and had to go find our bags, but before that we had to stand in line for imigration. of course neither of us brought a pen so we had to find one to borrow to fill out the papers first. while we were doing that 2 more planes landed and completely filled the queue to the officials! took about 45 minutes to get through that then we had to sort through all the bags strewn about the floor to find ours. after my second round through i found mine. then through customs which was just an xray of our bags.

we met the guides and the rest of the team right away and hustled out to the waiting van. we briefly met the other guys, there are 7 climbers and 2US guides and a local guide.

since we came in on friday night there was quite a party going on everywhere. buses with people on top playing horns and whistles and yelling. it was interesting. the streets are very small and cobblestone. (a party bus just went by...) our hotel is pretty nice. my roomie is a guy from phillie named jim. there are, in addition to us, chris from new jersey, pete from mississippi, and cylis from california. i went to my room, met jim and headed to bed. it was midnight but only 9pm for me.

saturday morning we woke for a group breakfast where we officially met everyone. food is good. everything is cheap.

yesterday was a mellow day. we walked to old quito and saw two very old churches. one we went all the way up to the bell tower. something you could never do in the US. we went to the national museum and then had lunch in front of a 16th century mission called mission de san francisco. again, food was great and cheap.

after lunch we decided to climb the hill of the virgin of ecuador. it was about 1000 steps. we are at 9300´ here... it hurt a bit. after that we came down, caught a trolly back to near the hotel and split up. a few of us wanted to go to an outdoor market to shop. i went with pete and chris to the market. we found some fun things to buy. bartering is the norm but i don´t think i´m very good at it. i never paid their first price but usually paid their second...

after shopping we thought a beer sounded good. there is an outdoor cafe across the street from the hotel where we went for ONE beer. but then it was good so we had another. then we shared two more. about that time we saw kurtiss and gerry crossing the street and we called them over. we already had our check but we couldn´t be rude and leave now. so we stayed for a few more...

by the time we met the guides in the hotel lobbby for dinner we were quite, uh, happy...

dinner was amazing! i had a filet mignon wrapped around asparigas and ham with smashed taters. it was $7.80.

we picked up a couple things in a market on the way back to the hotel.

today we got up early, had breakfast and were in the van at 7.30 (no colon on keyboard) we headed up to pasochoa and climbed that peak to 13605´ it took about 3 hours. good hard hike and everyone did well. the hike down was easy and we all chatted away like girls.

tomorrow we head to the first hacienda but before we do that we´ll detour to the illiniza sur to climed to around 16000´, higher than i´ve ever been! then we´ll go to the hacienda.

i have to head back to the hotel for dinner in a bit so that is my story so far. I hope those of you who made your requests are getting your gps updates.

a few quick observations - $20´s are nearly useless here because nothing is more than a few dollars and nobody has change except the big grocery stores. gas is $1.45 a gallon. thats right! road laws don´t exist. they may have some suggestions though. Ecuadorians are a hansome people. ladies stand on corners selling their wares wearing fidora type hats. children come running up to you selling candy, hawking show shines, or just asking for money. they are very persistant! we have been warned numerous times about picpockets and we often wear our backpacks backwards.

next time i have internet í´ll post again. that may not be until next sunday. (if that is the case then my posting also depends on how i feel and how my legs are working....)

until then,
adios.
R