After several delays, some [of what I can only guess is just] slow flying and a random stopover in Guayaquil, we flew in to the middle of the Andes, 2,800m above sea level - Quito, the capital of Ecuador late Monday afternoon. Flying directly in to altitude is generally not advisable but, although I did feel it from time to time, it really wasn't all that bad!

Ecuador has a bit of a reputation for being volatile and dangerous. To be honest, I didn't really get this impression so much in Quito. Although, to be fair, you have to use your common sense - we didn't go wondering the streets at night, I didn't go anywhere alone, we always made sure we knew where we were going ahead of time and tried to make it look like we knew where we were, always carried a copy of our passport and tried not to wave a camera and wallet around. Granted - there is a HEAVY police and military presence which, certainly takes some getting used to. You see cops and/or army personnel around almost every block and the simplest armed will have a baton and pistol, several have some pretty intense looking automatics. The oddest site was a simple Mall Cop carrying an automatic assault rifle ... I was undecided as to whether that made me feel safer or more unnerved!

Quito is another large city, split up in to two main parts - the Old Town and, the New Town. The Old Town is a world heritage site so I predictability, loved it straight away. After taking the bus a couple of stops too far and hurriedly trying to make our way out of a particularly rough looking part of town, we spent on easy full day meandering through the narrow old cobblestoned streets of the Old Town. The entire area is filled with gorgeous old buildings, churches, cathedrals and a very impressive basilica. I loved it and thoroughly enjoyed just taking in the atmosphere, sitting in the churches, contemplating the meaning of life, what I'm going to do with mine and ... what I felt like eating.

The Basilica is huge and, you can climb right to the top, in the photo you can see one of the spires behind me! I was unconvinced on the safety standards as we got higher and I'm generally not the best with heights but, the view was totally worth it. Quito is set in the middle of the Andes and as such makes for a stunning city landscape through the mountains. It's crazy to think they've built an entire city higher than the summit of Mt Ruapehu.

Another major thing to do while in Quito is, visit Ciudad del Mundo - the Equator. Well, the equator that was 'discovered' by a French mathematician in the early 1700's. There is a line painted on the ground here, a reasonably sized monument and a mini touristy village with souvenirs and food places. Since GPS, it has been found the equator truly lies around 250m north of this line. They have recently put a natural sciences type museum at this point where there is a bunch of wee tricks/'scientific demonstrations' including, seeing water fall straight down through a sink on the true equator line and, swirling in opposite directions in the Southern and Northern hemispheres. Both places are very interesting but, I'm glad we got to see the actual equator - surprisingly, although it's easy to get to, it's not well advertised - I presume people want to keep making money off the Ciudad!

Whilst in Quito we stayed in the 'New Town', which is nice but much more just like a city really. There are a number of nice parks we walked through, some very interesting museums and a reptile house which we explored. The 'New Town' had all the night life and some great restaurants and bars but for me, Quito was all about the Old Town.

Tonight, Friday 15 July we're taking the overnight bus to Guayaquil where we met up with others on our course and head out to the coast to start our course! When we told people in Quito our next stop was Guayaquil, it was met with a resounding and unanimous, "Why?! It's hot, boring and, dangerous". We're only spending the one full day in Guayaquil, I'm looking forward to finding the good side, I know it's there!