260m Another early morning wake up, but I got to call Sue as it was 6:30pm at home and hope that she enjoy her party tomorrow night. This is because we are off to the M/N Anakonda today, and we are unsure of having any contact for the next three days. Javier picked us up just after 6am and we travelled north east out of the city for about 45 minutes. The airport is relatively new and is hoping to open to more flights from around the world. We met the rep from Ma...

2800m Day of the Dead It was nice to wake up and emerge somewhere that wasn’t Riobamba. Quito is a much bigger city, and our hotel is certainly of a much higher quality than the last. Coffee, unfortunately, consisted of the sludge that too many Americans find palatable, lurking at the bottom of a glass percolator. Not pleasant. However, the croissants were fresh so life wasn’t all too bad. Our guide picked us up just after 8am and we headed off to the chai...

2800m Well, I thought that yesterdays breakfast was interesting. Today we entered the same dining room as last night, again with a distinct lack of patronage and was soon informed that breakfast would be in two stages. Stage 1; we would be served fruit salad, muesli with yoghurt and fruit juice. Stage 2; we would be served eggs with a slice of ham and cheese and bread. It seemed that was only one waiter and one cook, and the stages took a while to complete. T...

2760m Breakfast was early this morning, too early. I don’t mean for us; 7am was fine, but not for the hotel staff. It was supposed to start at 6:30, we arrived at 6:45 and there were no staff present and just some bread rolls and chocolate croissants. Now I’m not adverse to a chocolate croissant, but I do like a coffee to go with it. No luck. Around 7am some bacon and a form of eggs arrived, and 10 minutes later we were served coffee. No sign of the VP eithe...

2550m Well, there are ways to start your day with cereal and toast. There are ways to start your day with eggs and bacon. There are even ways to start your day with air dried muesli with organic fruits and herbal tea (not sure why, but some do). And then there is the way of starting your day in Cuenca. With a colonel of the Ecuadorean army walking around with a nice new Glock at his hip, three police vehicles in front of your hotel with soldiers on the street wi...