34 hours is an extremely long time to travel to a destination - I wonder if astronauts share the same feeling?! From melbourne it took 5 connecting flights; multiple hours of duty free window shopping; a gut full of microwave cuisine and a few raging inflight babies entertaining my sleep patterns before touching down in Quito, Ecuador.

Quito is tucked amongst the andes at an altitude of 2850m. A little wierd to breathe at first, steps felt a little heavy (probably from 34hrs of DVT) and nightmares are horrible which is common in sleep until your blood is a custom to the height (something about alkaline?).

It´s the first time we booked a hotel transfer due to our past experience of dodgy insane taxi racing drivers. It got us at "Hotel Majestic" at around 11pm Saturday night, which felt strange as we left melbourne at 6:30am the same day.

The hotel is old but still standing. The room is covered from wall to wall in luscious veneer woodgrain with beds to match. The bathroom included a large rubber mat that hung from the wall - not realising until after my shower (releasing the stench of a thousand camels), the lonely planet mentioned that the shower head is an electric heat element. It warns to never to touch the head as it´s extremely hot PLUS it will electrically shock the sh!t out of you! That´s what the rubber mat is for (a sophisticated prevention device).

The hotel is located in Marsical Sucre which is known as the "new town". Problem with the "new town" is that the lonely planet also states to never go out after dark. It´s OK during the day (currently here writing this blog), as there are plenty of hard looking action figurines with bullet proof vests and large lead poisoning tools.

So apart from cheap food and internet, we prefer to spend most of our daylight hours in the "old town" which has more a spanish feel and doesn´t come with the greasy looks, nor fear of being accidentally shot.

We both stand out a mile here too. Westerners are few between and I´m the tallest person here, and no one else has blonde hair (riss actually feels tall for once too).

Tomorrow we´re catching a local bus to Riobamba - 4hrs south of Quito in the andes. Early Wednesday morning we catch the Nariz Del Diablo (Devil´s Nose) train from Riobamba to Alausi which is a 5hr journey through switchbacks and cliff-side tracks. The difference here is that it is customary to ride the train on the ROOF!!

So wish me luck, it´s nice knowing you all (ha).

Thanks for all the emails/news.

Cheers, hatton.