At the air port we were greeted by a very enthusiastic black retriever giving all the luggage, arriving from the States a good going over. Who would be smuggling drugs INTO South America?

Quito is the capital of Ecuador, but not the largest city. It is on a plateau, in the mountains at 2700m, in quite spectacular surroundings, with volcanos all around including Guagua Pichincha that last erupted around 6 years ago, covering the city in ash. If you are not acclimatised you are out of breath after climbing 2 flights of stairs, but if you are lucky enough to have just been skiing in the Rocky Mountains, you are OK. The city has grown long and thin due to the geography, but unfortunately during our 2 week stay in the city our brief was not to admire the scenery - but we did manage to squeeze in an ascent of 2 of the local volcanos and a visit to the true equator line.

Our brief was to learn as much Spanish as possible to help aid our survival over the next couple of months.

We signed up to 1:1 lessons, 6 hours a day in the first week, 4 hours a day in the second. We also thought we´d benefit from some extra practice, so we moved in with an Ecuadorian family, meeting 4 years old Nat and mum Monica, and also au pair Yolande and her daughter Dalilla aged 2. We had some lovely food a la casa de Monica, lots of jugo y arroza as they tried to feed us up a little. It was nice staying in the warmth of a family again (hostels are rather impersonal at times). They were all really welcoming to us, and Nat persisted in playing power rangers every evening with Jim until her mum insisted she let Jim get on with his homework!

We also met Roberto from Sweden, another guest a la casa de Monica. He too was learning Spanish before travelling to Peru. He´d had a close encounter with Quito´s underworld just before moving to Monica´s, the kind of experience the guide books warn you about. It left him with no wallet, passport, prescription glasses, insulin, camera or day sack. At the time he was only 30m from his accomadation. Stories such as these made us keep in mind our safety, almost to the point of paranoia.....gringos and people carrying any type of back pack seemed to be instant targets.

We did find several friendly people in Quito, the climate really suited us, and it was definately a good spot to learn the language...but it was a relief to be out of the city, away from the exhaust fumes of the buses and on the road again.