The day began early as we woke up at 3am swiftly followed by a wake-up knock at the door from the hostel staff, always very kind of hostels to do this, we think. As we got ready the guy returned to tell us the taxi we had arranged had turned up.

We hurried into the cold darkness and jumped into the waiting taxi for the 30 minute journey to the airport across a lit up Cape Town skyscape. Due to the early start the airport was dead and we waited in line for 45 minutes before the check-in desk opened.

Going through to Departures we had time to grab a quick breakfast before boarding our first flight of two hours to Johannesburg. With individual entertainment screens and an onboard breakfast (well we didn't know!) the time passed quickly and we were soon landing in Johannesburg.

Because it was a domestic flight, and our next flight was to Argentina, we had no choice but to go through passport control and xray scanners before we had a nose in the shops in the Departures Lounge. Finding nothing of interest to spend our last remaining Rand on, we boarded our second flight with some trepidation - an 11.5 hour sojourn across the Atlantic to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Once again we were well looked after by South African Airways with individual entertainment screens, two meals and seemingly endless free refreshments. With films, TV programmes, computer poker and cat naps, the eleven hours passed fairly and unexpectantly painlessly and we touched down in Buenos Aires at around 4.30pm local time.

Not having a great deal of time between flights and suddenly leaving an English speaking world to enter a Spanish speaking one we had an anxious time getting formally into Argentina before grabbing our bags and checking in for our next flight.

As we boarded our third flight of the day, we were now both pretty tired, disorientated and completely confused about the time, not to mention a bit bored of sitting in planes!

The third flight was just over four hours and again I managed to watch a movie or two and, more importantly (if you know me) have some more food!! We weren't sat together for this flight being a row apart but it was fine as we weren't the most conversant at this point and were able to doze a little. By now we had been awake over 24 hours and we were both feeling the effects, having a huge desire to just lie down and sleep.

Landing in Lima, Peru we were able to just transit through the airport using our US dollars to pick up some drink and chocolate.

Our fourth and last flight was also, to our relief, our shortest of the day. We still got served some food but were both having real problems staying awake.

Once landed at Quito, Ecuador to our annoyance we had the longest wait ever to get through passport control before finally and with great relief picking up our bags pleased and disbelieving that they had made it all the way.

Despite organising a lift, there was no-one waiting for us so frustrated and a little irritated we jumped in a waiting taxi to the hostel. The journey was quite long and with the late hour and Quito being quiet after dark it was a bit of an anxious ride.

Eventually we pulled up outside our hostel and, waking Mario the owner, he showed us to our room, apologising for not picking us up. Since we had said we would be landing at half past midnight there was a midunderstanding exactly which day this would be. He allowed us to collapse into bed leaving the signing in formalities until the following morning.