Welcome and thankyou for joining me as I travel around South America.
Presently I am in the hostel in Quito feeling a little dizzy from the altitude (Quito is about 2800m above sea level) and very tired after a very strange few days of travel.
The journey started with a flight out of Sydney at 11 on Tuesday. We stopped in Auckland for an hour or so before flying to Santiago. I then went from the aeropuerto to a hotel in Santiago to burn up time during a 15 hour stop before my 3am flight to Quito via Panama. With so many hours of flights and only getting patchy sleep here and there on them has made the concept of time very transient. I feel a little like Edward Norton´s character in Fight Club.
The other rather amusing feat is that my last 7 out of 8 meals have been airplane food. The other meal was at a small quaint cafe in Santiago opposite Plaza Brazil. As I walked too and from the Plaza I felt very different. Mostly ‘cause I was the only person wearing shorts in the chilly weather.
Other than that I’ve discovered that knowing a little bit of Spanish helps a lot. I feel a little more relaxed knowing that I can kinda read signs and kinda talk to people (it’s more me talking and then not understanding what they say back).
Anyhow, tonight I´m planning on sleeping and getting used to this altitude. Tomorrow I will probably explore a bit of Old Town and then join in the fiesta that starts there at 8pm. I will probably check out a bit more of Quito for a few more days before starting the trek down to Loja (via Riobamba and the Nariz del Diablo hopefully). There I will spend 3 weeks with the Bakon´s who are some missos associated with my old church.
I hope things are going well back in sunny Australia. Feel free to drop me a line - I’d love to hear from you.