We made it to Quito!

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We left for dulles at about 1am for our flight and waited around until 5. the rumors that were heard about taca were definetly not true, atleast not for us. all of the flights arrived and left on time and our luggage all made it to quito when we did. plus, we actually got food on all of our flights, even the 45min one, which beats most of the american characters.

once we got there, someone from the foundation met us and took us over to our meeting and we learned some more about what we will be doing out on the island. it seems like there are a lot of activities to get involved with and they also encouraged leaving the station and seeing some of the other islands so it sounds like it will be a great time. we head out there wednesday morning at 9am and should get there a little before noon.

after the meeting our guide, patricio, took us to run a few errands and then to the hostel. the place we are staying in really cool. i cant really tell if it was designed as a buliding, or turned into one out of a courtyard that was once between different buildings. its about 4 stories high, has really cool decorations, and is all open air. the coolest part though is on the roof.

the roof over looks a large portion of the city. the city itself is huge! flying in we thought we saw the whole city, only to see that it continued up and down over many mountains. patricio said the city is about 50mi long from north to south.. im not sure if its that long, but regardless, this place is huge. it looks a lot like san francisco because its very hilly and has these hugely steep streets. its also pretty foggy.

so our hostel overlooks all of this.. hopefully we can get some pictures uploaded on to here later with the view. we ate dinner with the rest of the people staying here last night up on the roof and the food was fantastic. it would be hard to find food like that, with that view, for the price we paid anywhere in the states .

it ended up just being a low key night.. we hung out a little and met some kids from all over the world traveling around and then went to bed and slept for a glorious 12 hours. weve been feeling the effects of the altitude a bit, nothing too bad, but sleep definetly helped out with that.

thats about it for the first night.. the place is great and we are in one peace.

m and r

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