viva la Quito!

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Well, we arrived in Quito mid afternoon local time on Wednesday, which means I´d been up for about three days. Damnit. Found our feet fairly quickly, and found a decent place to kip. Unfortunately that was too pricey and now we reside in an annex of hell, with dubious electrics and novel plumbing. But at three dollars a night it´s all good.
Had fun trying to fit in with the locals (see attached pictures) and generally melting into the crowd in the manner of a six foot skinhead amongst a population of dwarves with girly hair.

food is cheap, and good. Tapas is variable and cheap, but we´re feeling homesick so we´re off for a (probably dog awful) curry in a minute. weather is better than Britain (not hard, but 27 degrees C. today) and generally myself and my enigmatic girlfriend Jen have been making everything better by being here.

Possibly the best thing we´ve discovered so far here is the south american explorers club-house, which is ace. The facilities are fantastic, and mostly free, even the bath which, bearing in mind the state of our bathroom, is probably something of a boon. Access to internet, maps, reviews of everything, they help you with stuff and even make you tea. Marvelous. They even have a warning section about crime (mostly deception and scams rather than muggings) and it seems we´ve selected the only REALLY DAMN AWFUL bank to withdraw cash from. Known for card cloning (especially us Gringos)Last night we went to a talk on an eco-tourism venture in the Amazon rainforest, which we´ll probably go too at some point.

This is our first entry, any comments will be gratefully ignored. Adios amigos, Rich (I promise to let Jen write the next entry, so it´ll be better and stuff)

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Photos

Me fitting in
nice big church, nice big head

first hostel, nice!
lovely, clean, private bathroom, bg old double bed, cafe, courtyard with fire, friendly staff, what more could a pair of jet-setting brilliant people like us desire? cheap. that´s what, and this isn´t

Street in Quito Old Town
This place is cool. Altitude is MASSIVE so we can´t breathe, but hey. We´re currently about 3000 metres over the heads of you mere mortals (see, I always said I was above you). Observe the locals, we´re better than them

Jen in hovel
This is Jen, she is ace, but the room is a dump. We´re there for the forseeable cos it´s cheap, but it´s also rubbish.