¡Hola mis amigos!

I have arrived in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and it is amazing! The journey here was fairly eventful, involving sitting next to an Israeli tour guide called Moshe for a 12 hour flight, who advised me of Peru´s unmissable sights, and befriending a rather befuddled and flustered American named Paul who had lost his group and spoke no Spanish. Paul and I wiled away 8 freezing night-time hours in Quito airport while I waited for Ruth´s flight to arrive and he waited for the phone booths to open. I bought him hot chocolate with my scanty Spanish and he made me a wire sculpture of a dragon fly in return. What a story, huh?! The best bit of the journey, however, came just as I was flying into Lima airport. It was 5.30 pm and suddenly the massive red rock tips of the Andes loomed up above the clouds, every fold and crevice of their magnificent mass catching the late afternoon sun. I am really looking forward to seeing them properly in a couple of weeks when we head down to Peru.

But for now, back to Ecuador. The Ecuadoian Andes may not be as stunning as the Peruvian, but Quiot is AMAZING! The city itself is comprised of a colonial old town and bustling new town nestled in amongst the Andes and three volcanoes. The people are exceptionally friendly and the food is great. It tends to revolve around chicken and rice, but there have been some interesting surprises, such as chicken feet in soup, cheese and banana toasties and fried green banana salted crisps. Surprisingly tasty actually, in case you were wondering :-) We chose to splash out a bit for the first few days while we acclimatise and recover from jet lag. We are staying in a hotel in the old town called the hotel San Francisco de Quito. It has a jacuzzi, steam room, sauna, lovely rooms, internet access, and the best eggs i have tasted in a long while for breakfast. And all for the equivalent of 7.50 a night. Bargain! We are using it as a base until Monday, and have so far seen the various cathedrals of Quito, heard the marching band which only seems to play in the middle of the night, had near death experiences with the buses which only signal their lethal proximity at the last second with a siren resembling a curious blend of ´Three Blind Mice´ and ´Blind Date´, been to the Plaza Grande, and seen the Virgin on the Panecilla (a statue of Mary with eagle wings, a crown of stars, standing on a globe which is chained to a dragon, as you do, and all atop a mountain which translates as ´the bread roll´). We also headed up Quito´s answer to Notre Dame - possibly the deadliest overhead view of Quito to be braved. The gothic basilica cathedral is decorated with, not gargoyles or saints, but, wait for it...iguanas and tortoises. Despite this amusing Latino architectural twist, we still felt rather Quasimodo-ish as we clambered through the eaves of the cathedral on a rickety wooden causeway, and climbed the vertical steel ladders to the top of the bell towers. The view was stunning. The Cotopaxi volcano shone bright white in the distance, framed by the mountains and slopes on which the outskirts of Quito are built. As a little gift to celebrate our safe return to firm ground, the entrance guide made us friendship braclets from what he assured us was marijuana (otherwise known as hemp). Other highlights have been the weather - gorgeous, but then we are on the equator pretty much - seeing shoe shiners on the streets of Ecuador, and salsa dancing. And, after very little consideration or reflection, I can declare confidently that Salsa is the Meaning of Life. Fact.

Apart from sightseeing in Quito, there have been a couple of other exciting stories to report. Yesterday saw our first small disaster in the form of me setting fire to Ruth´s pj bottoms. It was an accident, honestly, and it is only mildly possible that the alcoholic blackberry smoothie I drank caused this rather tragic occurrence. It really wasn´t my fault that Ruth left her trousers in the lamp and told me to leave the light on, and it wasn´t really my fault that we had a small fire to deal with and the smell of burnt toast to inhale all night. Obviously Ruth will propagate the story in the fashion of ´Helen was blind drunk and set fire to my trousers in a fit of inebriated rage´. But you know it isn´t true. You heard it here first.

Today brought the second disatser of the trip, in that my camera and purse were stolen. They were in my bag when we were on a bus to a town to the north of Quito called Otavalo. They must have been taken by an extremely skilled thief as we were being careful - but obviously not careful enough! Fortunately there were only 20 dollars in the purse and the camera can be claimed for on the insurance. Still, a lesson learned the hard way, unfortunately. I am not even cross at losing possessions, as the people here really are significantly worse off than us Brits. I am more annoyed that I feel I have now lost trust and confidence in the people, who have otherwise been absolutely wonderful. Even so, I tried not to let it ruin my day in the massive indiginous markets of Otavalo. We saw some intricately made crafts and indiginous vendors in traditional clothes, and even had to stop the bus on the way to let past a group of marching indiginous tribes people who were protesting to save their territory. I bought some lovely stuff, and the end of today saw Ruth and I honing our somewhat inept Spanish skills at the Police Station when reporting the theft. Up until today we had only managed to perfect our Spanish swear words and Catherine Tate impressions ( - am I bovvered? Look at my face. Do I look bovvered? Bovvered - ¡estoy molestardo? regarde mi cara...etc.) but now we are fluent in criminal language of a different and more acceptable kind :-) Hopefully tomorrow won´t bring any more mishaps. We are going to see the Equator. The Ecuadorians call it the Mitad del Munde, the middle of the earth, but I shall affectionately bestow it the Tolkien title of Middle Earth, and tomorrow I shall knock myself out with the excitement of hopping between hemispheres.

All for now - love as ever...