Here is the first letter from Susanne and Sophie, from our month long trip to Ecuador in South America in November and December 2006.
1. Arrival in Quito
We now arrived in Quito in Ecuador, high up in the Andes mountains. Quito is located at 3400 m altitude.
Our first flight from Copenhagen to Atlanta, was quite nice, but the trip from Atlanta to Quito was a huge rollercoaster. It was trembling for more than 3 hours, of the slightly more than 4 hour flight.
We now arrived in Quito in Ecuador, high up in the Andes mountains. Quito is located at 3400 m altitude.
Our first flight from Copenhagen to Atlanta, was quite nice, but the trip from Atlanta to Quito was a huge rollercoaster. It was trembling for more than 3 hours, of the slightly more than 4 hour flight.
Sophie and I have had chestpressure and a slight headache today, this is due to the height, but still we have been walking around the old town of Quito. A couple of days and then we have surely grown accustomed to the hight and the pain will go away.
The first night we slept in a hotel we had booked in advance, but now we moved to a slightly cheaper place. 6 U.S. $ per night, fits our pocketbook much better.
We expect to go to the Equator (world center) tomorrow, the Equator passes through Ecuador and actually quite close to Quito. There is a monument and it should be quite fun to see it, and if we have the strength, we will go further east, into some hot springs further inland in the Andes.
Woke up at 4 this morning and could not sleep again, but had to be quiet, since Sofie was sleeping (she has a good sleeping heart) So I slipped out of the room and just sat in the hallway and waited for it to be okay to to make a litle noise :-) . It's the worst room I've ever been in. It is situated next to a rather busy road, the noise we can live with, since it slows down around 10 pm, but there are so polluted from the cars outside, and the windows are leaking, so the fume from the cars, meanders its way through the windows, and nestle sweet into our noses. Not good...
I woke Sofie up at 6 and we started the day .
The Hostel we live in, has a really good and nice little restaurant, so we had breakfast there. We allready packed a small backpack, and now we walked from the old town of Quito (where we live) and approx. 3 km to a place in the new district, where we got on the bus to MITAD DEL MUNDO .... middle of the world. Right on the equator. This is where north, south, east and west meet. It took approx. 2 hours by bus before we were there, but it was worth the trip. It was peacefull and very beautiful. We were there an hour and then we jumped up on the back of a truck and drove up to a big hole in the ground, that used to be a volcano.
In the bus on the way back, Sophie took a little nap (like I said, sleeping heart). On our return to Quito, we found a nice cafe, and we had only just sat down, when it began to rain. It poured down. It appears that every afternoon, there is a heavy shower comming, but we've invested in an umbrella, so we're prepared. Here's a little cold at night, we have a lot of clothes on when we sleep. At daytime the weather changes from hour to hour, so you have to be prepared. We go nowhere without our shirt and jacket, because you never know.
Our plan is, that we continue tomorrow morning, we will go to a town, 2-3 hours by bus. There's suppose to be some hot springs, and our bodies will surely do well to dip in. We will write again when its possible.
