Feb 6th 2009 - A slow start

Quito created a great first impression on me. The city was very different from anything I had experienced before in Europe – the colours were so vibrant and the streets and buildings screamed character. Instead of professional and clean, places seemed fun, welcoming and happy. There was extraordinary noise everywhere, more so maybe for me who had never lived in a ‘large’ city and only visited places. But Quito instantly seemed noisier than anywhere I had visited before.

Today we did not do much, with half the group not arriving until tomorrow. I ventured to the supermarket with Tara and Sophie (two English girls on the trip who were in the same taxi to our hostel when we arrived the day before), and I had the embarrassment of not realising that the exotic bird noises I heard whenever I crossed a road were in fact the pedestrian crossing. There seemed to be a lot of Danes within our group, they seemed initially quite wary (and initially spoke quite a bit of Danish – of course all of us English only really spoke English anyway!).

We went to a traditional Ecuadorian restaurant for Steak, rice and eggs (a meal I still like to cook every now and again) with tree tomato juice (something I haven’t had since Ecuador). Lady Gaga and Pink played over the stereo and our travel experience had begun without it properly kicking off.

The blip is from the restaurant with the group (from left heading around the table) being Hilde (our guide), Katja, Me, Sophie, Tara, Maïté, Soren (face is hidden!), Mia (can just about see her eyes), Christine, Sara and Louise Sk.