We awoke before the alarm around 2:30 am feeling a little weary, but at last excited. It was early in our new time zone but fine with our body clocks which were still operating on Adelaide time.
We started what would be a short lived 15 minute morning yoga routine called "salute to the sun" which was good in exposing how horrible stiff and unflexible I had become.
We took flights from Santiago to Lima (Peru) then Lima to Quito (Ecuador). The three of four hours in Lima airport were boring and frustrating. Everything was unreasonably expensive so we just sat around reading most of the time. We did find a free source of energy and distraction from some sample chocolate covered nuts.
We finally arrived in Quito and it felt like the journey had really begun. We had emailled ahead to book a room at a budget hotel called the "Grand" - who had promised that we would be met at the airport and transferred to our hotel - but we were not really surprised when noone showed up to meet us. A very helpful stranger rang but noone on reception seemed to know anything about it.
We took a local bus from the airport to the well known tourist area of "Marsical" which is in the newer part of Quito full of restaurants, hotels, travel agents etc. Then a walk laden with our full packs through some gardens to the "trolley bus" stop and a very crowded trip to area in the old town where our hotel was.
We checked in to a very ordinary, small and noisy (but cheap) room in the hotel. We met a fellow resident (Vernon) who was a retired Australian merchant navy man who was currently travelling around the world from his new base near Dahab in Egypt. He was a friendly talkative man who seemed to have integrated himself into the workings of the hotel and was very happy to give advice and share his story with the other residents. He warned us of pickpockets on the trolley bus, having had a credit card and cash swiped the week earlier.
We went to a very small Chinese restaruant a few doors down for dinner - which cost about US$1 each and US$1.50 for a bottle of local beer.
I didn't sleep well that night. I had a persistent headache or rather a "face ache" as it lived somewhere behind my eyes. I was a bit congested and had slight nausea. It could have been a number of things that caused it and was probably a combination of them. Jetlag, fatigue, change of diet, Altitude, noisy room, uncomfortable bed. Also I had not had any coffee since the first day and I am sure there was a "detox" effect of that.
