Friday 8th April:

As is usual having flown West by six hours we woke up pretty early. Time is spent on our iPads  making sure folk at home know we have arrived safely. We stroll down to breakfast in the charming dining room and are greeted by  charming staff. The coffee is good, the eggs and bacon are good and  breakfast is taken at a leisurely pace before meeting our guide for the day, Maria.

Maria is well travelled, having been to a number of European countries recently, including Turkey and Belgium. We like her style as she doesn't overwhelm us with facts and figures, names and dates, she responds to our prompts and questions.

The morning is warm and the sun is shining and so Maria takes us up to the famous virgin Mary statue with its fabulous views overlooking the city of Quito, both the old town and the new town, commenting that the old town is very well laid out, but the new town, well it's still quite old having been started in1920, is chaotic.

After that is a drive across the city for a bit of fun at The Middle of The Earth, the equator, which of course Ecuador is named after. We have our photos taken with one foot in the northern hemisphere and one in the Southern Hemisphere. Our guide then tries to convince us that water in the southern hemisphere will go clockwise down the plug hole, and counter clockwise in the northern hemisphere by moving an old sink a few meters either side of the equator; great fun but hardly convincing.

Quito is pretty laid back and the centre of the old town has a nice feel to it, nothing too heavy, and quite picturesque. I must admit I am still feeling a little lightheaded and the heart is still pumping a bit faster than I would like, I guess I have to put it down to the time shift and as near as damn it 10,000 feet above sea-level. We're higher than Lukla here and when you start the Everst trek you've had two or three days in Kathmandu at 4,000 feet just to get the feel. However I'm still not sure that the stomach isn't having something to do with it as well although I'm on day two of the Opremozole, I really don't want to suffer those problems on this trip.

We stroll slowly back to the hotel and have a cup of coffee and a small snack on the way. Maria  arranges to meet us at 8:15 tomorrow morning for our trip to Otavalo.  Time for a short snooze and time to dictate the block before heading down for the famous afternoon tea.