It was only the night before the flight that we realized that we would arrive in the afternoon.

So far we have been too busy with other stuff than asking ourselves how long the flight would last, how much time we would have to change in Amsterdam and at what time we would arrive in Quito.

So arriving in the afternoon was a pleasant surprise for us, since we thought for some reason we’d arrive in the middle of the night.

We booked the hotel the last evening in Germany, so we didn’t know if we would get picked up. But leaving customs we already saw a guy holding a sign with our names.

He brought us to Quite to the Boutique Hotel Café Cultura where we would stay for the next few days. The drive there was quite impressive. A very narrow, traffic-blocked and winding road lead down a canyon and up on the other side. Christy was already getting nervous about that road. Later we learned that was one of three roads to the airport and it was the worst.

For the first few days in Quito we didn’t do that much. We were still in the Check-List-Mode and it was very difficult to understand that there was nothing to do until Tuesday until we would pick-up our bikes from the airport. For months we were so busy getting things organized, that the sudden feeling of having nothing to do felt like a whole new thing.

We were walking down to old-town, a very nice colonial style city with nice placas and restaurants. It is a world heritage.

Old town of Quito

On Sunday we took a taxi to the “teleferrico”a cable car to one of the volcanoes surrounding the city. The volcano is not active any more and is easy to climb. When you are adjusted to the altitude. We walked about half the way up (form 4000m to approx. 4300m) and had enough. But the view of the city was incredible. There are no bushes, but a lot of different types of gras that live at his altitude. And it is just beautiful up here.

On our little hike up to Pichincha volcano.

View of Quito

Some guys on dirt-bikes ride up here for an afternoon ride.

Mountainbikers use the teleferrico to bring the bikes up and ride them down on steep slopes.

We sleep a lot, a little bit jetlagged but more tired because of the stressful weeks laying behind us.

The hotel we stay in is very nice. Humming birds fly around in the garden. Three kittens entertain us. The air is warm and the sun intense.

Quito is at almost 2900m, so the nights are cold, but in the sun it is hot.

The hotel is in between the two tourist areas of Quito: the beautiful old-town and the “new-town”, a party area with generally loud and pretty bad bars and restaurants.

With a recommendation we find a fantastic Ecuadorian restaurant there though. We eat out there twice and are having fantastic food there.

The most impressing thing regarding food here are the juices. All fresh, super tasty and with lots of pulp.

Our favorite becomes Tomarrillo, the tree-tomato fruit.