Day Out

I had written a piece about our trip on the roof of a train to Cotopaxi, the highest and most recently active volcano in Ecuador. But thanks to Ecuadorian electrics the piece was lost so I’m typing it again and this time its going to short (yes I know most of you will think that’s a good thing!!!)
Basically 8 of us from the hostel sat on top of a bus on wheels for 90 minutes in each direction and had a walk in the hills for three hours without a map and with only biscuits and water to keep us going. Hopefully the pictures will tell the story.

PS Its taking so long this afternoon that theres only one, more to follow when the internet isn´t so busy.

A Day At The Football
One of my aims for South America was to try and see a game of football in every country; yesterday saw the first instalment in my footballing odyssey.

With new football mates, Nick (Spurs fan, we didn’t mention Chimbonda), James (Liverpool fan), Brian the Aussie who was a self professed football virgin and Melissa from the Sates who loved the game, in tow we piled into the bus for the Estadio Olympico to see Nacional of Quito (AntonioValencia’s team) take on bottom of the league Aucas.

$10 bought me a terrace seat and a good few bottles of beer and we sat back to enjoy the game. To be fair the standard of football was pretty poor, about conference level, but the atmosphere, even in a small crowd of a few thousand was cracking.

The fact that the score was 2 each is probably incidental as pretty early on the clouds opened and we were surrounded by a torment of Ecuadorian rain, nothing in England comes close. A quick exit to the under stand area followed although we still got soaked through.

Half time beers later and the rain had slowed a bit so we ventured back out and made our way to las Ultras area of the terracing. After a few mentions of AntonioValenica, a firm friendship (in footballing terms) had been struck up and the Ultras were soon passing round the local firewater.
The game petered out and we left wet but happy back to the hostel, the rest of the day spent drying out and playing cards, oh and going to the Casino and winning the huge sum of $3 on Black Jack.

My Itinerary

Thought it was about time I let you know my interary for the next 11 months, that is apart from generally relaxing!!

Well I’m IN Quito Ecuador just now and have had a look around and generally taken things easy.

Rest of September will be spent at a language school in Quito and early October I’ll be off for a week travelling round Ecuador.

Then its off to the Galapagos Islands, this should be fantastic and one of the highlights of the year. From October 13th to November 6th I’m on a tour down to Cusco and Machu Pichu.

Which takes me to early November when I’m off to Lake Titicaca (spelling) and then off to La Paz and through Bolivia, which from what everyone I’ve met so far tells me is supposed to be incredible.

Chile for late November/early December and hopefully Easter Island for Christmas (it just kinds of amuses me!)

The New Year will be up through Patagonia, Argentina and Uruguay. I’ll be hitting Rio for the Carnival in February. Late Feb and March I’m going to try and travel through Paraguay and Brazil to Venezuela and then go across to the Caribbean for the Cricket World Cup in April (Mr Wells are you reading this!!).

The rest of the year will be split between Central America and North America. Ideally as I’m travelling to Ushuaia (doesn’t look right!!), the most southerly town in the World I’d also like to get up to Alaska but we’ll see.

If anyone’s got any suggestions of places to visit please let me know.

Cheers
Andy

A few pics of Quito. The jazz was very cool.

Hows this for a KFC

Well here I am in Quito, Its 4 pm here but I´ve been up most of the night and body thinks it past 11 so please forgive any errors.

The journey was reasonably smooth but not without event. A huge thanks to Richard H for driving me there, my pack weights a ton and dragging it along the Piccadilly line would have been a total nightmare

Firstly at Heathrow the fact that I didn´t have return ticket was a major problem for KLM who issued me with a bogus return to flash in Quito. Apparently you`re not allowed into Ecuador unless you have a return and the guys and girls at KLM were concerned that I would immediately be deported. I can tell you it focussed my mind. Of course when I got here there was no problem, a wave of the passport and a couple of little forms. Not even a stamp, just a computer print out, I can tell you I was disappointed!

By the way for anyone travelling through Heathrow at the moment it’s a complete mare, leave loads of time and take tiny hand luggage.

Amsterdam was uneventful, although at one point, after being on an earlier flight from the UK and therefore having over two hours for my connection, I did consider dashing into Amsterdam to sample some of its more ambient delights but thought better of it. It’s a dangerous place as many a round the world tourist has found to their cost when they´ve found a year has gone by and they haven´t left the place.

We left Amsterdam on a McDonald Douglas MD11, probably the oldest aircraft I’ve been on and it felt it. Leg room as one might expect was cramped and the seats weren’t exactly in their first flush of youthful upholstery but the service from the KLM staff was superb.

Unfortunately a short scheduled stop at Bonaire (somewhere in the Caribbean, look for it on a map) turned into a two hour delay, firstly because there was a slight problem with the plane, nothing major we were assured but we couldn’t take off without it being fixed, and then by an issue with some wrongly completed paper work for the job. As you can see the KLM duty to customer care extends a long way. The pilot kept us informed for over an hour as to the conversation between KLM head office in Amsterdam and the Engineering Firm in Bonaire who had fixed the problem even though he confessed to not actually knowing what was wrong!!

So off to Ecuador where we landed at 10.00 a.m. two hours behind schedule.

Got a taxi to the Hostel recommended by Mr. Shah. It’s a cracking little place, incredibly friendly and I’ve got a great little room at the top of the building. Looking forward to Thursday, free rum and coke night

So far I’ve had a look round the area the hostels in, seems pretty cool, loads of tourists around and the locals are incredibly friendly. The weathers good as well about 24 and mostly clear although the air quality is a bit pants.

No pictures this time will get some off next time.,

Cheers

Andy

Hello,

Welcome to my Blog that hopefully over the next year will keep you entertained and updated about my travels around the Americas. As some of you know I am a teacher in North London who decided it was time to see a bit more of the world. So I'm off for a year of exploring and adventure.