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