Blog No. Two - Taking in the atmosphre!

The whole group sat around the hostel ready for the first day of planning

LUNCH!

Culture!!!  or not 

The Guys just hanging out while some of the others negociated prices for our trip in the morning

  

After being woken up in the morning by the piercing alarm, we were greeted in the kitchen by mouth-watering croissants and museli, with a special raspberry sauce-which was definitely well-earned! Due to the intense nature of our expedition, we had to dedicate this day towards careful thought and planning. Following this, we ate lunch, which was a fantastic four courses of quite traditional Ecuadorian food; all for the grand total of $3 each.

We then laboured to round up food for the following day and the start of our acclimatisation trek. After much skilful haggling used by Louis Magown, followed by many daunting phone calls, we all basked in glory as we saved a whopping $20 for transport. Then we absorbed the rich culture of Ecuador (Ed. that made me laugh as I spent the day walking between the hostel and the phone shop...in a very developed city), by walking around the streets of Ecuador. Finally, we all relished a very exotic burger and chips meal in a local restaurant (Ed. oh it was exotic alright!). A definite highlight of the day was the numerous pictures taken with random girls-a very popular hobby of certain people (cough) Jerome (Ed. Aye it’s the quiet ones that are the worst). One final question remains-will Louis get diarrhoea after eating tap water-filled ice cream!   (Ed. after being told not to BTW folks!)

Mr M liking the Chelsea sign

We’re all off to bed now as most of us are still on UK time. 

Kiran Robbin