After a really looooooooooong flight (side note: having only one and a half hours to catch a conneting flight in Miami is not recommended!), we arrived in Quito. First surprise: Also on the equator, the weather can be like at home — 12ºC and rainy. We spent three days in Quito, doing some sight seeing on ourselves, being mainly in the Old Town with its colonial palaces and churches but also doing a tour with the Tourist Police which proved to be very nice and informative. We climbed the windy towes old the Basilica and got on two hills which gave a nice view over the city (at least parts thereof).
One day, we also took the teleferiQo up the volcano Pichincha and tried to hike the remaining 700m altitude difference to reach the top (4794m) by foot. Unfortunately, we had to cancel this project as the clouds were getting thicker and blacker and it started snowing. We had quite a headache anyway…
Nearly a full day was also lost organizing a one-week trip to the Galápagos Islands, which turned out to require abouth the same budget than the whole rest of the trip. We ended up with the travel agency Scuba Galápagos which turned out to be a good choice.