It's been a busy few weeks. Our last day on the banana visit ended up being pretty much on the border with Ecuador. We decided to get an overnight bus straight up to Quito so that I could get on with writing up all my interviews.
Quito has been a lovely surprise so far. We had heard tales of backpackers robbed at knife point in taxis so we approached with a bit of trepidation. We're not staying in the backpacker part of town and we've found it to be a modern, relaxed and cosmopolitan city surrounded by beautiful mountains.
I have, however, spent all week glued to the laptop, finally finishing all my work at 3am yesterday. The massive window in our very comfy hotel room has helped. The sky is constantly changing, from sunny, to enormous clouds quickly building up and then dramatic thunder storms.
My able assistant has been very helpful (when he's not been at a local footy game), editing interviews, buying me flowers and getting us good, simple meals ready every evening. It's been nice to settle in here. We've unpacked, stocked up our fridge, we have hot water and a bath and it's of a comparable size (slightly exaggerated) to our London flat. It's starting to feel like home. We've even taken on jogging around a great city park in the mornings (well 2 so far, but we may manage a few more). We're not a model of fitness. We blame the altitude. Our lungs are in pain long before our legs.
It's holiday time for us now for a couple of weeks before we're back on the bananas, this time in Ecuador. Simon's dad, Erica, aunty and uncle arrived this morning and we're off to the jungle on Tuesday. It was surprisingly normal to see them, not quite like bumping into them for a coffee, but on a scale. I think chatting to people on skype makes a big difference - so come on everyone we're missing, what are your skype addresses please?
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