Quito - Volcanos and the middle of the earth

Arriving in Quito, the first thing to do for Léa was, to buy some new clothes. After the robbery she just had the things she was wearing. So I had some time to explore the city a bit. 

Quito, with an elevation of 2850m above sea level, is the highest capital in the world. 

When I was in the historical centre, I saw, by accident, the change of the guards, which is celebrated every week and where the president is present. Quito has a very beautiful historical centre with a lot of beautiful churches and buildings.

On another day, we decided walking up to the active volcano Pichincha. It is 4784m high and erupted the last time in 1999 and covered the city with several inches of ash. We didn't walked all the way. It is possible to take a cable car from 2900 to 4100m in 10 minutes. But we had to walk the last 684m. After the first 10 meters of walking my respiration already started to have some trouble. So it was kind of a challenge climbing this volcano. While walking, we had all kinds of weather conditions: sun, ice cold rain, hail, a lot of wind and near to the peak, we had some snow as well. Always below us, the shiny city of Quito.

While we took a little break, suddenly a very curious bird/eagle came very near to us and watched us eating our lunch. It was kind of a special moment, we didn't moved a finger, when we recognized him. He came nearer and nearer and wasn't even frighten by us pulling out our phones for a photo. The presence of wild animals make us connecting to nature even more. 

While coming near the peak our hands started to freeze and we couldn't feel our nose anymore. But reaching the peak let us forget everything. Although we decided quickly to climb down again. 

Quito was for me a place with a lot of first times. I experienced my first little earthquake, climbed my first volcano, got my first piercing and got robbed the first time. 

It happened in broad daylight on a very busy street. It wasn't a real, typical robbery, but the feeling was the same, I guess. A junky just came towards me and told me in a very aggressive tone to give him money. Unfortunately I hadn't a coin in my wallet, so he got more and more aggressive. I just thought he was unpredictable, because it was clear, he was on something. His eyes and his slobber coming out of his mouth told me that. Eventually Léa opened her wallet and he just took 10$ out and went away. Yes, it was just 10$ and we didn't mind about the money, but the feeling being robbed or being in this kind of situation, is just very uncomfortable and with the robbery of Léas backpack, it was just too much in that situation, also taking our trust in people away, what is kind a shitty thing traveling in South America.

So we decided that we need some relaxed times. We found a volunteering opportunity on the Ecuadorean coast in a small village called Mompiche. Before hopping on the bus, we visited the Mitad del Mundo (the middle of the world), which is a monument exactly located on the equator.

Next: 3 weeks volunteering in the surf paradise of Mompiche!