Quito, EcuadorQuito, Ecuador

Up and down in Quito

Yes, we finally made it to Ecuador *smiley smiling*

On 2850 meters above sea level, Quito is already quite high. The altitude makes you feel old(er) when walking around or taking the stairs. The later one you will do a lot in Quito, as the city stretches well into the hills around.

We opted to stay in a nice double room in a hostel nearby the Old Town*. From there many sights are in walk-able distance and we immediately started to make use of this.

Spanish influence and language

Exploring the colonial center, you feel the strong Spanish influence. It is still present today in buildings, habits of people and of course the language.

Oh, talking about “language”: We now realize that not really learning at least some basic Spanish* before visiting Ecuador was not the best idea. You can make your way around using gestures and some English words. But we definitely put learning a proper level of Spanish on our list *smiley worried*

After strolling through the old colonial Quito we climbed even higher to earn our evening beer. Walking a lot of stairs in thin air and reveals breathtaking views over Quito after sunset…

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Germany, FrankfurtGermany, Frankfurt

Stuck in Heathrow…

Ironically after all the planning and preparation, we did not make it further than to London Heathrow on the first day. Ending up in on of the many nameless and similar hotels lined up there, both of us had seen during consulting projects in the last years.

What on earth had happened?

The flight from London to Madrid, from where we had a directly connecting flight to Quito was so much delayed, that it was clear we will miss the second one in Madrid. Initially we were very relaxed with 6 months free time ahead of us and already saw us sitting in a nice hotel in Madrid with a good glass of red wine – all paid for by British Airways – and taking the onward flight one day later.

Madrid or London for a night?

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Round the World, FarewellRound the World, Farewell

Farewell from friends, family and colleagues

With all the planning we wanted to do: done, our todo list getting shorter and our preparation as much completed as possible, we had to start the sad part…saying good bye to many friends, our families and colleagues at work, which we wouldn’t see for the next 6 months to come *smiley crying*

We don’t want to bother you with too many pictures of us over and over again with different people, but it was very good to feel so many people wanting to say “good bye” personally, making it much easier for us to leave and be sure not to be forgotten *smiley winking*

But not everybody could make it to our big(ger) farewell party…

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Round the World, PreparationRound the World, Preparation

Ready to go – half a year, once around the globe

Time flew by quickly since we managed to do our route planning and we didn’t manage to publish any updates on our blog, as we were still working more than full-time in our project jobs as consultants and in parallel spending much of our free time to finalize our plans, getting even more excited and preparing for our big adventure.

I did one of the most important decisions to be ready for long-term traveling…my hair is now cut short and we will not have to pack a hair dryer into our luggage. Sounds much better in German, describing my hair style now as a “Ohne-Fön-Friese”, which suits much better for the colder Andes *smiley winking*

Now there are only 7 working days left…

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