Travel blog: On the equator in Quito

Rhian Nicholson has swapped the bright lights of London for a three-month journey across South America from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. From Ecuador, she s heading down through the Andes, trekking through Peru and Bolivia and sampling the wine region of Argentina before finally crashing out on the beaches of Brazil. This is her first blog entry:

Having never set foot in South America before, I have little idea of what I'm letting myself in for. Nervous? Un poco. Excited? Claro.

Ready for anything? Well, maybe when the jetlag and altitude sickness wear off... Still armed with an over-packed rucksack which I'm sure weighs more than I do and my rusty Spanish, it's time to start this three month adventure with Quito first on the list.

As far as first impressions go, Quito certainly packs a punch. Even with a thick layer of cloud and sheets of rain obscuring the view, the brightly-coloured suburban sprawl creeping up the steep slopes of the volcanic peaks is a sight worth a 24-hour journey and four inedible in-flight meals.

On ground level Quito is a model of semi-organised chaos with packed but surprisingly reliable buses belching black smoke, bellowing traders roaming the streets flogging everything from coconut juice and umbrellas to lottery tickets and indigenous women in traditional dress carrying bawling babies on their backs.

Add to this the joys of altitude sickness - Quito is the world's second highest capital city at 2,850m above sea level - and the city initially seems startlingly surreal.

At the heart of its infectious buzz is the Centro Historico basking in its status as a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Hunger-inducing smells from freshly baked pastries and empanadas waft from dingy shop fronts lining the narrow bustling streets.

Wander at will and soon enough you'll stumble across one of the centro historico's resplendent plazas complete with colonial style architecture where locals sit chatting, shoe shine boys rustle up business and bored looking policemen keep a lazy eye out for thieves.

Unsurprisingly, the mix of impoverished locals and 'rich' tourists with their top-of-the-range cameras and bulging wallets has led to high levels of crime.

Traveller tales of armed robbery, especially in the Mariscal Sucre which is unfortunately where most of the budget hotels and bars are located, are enough to fuel a touch of paranoia in even the most world-weary.

If they gave medals for the length of time spent clutching your bag strap, I would be in with a real chance of gold.

Luckily for the safety conscious and the lazy, Quito is crawling with taxis, which for less than the price of a bus ride in England will whisk you round the main attractions.

Forget chatty black cab drivers – Quito's taxistas take the art of small talk to a whole new level.

If you speak even the most basic Spanish, the journey will pass in a flurry of questions about life back home, a flood of information about the city and a prolonged moan about the rising price of petrol.

And as far as attractions go, Quito has more than enough to fill a couple of days of languid sightseeing interspersed with a few shots of proper Ecuadorian coffee (well I didn't want to overdo it on my first couple of days!).

The city has more churches than you can throw a very large stick at - unsurprising really in a Catholic country - and a couple of decent museums for when the tropical downpours hit.

Given its spectacular setting, you'd expect Quito to boast some pretty decent views - and it doesn't disappoint on that front.

Peering down from the top of Cruz Loma on the Volcan Pinchincha, a mere 4,100m above sea level quite literally takes your breath away.

Otherwise Quito's landmark statue, La Virgen de Quito (like the Statue of Liberty
but with wings and without the torch) perched high on El Panecillo offers a birds-eye of the suburban sea below, from slums to semi-skyscrapers.

Apart from roasted guinea pig, a delicacy not for vegetarians or the faint-hearted as it comes on a stick with its teeth and claws on display, Ecuador's other claim to fame is the equator.

Located about 1.5 hours from the city by local bus - an adventure in itself with vendors
jumping on and off to flog ice-creams, newspapers or anything else to scrabble together a living and Latin American pop music blaring from the speakers - who would have thought a simple line could cause so much excitement?!

Disappointingly the urban myths about water swirling clockwise on one side and anti-clockwise on the other are mere hearsay but still it's not everyday you get to jump across the equator...

Thanks to a weak dollar, Quito doesn't leave a significant dent even in a backpacker's budget with a double room with en-suite bathroom costing around five pounds, beer at less than one pound and private Spanish lessons at about three quid an hour.

Indeed, the good old British habit of speaking English loudly and slowly in foreign countries doesn't really work here, although there's still something to be said for
pointing and smiling.

Quito gets a lot of bad press but it's actually a perfectly pleasant place to while away a couple of days before heading out to the Galapagos Islands, the markets at Otovalo or the adventure sports haven of Banos. Just keep your wits about you.

Rhian Nicholson