Quito, Ecuador!

After getting to the bus station in Tulcan, we jumped on a bus, almost immediately headed for Quito.  Buses in Ecuador are roughly $1/hr. and Quito is about 5 hours from Tulcan, hence it was 5 bucks.  Very reasonable.  The bus ride was fine, other than a million stops along the way.  We found it kind of funny how many food vendors jumped on and off the bus within the 5 hour journey.  At one point, there were at least 6 or 7 people selling all kinds of different food, yelling out loud, "Pizza! Salchicha! Platano! Helado! Hamburgesa!" as loud as they could, fighting for business.  We finally made it to Quito at about 5:30pm, and jumped in a taxi across the city towards our hostel for the night.

So far, Ecuador seems amazing...

We spent two nights at Hotel Koala, which is really a hostel.  It was a nice place, with two kitchens, and a beautiful upstairs deck looking out over the city.  We barbequed the second night, on their small grill up on the deck, with some great local produce and pork chops from the store right down the street.  

We checked out of the hostel, and left our bags in their storage space, along with Agustina and Juan, the Argentinian couple we met, and together, we took the Teleferico up the mountain for an incredible view.  We really recommend it!

Volcan Pichincha up top