Quito, Friday

1230 Up rather shocklingly late at 12, will probably head out shortly. Tis OK. Lunch then will see about a ticket for that tourist bus and hopefully do El Panecillo or the Teleferiqo or ideally both.

1255 At Palacio De La Trucha. Mmm. I even asked them to leave the salad undressed (badly; I need to get the vocabulary for that). Hope this doesn't disappoint...

1316 Feh, salad is dressed, oh well, maybe just an oversight or maybe the poor vocabulary didn't help.

1329 Was still pretty good though.

1459 On Quito Bus Tour. Been told Teleferiqo takes 2.5-3h so best to do it earlier in day. Have splurged USD12 on tour anyway, hopefully will at least visit El Panecillo. We passed the Teleferiqo, announcement said you have to walk 200m up road to connect to free shuttle bus to main entrance. Frankly given the bus only runs once an hour so afterwards you'd have to wait ages for it then wait while it trundles round rest of circuit before you can get off in centre I rather incline to not using the tour bus tomorrow but risking taxis to/from Teleferiqo. If I'd managed to be up at 9 to do the tour I could prob have got better value and waiting up to an hour for the next bus after Teleferiqo would have been borderline tolerable but I didn't want to leave everything til tomorrow, it being my last day, so decided to get tour bus today even though a smidge late in day.

The tour commentary (recorded) is a bit vapid and also hard to follow but meh.

1732 At Texas Chicken, struggled bit to find restaurant. Fucking numb after sitting on open topped bus all that time. Quito in general seems a bit cold, I tend to wear my jacket in hotel room for eg. Fingers stiff, hope nothing serious, prob just cold. It's warm in here for a change!

1839 Woo. Netbook absolutely refuses to connect to hotel wifi even though it's working on my phone. Fuck knows.

2115 Feeling pretty shitty. Had argument with Mum earlier, can't fucking book hotel in Bogota with no wifi on laptop, read guide book for Bogota and you absolutely cannot take taxi in street, turns out Bogota has similar climate to here which is a bit grim, probably just cos I am feeling down the guide book is giving me a nasty "everyone else is going to have a great time but you can't" vibe.

Views from El Panecillo were v good tho we only had 20 mins there (naturally more like 25 or 30 by time the laggards turned up) and I wasn't in the mood to wait for the next bus in an hour so it was a bit rushed but OK. I didn't go up to the balcony round the statue as it looked like you had to pay and I didn't want to waste the time.

I need to go to an internet cafe tomorrow to do online check in and print off boarding pass. Bit worried I am going to be too short of time to do Teleferiqo and not super happy about transport to/from it, though not looked that up in guide book yet. If I can get up by 9 or 10 it's probably OK but still not great.

Not going out tonight, had pretty much decided that this morning but definitely not. Not in mood and also as per above need to be up early and I also intended to use tonight to sort out Bogota, though thanks to wifi problem that hasn't happened yet. Do wonder if netbook might be developing age-related unreliability, but can't really draw that conclusion yet.

2238 Took netbook out into 'wifi zone', made no difference. Used dog slow shared computer to book a hotel in Bogota; seems a bit pricey but I got something in Candelaria which I think is right in the middle of a nightlifey kind of area so that may help alleviate taxi shit at night - even if I buy a local SIM it's still an enormously faffy challenge trying to call a taxi.

2257 Woohoo. I didn't realise I was in Bogota 7 nights so I had to go back out and book an extra night. Could have been worse, I thought it was 6 nights but I'd got the dates offset (I had, but the other mistake turned it into a subset error) which could have been harder to resolve. Fortunately they had a room free the extra night, which was Sunday coming, ie the nearest.

Oh, and my flight leaves Quito 1118. You have to be there three hours early for an international flight. It's up to two hours travel to the airport. So I need to be getting a fucking taxi at 0618 on Sunday morning. Yay! The new airport here is fucking ridiculous. Bloody hell, Heathrow isn't that fucking hard to get to.

Still no fucking joy on netbook wifi. Seriously not happy about just about everything.

2357 Had shower, towel getting a bit manky, they haven't changed it or the bedclothes since I arrived. Anyway. Bed, fingers crossed can drag myself out of bed tomorrow. Frankly it's almost at the point now where I just want to be in the hotel in Bogota with tomorrow's double taxi trip to the Teleferiqo and early start and needing to get to internet cafe and then the day after's joyous trip to the airport out of the way. Uncertainty regarding my future back in UK also starting to jar. Feh.