Arrival into Quito

The Flight to Quito was short and I slept deeply.
Waiting in the queue at immigration we watched the clock flip to Sat 2nd October...... Security were thorough but annoyingly they did not ask me for an onward ticket to proove I was leaving Ecuador within the allowed 90 days! Some of you know how I aggonised over this whe preparing for this trip! Actually I aggonised over many things and was quite fearful but even despite all the changes to the plan so far and confusions, it´s not nearly as stressful!
GVI staff met us at the airport and as we entered the Taxi we were advised on the poor road and driving etiquette in Ecuador. It wasn´t that bad though.
At breakfast today we met the rest of the GVI volunteers and staff, did official stuff and were given a health and safety rundown.
All is ok in Quito at the moment as all the fuss has calmed down and life has gone back to normal, although we have been advised to be especially vigalent. Quito is a long thin city surrounded by Mountains. It is very big, taking 2.5 hours to drive it´s length. The weather is sunny with some occassional cloud cover. Its sunny and hot in the sun as we are so near to the ecuator. I do have a mild alltitude sickness, mainly a headache and dehydration. I am drinking loads.
Tomorrow (Sunday) lunchtime we start our journey to the rainforest starting with a 5 hour bus ride which takes us up to 4000m before a descent to Tena where we will spend the night and stock up on wellies and snacks for the 5 weeks. On Monday we will be taking a less comfortable local bus over bumpy roads, then a canoe to the GVI base camp. On arrival we have 267 steps to climb. With my rucsack weighing almost 20 kilos I am not looking forward to this! Once in the rainforest I will not be able to update the blog. When I come out in November I shall give you all the news and hopefully some wicked pictures!
Very excited now:-) x