Friends in Quito

I arrived on Wednesday to Quito. I thought I would have to sleep in the floor of the Hostal Centro del Mundo the first night. To my great surprise a beautiful bed in a dorm was waiting for me. While I was unpacking, my dorm-mates were talking, suddenly, Erik said: what are we doing tomorrow? (he was talking to his wife, Jen) I thought he was talking to me, because I understood “What are you doing tomorrow?” So, I answered very happily: “I don’t have plans yet”. Erik was like: “ah ah haaa yes, you want to come with us?” at this point I knew he wasn’t talking to me but he seemed very friendly so I accepted the invitation. The invitation included walking up at 7 for taking a teleferico and then hiking for 4 hours the Volcan Pichincha. I was so tired I couldn’t even think right, I guess that’s why I accepted. Quito’s elevation is 2850mt, that’s VERY HIGH and I didn’t know the teleferico was taking us up to 4100mt and then we were hiking 500mt more. The views from the teleferico were beautiful and the hike was very nice until it got really cold and I started having the worse headache ever. The answer is yes, I was very stupid my body wasn’t used to Quito’s high and I pushed a couple thousand meters more… The result of this is high sickness your first day in Quito and body ache your second day in Quito (Today).