Day 3 – Quito

The hotel's proud boast of WiFi technology proved something of a fabrication, however, as it also had no working electricity that point was largely irrelevant. Luckily for us the hot water was gas fired – but judging by the state of the boiler the last engineer to fire it, died just after Ecuador declared independence in 1830.

Invigorating, is what you call a cold show at that time of the morning, but I didn't know the Spanish for invigorating so used more flowery terms in my explanation to the owner.

The day before leaving England Ciara and I diligently called our bank to ensure they knew we were going to South America so as not to get a repeat of the situation we had in China where our cards were stopped. So imagine my surprise and unbridled joy when we went to withdraw some money but informed that our cards had been blocked from overseas transactions. We initially thought it may be just one bank so spent the next five hours searching all over Quito for ATMs (the banks were closed by now – of course) with the same result.

With no other options I found an internet cafe resigned to calling the bank in England. It was then that I discovered there was another power cut. Losses cut, we decided to have a drink and think about it.

Suitably reinvigorated and with Quito on the electricity grid we called home and, amid grovelling apologies from the bank, got our cards working. Rather foolishly we then decided to test the limits on all six of them, and thus, we were left sitting – Tony Montana-like – with just over $1200 in cash in 'The most dangerous place on the planet/continent' – delete as applicable.

Late that evening the hotel owner assured me he had been on the case and that I would have hot water. I have. Boiling hot water. Water so hot it strips skin if you stand under it. After 25 seconds it's freezing again.