Excitement was running high on the day of our departure. And that was despite the 12-hour flight from the Netherlands to Ecuador we had ahead of us. After a two-hour delay at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and the long flight, we eventually landed in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. By the time we arrived, it had already been a long day exacerbated by the delay, so we were all feeling pretty tired. But the whole team had made it safely to Ecuador armed with equipment and ready for our expedition!
The rainy weather caught us a little off guard. We had expected it to be quite a bit warmer than 14 degrees Celcius, but the weather forecast for the next few days looked promising. We were just happy that all our luggage had made it in one piece and it was finally time for the Expedition Anthropocene to begin.
The first stop on our 17-day trip was one that truly excited us all, given how exhausted we were – the hotel. Once we had settled in, we tucked into a delicious dinner of seco de pollo, an Ecuadorian chicken stew, and finally found time to chat about our immediate goals and what still needed to be done to achieve them. This included an equipment check and planning a detailed route.
