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In keeping with all of the birthday events, we were on our day off and wanted to take some pictures of the city. Our driver suggest that we go to the Teleferiqo. All we knew was that it was highly elevated so that we could get a nice panoramic view of Quito. When we arrived, we noticed that there was a ski lift that takes you much higher than any car could drive. Now, Quito is about 9,500 feet above sea level and it turns out that this ski lift would have us over 13,000 feet above sea level, which is higher than La Paz, which is the highest capital in the world! The altitude was one thing, but the altitude sickness was another. I was really interested in trying it, but also a little scared. I think Marc was the only one that wasn’t a little afraid (or maybe he was just acting like he wasn’t).

I ended up facing the incline, so the whole time I’m just thinking about how slow the ski lift is moving and how high we are from the ground. At one point we were so high that we could see the tops of other mountains. We looked to our left and saw the airport… then we saw that we were higher than the planes as they were taking off and landing. This is really when I realized that what I was doing was extremely crazy!

We finally made it to the top and had this wonderful view of Quito:

Me on top of the world:

We were so high that the clouds started to move in and cover the area on top of the mountain. I snagged this picture right before it started. All of the white in the background is one huge cloud!

Here is another shot of the city:

And I love this cloud pic:

I guess you can say I conquered a fear!

A-F-A-R