Day 1
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Woke up and had breakfast - then headed straight off to Quito Tenis y Golf Club for our first training session at altitude. Jumped in a taxi outside the hotel - found out the club is about half an hour away from the hotel (we were thinking, oh no, it's gonna cost heaps for a taxi...) which cost us $6 (USD). Really cheap - but crazy drivers! People all over the road, tooting everywhere, getting through tiny gaps and it was weird because all the roads are the opposite way round, driving on the right!
Facilities are pretty good - squash courts are nice but FAR OUT - never seen a ball bounce how it does here, and they even give us special altitude balls. Was pretty weird jumping on the court and starting to hit, trying to time the ball right when it is so fast took a bit of getting used to but it's good conditions for the way we want to play - really easy to make mistakes as got to aim so low on the front wall so if we can eliminate mistakes from our game, our opponents will make them for us. Can see some really tough battles coming on - so hard to get winners so rallies will just go on and in the end it could come down to who is the most mentally tough as to who wins matches.

Altitude is the weirdest thing - it still feels the same to breathe (it's not like there's no oxygen) but once you start moving around a bit it starts to get tough. Anthony says we will adapt and it'll be just like normal after a few days - can't wait for that coz we all got the lungs going doing rotating drives/tramways today!


Anthony had a game as well - getting straight into the altitude! We might try get away with passing him off as a member of the team...

The rest of our day was spent going up to the lookout at the top of the Volcano, Pichincha - 4,100m high! So we took a cable car to the top and got some amazing views of Ecuador (which is HUGE!!!) and had a good time.

That was our day - apart from that we went to the supermarket etc, enjoying Ecuador so far - will update tomorrow!