Greetings from the Middle of the World

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So, today we got to sleep in a bit and had breakfast here at the Hilton - non descript western breakfast buffet. As we were herded on to buses and around the colonial part of the city, I felt like a member of a herd of sheep. We drove by La Basilica (newest church in old Quito, only about one hundred years old.....). As expected, we hit several spots we had already seen: The Plaza Grande, San Francisco Cathedral, El Panecillo, etc. It was basically a 2 -3 minute visit at each spot, and that seemed to satisfy most of the herd. Actually the part that I was looking forward to the least, a visit to the equator, was the best. I thought it would be entirely too touristy, and of course there was that element. But the experiments - balancing the egg (one member of our group managed to do it), watching the water drain clockwise to the south and counterclockwise to the north of the line, decreasing strength on the line - was really very cool, and the guide was really very entertaining also.
Oh yeah, I forget to mention, the name of our main guide today was, you guessed it, JORGE! (the third). He said to call him "George of the Jungle." He has been by far the best looking of the Jorges and he looks about 20 but he based on how long they have to go to school to become guides here (3 years) and how long he has been doing tours (8 years), I guess he must be late 20s.
This afternoon are some of the CE (still not sure how that works because we didn't have any last night, and we are supposed to get 12 hours worth of CE......we must have SOME classes on the boat.....). And then we have to have our luggage all situated by 6 am tomorrow for the flight to Galapagos.

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Comments

[Stef]

Can you combine Jorge and the little tremors????
Just a thought ;-) So I am very jealous of all the cool things you are getting to see! Keep the pics comming!