Quito

---

Next up was Quito and to book our trip to the Galapagos. We have been looking into this over the last few months and most people said it was best to book in Quito as you get more choice and are not left with a crappy boat. When we arrived there wasn’t that much choice and the prices were expensive and it took us two days to find something that suited us, mainly the cost!. I am hoping we got lucky. The boat we choose is called the Friendship and cost 410 pounds each for an 8 day boat cruise. We looked on the net and found that the boat had a bad write up by another traveler about 4 months back and it sounded pretty bad. Since then there have been some good reports so we decided to risk it. We also had to pay 175 pound for the return flight, 50 pound park fee and 250 pound each for 8 dives each, 75 pound for 6 nights acommadation! A grand total of 1845 pounds and then our food and drink costs your looking at 2000 for 13 nights! Were going to be skint before we know it!

Check out the Galapagos blog for more details and pictures.


Quito is a beautiful place and very similar to what I have already talked about, some very pretty colonial buildings and surrounded by a beautiful mountains with Quito nestled in the valley. The city is split between the Old and New town, with the old having the history and great buildings and the new being more modern with great restaurants, bars and cafes. Our first few nights we stayed in between the two and it was a bit far from both places so decided to move to the New town which is a great place to have a few drinks and what ever you want to eat there will be a restaurant that caters for you.
I found a Chinese that gave a plate of food with chips and rice for 90p and it was very nice and ate there most days. Our favorite was an Indian restaurant called Great Indian food and they were right, one of the best Indians I have had, it was amazing and we ate until we nearly burst. That only cost 2 pound with rice and the best naan bread ever. Typically we found this place on our last night, isn’t it always the way!

One of the local attractions in Quito is La Mitad del Mundo ( The middle of the Earth) It is where the equator splits the earth in two. All very touristy and we had lots of pictures taken from different angles! A bit of history for you. In 1736 Charles-Marie De La Condamine’s made the measurements that proved that it was the Equator and also proved that the Earth is not perfectly round but bulges in the middle. In more recent times and modern technology they have proved that the actually centre is a few hundred meters away, what’s a few hundred meters when your trying to get a good photo! Also the Spanish word for Equator is Ecuador, so now you know where the name came from!!

---

Photos

One of the many Shoeshine boys.
They work all day for very little money, shining your shoes for about 12p.

Weigh yourself on the street!
The poor guy was an old blind man doing what he can to earn some money.

Shell Handstand
Shell doing a handstand over the Equator and then relising she was going to fall over!

Shell Handstand
Now literally on her arse over the equator!