Middle Earth

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So we arrived in Quito after our 1st class flight from Madrid, oh yes, what a way to start with a free upgrade thank you Iberrian Airelines. We were a bit spun out as we got a cab from the airport to our hostel in Old Town, Quito. The Secret Garden really reminded me of Aflex Palace in Manchester, think it was the burning incense, wall art and abundance of bearded males. I have no idea what I had expected hostels to be like but this wasn't it. We had what I have since realised is a really nice room overlooking the street with wooden shutters. We plonked our stuff down and attempted a few drinks on the terrace. 2 sips of sprite later and I required bed. Obviously Christian was gutted as he wanted to chill and have a few beers overlooking colonial Quito. The views from the terrace were unarguably stunning, day and night. Made us realise just how vast Quito was.

After a whopping 10 hour kip we ventured into Quito. Rather unimpressed to be honest, found it quite unfriendly, dirty and not half as grand as I'd expected. So after a few hours of wandering around Plaza Grande and San Fransisco pretending to wow and ahhhhh, we decided to head out to Mitta del Mundo AKA the equator. 3 bus rides, 1 funny German man and a lot of terrible Spanish later we arrive at Middle Earth and are greeted with a carnival type atmosphere. Live bands playing, locals dancing, street artists performing etc. We enjoyed hopping around the actual equator line taking snaps and seeing the differences of northern vs sourthern hemespheres. We spent a good couple of hours in the museum next door attempting to balance a raw egg on the head of a pin, which is apparently easy when on the equator...neither Chris nor I succeeded. And watching Chris act as guinniepig for centrifugal force experiements, I now know what his weak spots is...troble it's only when on the equator like! Oh and the water down the plughole trick. I liked that!

Ended the day with a bonkers bus journey home getting 1st hand experience of the lack of rules this country has. Firstly queueing simply does not exist, it's every man for himself out there at those bus stops. And the lack of rules on the road. Anyone can go anywhere at anytime, apparently.

Met a Canadian brother sister act over pizza who were really cool so decided to join them on a jaunt to Thermas de Papallacta the next day. We headed out in a cab for a very hairy journey up into the mountains to the thermal baths. After experiencing those in Japan we were both a tad dissapointed but had fun chilling out and getting to know our 1st travel friends!

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