First day in Quito

---

When we woke up, we got an amazing surprise when we looked out our window. We saw the huge Andes mountains that we didn't see last night because it was dark. Everyone got up early and had a breakfast of bacon and eggs and the best orange juice I have ever had. There was always lots of fruit. Today we had a tour of Quito. First we went to El Crater which is a village that settled in the crater of a volcano. At El Crater there was donkey that everyone took pictures of because it was the first thing we saw on our trip.

Our next stop was a small traditional village for tourists that was at the real equator as calculated by GPS. There were llamas and chickens and the guide showed us demonstrations of the effects of being at the equator such as balancing an egg on a nail (?) and the spin of water down a drain.
Next we went to Mitad del Mundo which is where people thought the equator was before GPS and built a monument and is thus the ‘fake’ equator. We climbed to the top and got some really good views.

Finally it was lunch and we went to a restaurant at Mitad del Mundo. This was our first (of very many) encounters with babacao which is a fruit the size of a watermelon but related to the papaya and is always served diced in syrup and has a cinnamon flavour. By the end of our trip most never wanted to eat it again.
After lunch we got on our bus and went to Old Quito. We drove to a large statue called the Virgin of the Apocalypse. It was up on a hill and had an amazing view of Quito. There were buildings as far as the eye could see. Then, we went inside a couple old cathedrals and walked through a public square. We couldn’t get a hold of bus driver and was stranded at the square for an hour. We met an old Ecuadorian man and Janet, our student On-Site Assistant translated for the rest of us.

---

Photos

El Crater
Village in a crater from a volcano

Equator
The real equator. The equator is the red line. Half of the group

Mitad del Mundo
The 'fake' equator monument.

Virgin of the Apocalypse
Statue 'The Virgin of the Apocalypse'. She has a snake around her feet that represent the sins.

Quito
View of Quito in the valley between mountains.

New Friends
Our Ecuadorian friend with Georgia, Vince and Janet.