Quito and the Equator

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Last night I went out to dinner with the Nishimuras and the Descours. We took two cabs to a restaurant our local guide (Edison) had recommended. It was a seafood place called Mare Nostrum. Dinner for the 5 of us, including wine and desserts was 111 dollars. The good thing in Ecuador is that they use the US dollar as their currency, so it's easy to pay for things. I had grilled salmon and it was really yummy. We again had to take 2 cabs back to the hotel, and Diane and Yoshi and I stayed in the hotel bar and had our "welcome" drink before heading off to our rooms. Don't scoff, but I actually had a daquiri. Hey, free booze, what can I say....

We left this morning at 9 am for our city tour of Quito. Our first stop was the Basilica which had some very pretty stained glass windows. After that, we drove up a bit higher and got a panoramic view of the city and the surrounding mountains. Next we drove down (and I do mean down) to near the main square. We had to get out of our bus a bit before the square because of traffic. We had a bit of difficulty in the main (Indepence Square) because there had been a tear gas leak due to a demonstration and we caught a bit of a whiff of it and that was not fun. We walked around the square and got to take pictures of the Presidential guards in their formal regalia. We visited 3 more churches after that, one of which is almost entirely covered in gold leaf inside. Since we had all agreed that we wanted to go to the Equator, after visiting the third church (the convent of San Francisco), we had a brief stop for tea/coffee/water and a couple of empanadas. They were yummy.

One other bad thing happened during the morning. As we were getting ready to leave the gold church, Diane noticed that her camera was gone. We checked the church and Edison walked back to the Square to see if he could find it, but no luck. We think it might have been stolen by some kids attempting to sell candy as we were walking to the church.

After our empanada break, we got back on the bus. Half hour drive and we were at 0/0/0. It's always fun for me to go to places like that, I've been to the prime meridian and Cape of Good Hope and can now say I've stood in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres at the same time. There's a big monument there, with an ethnographic museum inside.

Tomorrow is going to be an early day. We have to leave at 6 am for the airport, to catch our flight to the Galapogas. Actually, it's a 40 minute flight to Guayquil, a 30 minute sit on the plane there, and then about an hour flight to the Island. Since the hotel is not on the same island as the airport, it'll then be a boat ride to the hotel.

Got to say one thing, it'll be nice to spend 4 nights in the same place after 10 days of moving from hotel to hotel.

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Comments

[Evelyn]

My Mindy
I miss you :( I am glad you are having a great time. Keep on smiling :)

[Ron]

Tortoises in Galapagos
Hi Mindy--I can't wait to hear if you are able to see those huge tortoises that roam in the Galapagos. (Actually, I saw them at the zoo and found them a bit scary). Sooooo....is it evolution (Darwin) or is it creationism? Thanks for posting the interesting details of your trip.

[marie gonzalez]

I love salmon and daquiri. Have fun.........