Quito & Otavalo

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FRIDAY 29 FEB 08

Today was the first real day of our week long tour taking us around Ecuador (well at least a little bit). Today was a tour of the old colonial centre of Quito and a trip to the equator.

We went down to the old town in the morning. We had a wander through and around some churches visited the Presidential Palace and the central square and had a quick look at some Panama hats (prices ranging from $30 to $600!!!!). (For those not in the know, "Panama" hats are a product of Ecuador.) The Old town really did have a bit of a Euro feal about it - not supprising I suppose.

After the old town we went up Paniello (not sure of the spelling) hill, which is a little hill near the centre of Quito. After the veiws from 4100m yesterday it wasn{t much to write home about. But on the way to the toilet Nick did see a couple of guys with one end of a wire attached to a bus trying to throw the other end of the wire over the power lines - he was not quite sure what they were trying to do, and didnt really want to stay too close.

In the afternoon we went to the Equator which is in the north of Quito. This was a bit of museum shown indigenous Ecuadorian housing, we also got to see a penis fish in a jar, but the photo didnt come out so we havent shown it, and a shrunken head. We did a couple of experiments to prove we were on the equator, like letting the water out of a sink on the equator (no spiral), south of the equator (clockwise spiral) and north of the equator (anticlokwise spiral). Then back to our hotel in Quito for the night.

Tiare is starting to feel a bit sick with the Flu - our Galapagos boat seems to have been the centre of an epidemic.

Nick thinks he is starting to figure out the Ecuadorian road rules.... if you want to do something (like turn or merge or whatever) you honk, if someone honks and you dont want them to do something you honk, if youre doing somehting anyway you honk, if you havent had to honk for a while and are worried that your horn isnt working you honk to check, apart from that everything else seems pretty much optional, except under no circumstances do you stop at pedestrian crossings (which there are lots of). But it seems to work, so far we have only seen two accidents.


SATURDAY 1 MARCH 08

Today we went to Otavalo for a day trip. Otavalo is a largely indigenous town about three hours north of Quito, well known for its indian markets (mmm markets - Nicks favourite). It seemed to Nick that markets are pretty much markets anywhere in the world just the products differ a little. Though here they do seem to push their wares a little bit more. Tiare, however, did some great bargaining with here broken spanish and score herself some deals (we're sure the sellers thought they were the ones getting the deals) but we did find it a bit hard to haggle over one dollar.

The scenery on the bus trip was quite interesting to see, and on the way back to Quito we got to see how the indians do there weaving.

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Photos

Quito Old Town
A view from the balcony of the Presidential Palace

Equator
Tiare & Nick on different sides of the world (a manditory photo)

Llama
A local llama and the view on the way to Otavalo