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Geo: -0.223151, -78.5127
We had to have the luggage outside our stateroom by 6:00 am today so we decided to pack completely and put the luggage out the night before so we could sleep in as late as possible. Breakfast was served until 8:00 so we set a 7:00 am wake up call.
Breakfast was a buffet as usual. We all sat around and visited until our 8:30 meeting time. We got to be the last group off the ship (another Adventures by Disney benefit) so we didn't have to sit at the airport as long as other groups.
We met in the piano bar to visit for about 90 minutes before boarding our zodiacs for the last time. We were at San Cristobal Island today.
Our first stop after getting off the ship was a short ride bus to the Galapagos Interpretation Center. This was a museum that talked about the history of the islands, living conditions, the animals and plant life of the island. We spent about 30 minutes at the museum before taking the bus back to the main street in town for about 45 minutes of shopping.
After shopping, we got back on the bus and headed to the airport.
We had box lunches to eat while we waited for our flight to board. We flew from San Cristobal to Guayaquil for a 45 min stop before completing our journey to Quito.
Once we landed in Quito, our Adventure Guides collected our luggage and we were on our way to the JW Marriott. The bus ride took an hour because of rush hour traffic and the fact that it was raining.
We were greeted by hordes of people behind stanchions on both sides of the entrance. It was awesome to see that many Quitanians out to greet us (until we found out that they were there to see Marilyn Manson who was also staying in the hotel). We were given hot towels and Guabana juice and our room keys.
We had 50 minutes to head up, shower and get ready for dinner. The normal dinner location for these adventures is in the Marriott but we were given a special dinner location. We got on a double decker bus tour and taken through Quito to the old part of the city. Dinner was in the first hotel built in Quito.
We had a band that performed traditional music, and dancers that performed. Then we had
dinner. It was a tasting menu so, for an appetizer we were served crab and yellow potato cakes, octopus and squid in pesto and fried camembert cheese. Dinner was shrimp sausage stuffed in a hot pepper, lamb stew and red snapper. Dessert was traditional Ecuadorian Ice cream served in copper pots.
Then we watched a slide show of our adventure.
We were told that we had an additional surprise for the evening and were led outside and down the street to the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus church for a private tour of his beautiful church. It was one of the most spectacular churches any of us had ever seen. They even had live actors who were posing as different figures of Mary throughout the church. Unfortunately, we could not take photos in the church. This is not typically part of the adventure but was a special treat arranged by the Minister of Tourism of Ecuador for our group.
We then boarded the bus and headed back to the hotel. We arrived around 11 and all headed up to bed for a short nap before leaving for the airport at 4:30 (breakfast was to be delivered at 4:00, luggage out by
4:15 and bus leaving at 4:30).
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