Quito

I was pleasantly surprised by Ecuador’s capital city Quito
1) Everyone said is was freezing cold due to it’s high altitude. It was a bit chilly at night and hot in the day due to sunny weather.
2) Everyone said it was very dangerous. I disagree. The old town was quite safe and I had no problems.
3) Everyone said it wasn’t that nice.  Rubbish! It’s a UNESCO world heritage site and it is a really lovely city for the most part!

I stayed in the old town at a great hostel called Huasi. I spent the first morning on a free walking tour of the city which included churches, plazas, markets and the palace. The president has decided not to live in the palace as so many previous presidents have been murdered leaving there. Instead he opens it up for the public to see for free…wise decision!

Then I went to the mercado central (market) to get a local seabass dish which had many components. After I got the bus to Mitad del mundo (middle of the earth) which was about an hour away. This is on the equator line, latitude 0″,0′,0′.  There is a big monument and line where a French scientist said was the exact point but actually its slightly out and the indigneous people had found that out years before so there is another line for the real one!

At the real one there is a museum where you learn about indigneous culture including the head shrinking process which luckily doesn’t still happen today! You also do experiments lke balancing an egg and watchg water go down a sink different directions for the different hemispheres!

The next day I went to San Francisco cathedral where you can climb up on ladders into the clock towers and get a great view of the city. Then I found a vegetarian restaurant called Govindas and had a delicious lunch. After lunch I went back to the hostel and met a guy called Ricky. We decided to go on a wander which turned out to be a productive great few hours! We first went to the cathedral with lots of gold instead and got in free as there was a service, we stumbled across a convent, saw a bride walk down the aisle in another fancy church and then went up to the top of the hill where the angel statue is for another great view and a warming canelazo with aguardiente!  We were told not walk up or down from the viewpoint as muggings have occured so we jumped on a bus down which took us right round the back of the city a nice market area and we found the old town from there!

I met Cassie in the evening to discuss our trip to the Galapagos islands the next day over a delicious Italian meal at Cafe San Blas and then tried to get a couple of hours sleep before waking up at 3:45 for the flight.