Day Two Quito & The Equator

The first picture is me with one foot in the northern & southern hemisphers, the others are of some of the views we saw today. The picture of the cars on the hill really doesn't due justice to the steep hill!!

Well we were not able to follow the voting last night via computer since the internet was down for the hotel, so instead we watched CNN in spanish. Since neither of us speak spanish that was interesting, at least we could follow the counting but we were in bed long before anything was resolved since we are 3 hours ahead of all of you.

We had a very busy day today, Quito pronounced Keto is about 48 km long and 8 km wide and all of it having very congested, narrow and steep roads. We started the day going to two different lookouts, one was at about 10,000 ft so we were very high up and there was still a lot of mountain to see!!! We then went into the Old Town and Independence Square where two different protests were happening. That meant the roads were in even worse shape - Pablo, our guide, decided it was going to be easier for us to walk so for the next 2 1/2 hours we toured the Old Town area, it's cathedral and all the old famous buildings. Once we made it to Independence Square it was packed with speakers and the protesters. Their White House is on one side, we were allowed to go to the doors where the media was waiting for their President to show up. We had a lovely lunch one square over.

About 2:30 we got on our bus again and went about 30 kms north of Quito to the monument set up on the equator. Here we got to stand one foot in the norther and one foot in the southern hemisphere. By the time we were given some free time I had developed quite a headache and all I really wanted to do was put my head down and go to sleep. It was a bumpy, turny ride back to the hotel. Arriving back at 5:30 we have a until 7:00 when we will head out for dinner.

Once I get a few minutes I will add a little more to this blog. Tomorrow morning we are up at 5:00 am to head to the airport and on to the Galapagos where we will be for the next 4 nights. We won't have wireless so will catch you up when we get back to the mainland.