Hola Ecuador!

After a rough journey, with a 5.5-hour delay in Miami and a 1.5- hour wait in the Quito customs line, we were glad to finally arrive at our hotel around 2:30am to get a few hours sleep before our tour the next day. Six hours later, our guide Jorge picked us up and off we went to Ciudad Mitad del Mundo – the Middle of the World, which is along latitude 00º00'00”. Rather than stopping at the monument, which is located where the French first marked the spot, we traveled to the Inti-nan Museum, which contains the actual GPS-marked spot (see pic). We got to participate in goofy 'equator' experiments that were exaggerations at best, such as the clockwise vs. counterclockwise water drainage and standing an egg on its end, plus view some exhibits on Incan culture, like this actual shrunken head of a 12-year-old boy and sloth (see pic).

Next we traveled to El Panecillo, which has fantastic views looking down on the city (see pic). Quito is situated in the valleys at ~10,000 feet (twice the elevation of Denver) flanked by volcanoes, so the 2 million residents are squeezed into a very long narrow area of land, and smog is rampant. This hill is also home to the “Winged Virgin of Quito” metal statue (see pic). Here we stopped at a stand to buy a 25-cent cone of strawberry meringue fluff (see pic – that's not ice cream!).

On our drive back down the hill, I asked Jorge to pull over at a roadside stand so I could pick up a “guaba de machete”, which looks like a giant green bean about 2 feet long (see pic). Inside the fruit are edible 'cotton-balls' with big black seeds inside (see pic). Yummy!

After our descent, we drove into the Old Town section of Quito, which has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO due to the preservation of colonial architecture. The area was swarming with activity, and since it was Sunday, many of the streets were closed to cars, cutting way down on the air pollution. We walked to Plaza San Francisco for another view of the Virgin statue (see pic), La Compania, the Governor's Palace, and Plaza de la Indepencia (see pic). We also bought some fantastic Ecuadorian chocolate, and Brian purchased a trendy handmade Panama hat. On the way back to our hotel in the touristy Mariscal Sucre area of town, a little local boy started following me whining for my machete guava... he continued for a few minutes until finally I turned and snapped “Don't touch my bean!” and he finally left us alone. :)

The following day Jorge again picked us up early for the long bumpy drive on gravel roads out to the Cotopaxi volcano – the highest active volcano in the world at 19,347 feet. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate, and the entire day was just rain and fog with no view of the volcano. I did buy a postcard and take a picture of it though, so here is a picture of us in the rain, and a picture of the volcano that you should be seeing in the background behind all that fog.

After a disappointing day at the volcano, we returned to the Mariscal Sucre area to explore La Mariscal Craft Market, which has extremely cheap local crafts. The currency in Ecuador is the US dollar, but goods tend to be much cheaper; gasoline is especially cheap since oil is found in abundance here. We purchased a scarf, a woven coin purse, and a little turtle made of Tagua nut (vegetable ivory) (see pic). We decided to forgo the cuy (guinea pig) for dinner (see pic), but did try the corn beer (chicha), potato cheese and avocado soup (locro), llapingachos, and empanadas. Then we returned to the hotel to prepare for our early flight to the Galapagos the next day!