Quito

Hello dear readers, we arrive in Quito in early evening, to find the Ecuadorians not using their own currency as we had been led to believe, but the old US dollar can you imagine. Wish we'd bought with us a few of those spare nickels and dimes we had lying around. A minibus took us to our prebooked hotel (as a minibus we needed with the mountain of luggage we're 'lugging' around South America) and we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. Ari, a whiz on the internet (trip advisor is so hot right now) had secured us a great hotel at not too extravagant a price. No more El Dorados for us it would seem. After a sushi(!) supper we tucked Leo in bed and I unpacked (this is extravagance itself) and settled down for the night. As we had a couple of days in Quito we spent the following one checking out the local area, and visiting the sights in the old city. This is preserved in the now familiar colonial style and famed for the many churches it has situated on its meandering streets. So we spent a pleasant afternoon meandering.

We decided Quito was very nice, I forgot to say that we had a spectacular panorama of the city on landing into the city, the airport is precariously situated in the middle of the urbanisation so we got a birdseye view of the football match going on in the stadium, the National team versus Barcelona I believe, at least that's what I deduced from the colour of their shirts. Yeah right.

The following day we spent further afield, first by stopping at the teleferrico (cable car) for a view of the city, a staggering 4100 m above sea level. Unfortunately I was the only one able to go to the top as Leo was deemed too young and Ari opted out in favour of taking Leo to the funfair. I took the slightly daunting trip up on my own, took some snaps, wandered about and came down in the company of an Ecuadorian family who insisted on looking after a perfectly capable but lonesome wife and mother coming down the mountain without a chaperone. Gee thanks. Actually they gave me some useful knowledge on the politics of the country, apparently Ecuador's corruption problem means you can purchase professional titles including engineer and even medical doctors. Definite note to self to check crudentials.

Next stop we visited 'Mitad del Mundo' or 'Middle of the World'. This as the name implies, is the spot where the equator line runs through the north of the city, and definitely worth a trip. Having never been to the equator line before it was really interesting to see the experiments done on either side of the line eg whirl of water going through plug hole clockwise in one hemisphere, anticlockwise in the other etc etc. Also shown this museum was a little taster of indigenous Ecuadorial culture including examples of the stranger practices of certain Amazonian tribes. And by that I'm talking shrunken heads and I'll leave it at that as it's too gruesome recount in these pages (though we do have some delightful pictures to show anyone that is interested). Ari had a go at blowing a poisoned dart at a board, which though showed some skill for a first timer was informed it would not have kept him alive in a combat situation. He would like me to point out that he showed more promise at egg balancing on the equator line, the theory is that on the line there is less of a gravitational pull thus making objects lighter (great news girls) and therefore more easy to balance. Hence Ari's amazing ability to balance an egg on the head of a nail. Great fun.

And that is our experience in a nutshell. So now for more packing to head for what we hope will be an amazing experience in the Galapagos. Ciao for now...