Día de caminar y manejar por Quito

Just returned to the hotel, after a day of exploring what Quito has to offer. Turns out, it has quite a bit! We started the day with walking through the old, colonial section, after getting a brief history of Ecuador and description of its various geographical areas from Victor. Our tour included the Basilica, viewing the statue of El Panecillo (Virgin Mary statue on a hill outside the city, each is easily seen from everywhere, watching over.), the Santo Domingo convent and Church, the President's Palace (where I got a group photo of everyone next to the guards, similar to Buckingham Palace), but what I found most interesting was the lifestyle of the Ecuadorian people. Everyone and everything seems to be a mixture of the old and the new. Women are walking around carrying their babies in the traditional swaddling style. Children as well as adults are dressed in their ethnic clothing, selling their ethnic wares  while talking on a cellphone. Vehicles are run down pick up trucks with people packed into it both inside and out or are shiny Chevy SUV's. People are standing on the side of a four lane highway, running in between cars to sell fresh fruit...or cigarettes and candy.

We then trekked outside the city to experience La Mitad del Mundo: the Equator. We did not go to the huge equator monument, however, because that is not the true zero degree latitude. Instead, we went to the Inti-Ñan Museum, or the Trail of the Sun. Our guide there was excellent, going over the history of various indigenous groups in actual homes where they once lived, before we arrived at a huge red line. After we all got our picture taken standing in both hemispheres together, our guide led us through numerous experiments of things that are only possible at zero degrees latitude. Such experiments included: balancing an egg on the head of a nail, watching the water swirl (or not swirl) down the drain, the difference in resistance at this latitude, and the difficulty of maintaining equilibrium by attempting to walk toe to heel with the eyes closed. At the end of the tour, we got our passports stamped with zero degree latitude, and many of us received our diploma for being able to balance an egg.

On our way back to the city, we stopped at a roadside restaurant with a picture of the guy from the Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods. It was there that more than a few brave souls attempted the guinea pig. It was interesting to witness this, I might add, because we had just seen live ones at the museum... While Bolívar, our bus driver, chowed down on the head of the critter, we helped ourselves to the more "delicate" cuts. Most students had a positive take on the dish, but everyone agreed that they were happy they had tried it.

We had some free time before dinner, so our group ventured down to the Artesanía area, where a few of us made some purchases in this market of crafts. It is set up similar to Chinatown, with a few doorways holding numerous stands, except here they were selling us alpaca products instead of knockoff designer bags.

Well, it is about time for dinner! While eating, we are discussing our plans for our departure for the Galápagos tomorrow. Hopefully the hotel on the islands will have wifi as well!

Hasta luego.