Ecuadorian Adventures: Quito

Sorry that I haven't been able to update this sooner - we have been busy and haven't had good access to internet.

August 10th,

So our 3rd full day in Ecuador, still in Quito, Ivan took us to the "center of the earth". This is where the latitude is 00 00 00. It was interesting we got to learn about some of the indigenous tribes of Ecuador, some of which still exist. We did little experiments like walking in a straight line (which is supposed to be harder walking on the 00 line), flushed things down the drain on each side of the line showing the they flushed in different directions and a few other things.

After going to the center of the earth we picked up a girl that was also visiting who was a nurse from England. She was very nice and fun. She is the one with the long brown hair. We went to "old town" of Quito, which has lots of colonial archictecture. We walked around, went on a tour of a church called Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus. The tour was in spanish so Ivan translated for us. The church itself was layered in gold. This was just one example of how much of Latin American is focused around christianity. It was really pretty but we couldn't take any pictures so we took one outside of the church.

Melanie, Hannah and I outside the church.

When we were in Old Town we saw a monk outside that had a bible in one hand and a cell phone in the other texting someone! So I snapped a picture of it!

Later that evening we went to this group of girls from the US's apartment. Many of them were teaching in a school in Quito and they all went to the same church that Ivan did (Ivan is very religious). So they made us food. After that, even though I was quite tired, we went out for salsa dancing. It was very fun! Hannah and I are determined to become good salsa dancers by the end of this trip.

Eating dinner at the girl's apartment.

Me, Hannah and Ivan at salsa.

August 11th,
We were able to catch up on sleep this day, it was quite nice! Hannah and I took the Teleferico (a cable car) up to the "top" of a volcano/mountain. Apparently all the mountains in Quito are from volcanoes, or at least that is what I think they told me. We walked around and took some pretty pictures. It was interesting, when we got up to the top we found it much easier to breathe. The polution is pretty bad in the city it was amazing to feel the difference up on the mountain. Later that evening Ivan took us and the girls from the church to a restaurant called Ananke. It had a beautiful view of the city. We headed to bed and prepared to go on our one night stay in Mindo.