January 6, 2007 -- Tour of Quito

We were told to be ready to go at 10am... so being the prompt one´s, we were up around 7 and were just waiting around to get on our trip that day. Cris and her husband showed up at 10 and we piled into there car and hit the road. I gotta say, there is no straight road anywhere around Quito. They all curve and go up and down and boy, there is no way i´d ever drive here. they are MANIACS!!!!

So our outing began with a long winding road to ´Guapulo´. This is a very pretty area, where we had a birds eye view from up above. Down in this part of town is a church that, looked beautiful. Again, long winding sidewakes headed down there, I got some good pictures, so wait to see the posting at a later date.

After Guapo we hit the road again and went to the Centro. This is the center of downtown and we hit some of the historical sights. Of these sights we hit, La Basilica, it´s one of the oldest churches there that is gorgeous, it has been closed for some time for renovations and to our luck it was open so we got to go in and check it out. We also went to La Compania, another church that in drapped in gold. The history to this place was wonderful. Fabricio, Cris´s husband, is a tour guide in quito so we got our fill on the history, so much we didnt know and it was awesome. We also went to San Francisco, where we got to look at the architecture and then went to the museum and saw the artwork there. It was interesting to hear how the indigonous we contracted to do the art work and how mistakes were made but never really fixed so some of the painting would have 5 fingers.. no thumb, or would have double faces. it was really nice. The down side of all of this, no photos allowed, but i got pictures from the outside.

After the churches and walking around around and doing a little shopping, we hit a local vendor and got fresh juice. This is what i remember from 20 years ago, the juice here is the best, fresh fruits and nothing else... WOW... hit the spot.

After we were done in downtown, we hit the road to The Mitad Del Mundo... Center of the World. Boy has this place changed in 20 year. And me being the clutz that i am, i fell walking into the place, and tore my favorite pair of jeans and cut up my knee... which knee, the bad one, so that made it for an interesting week of diving. Anyways, back to the Mitad del Mundo, we took the typical pictures standing on the northern and southern hemispheres. Then mark and i went up to the top and cris took pictures of us from below. then they joined us and we just looked at the sights from on top. After the monument, we went to the little ´town´there and there were some performances going on. We sat and watched the ending of one performance and then hit the shops before the next performance. Ok, so the sun is really strong here, we got BURNT!!!! The second show was different and fun. After that we headed back home to get some food.

Lunch, or was it dinner, it was after 3, so hard to tell. The food was good, too much, but good. We were all tired so we decided to take a nap, and Cris was gonna come back around 7 so we could hit another spot. We were up and ready to go just before 7, but the house was TOTALLY asleep. Rosie, called her sister to see if they were on their way, and they were still asleep, good thing we called. But eventurally we hit the road and went to the new tram. This tram goes up one of the dormant volcanos in the city called the Pichinca. Being that it was late at night, it made it even scarier. Mark´s hands were totally sweating... LOL... funny when he love to jump from planes, but he´s afraid of heights. The view from the top was awesome. it was all lite up and looked beautiful. unfortunately, my camera doesn´t take good night pictures, so i just have my memories. the ride back down was a scary one too, but we were happy to be back on land.

Being that we had an early flight in the morning, we called this a night and headed back to my cousins house and had some tea/coke and then headed to bed...

Tomorrow the big adventure begins... THE GALAPAGOS!!!!