We flew out of Cusco to Quito via Lima. Bel stayed in her home town of Cusco but OAT provided a representative at the Lima airport to make sure we made it to Quito.
Quito is the capital of Ecuador and sits at 9350ft above sea level just below the equator. Since 2000 Ecuador uses US dollars for paper currency and uses Ecuadorian centavos for coins.
We meet our new tour leader Andres. Andres was our guide in Quito as well as the Galapagos Islands. Some tours divide this up between two people.
We went to a market in Quito. The sections were set up with individual vendors but the look and feel was more like a store than the market we went to in Arumbamba Peru. The meat was refrigerated here.
Andres explaining one of the items Gina and Randy bought.
A statue on the square outside of the parliment building. Their independence day from Spain on August 10 1809
There was a demonstartion on the square by Venezeualan refugees about a new law requiring them to get Visas as near as I could understand.
As part of the trip we went to a school, Sinamune, sponsored by the Grand Circle Foundation. Grand Circle is the parent company of OAT. The school is a special needs school started by a man who you will see playing the trumpet. They travel quite a bit putting on the performances as a fund raiser.
They came out to our group and picked a partner to dance with.
Just a few miles north of town is the equator. It has moved a bit over time as the quality of the measurement has increased. The present location is based on GPS and seems pretty fixed.
They did a demonstration of the coriolis affect on water going down the drain. I have always heard that the affect is too small to affect the definition of the water swerll going down a drain. This demonstartion of being right on the equator and maybe 8 feet on either side contradicts that notion.
On the equator
North of the equator
South of the equator
Sharon photobombs me.
In Quito on our afternoon off we took a cable car to 12950ft with great veiws of Quito. This picture only shows a slice of the town as it continues up the valley to the left.
Another view from the cable car station.
Next stop the Galapagos Islands.