Touring Quito

Saturday, May 15, 2010
Quito, Ecuador
Quito

Started the day with a nice buffet breakfast in the Bistro about 7 AM. Left the hotel at 9 AM for our full day tour of the city and surrounding area. Our tour guide was Diego Torres and he was a wealth of knowledge. The guides are required to complete 4 years of college. Diego also has a Master's degree. Even though we are at 9300 feet, we have not had any problems with the altitude. Our first stop was old town Quito where we saw the Presidential complex and residence, some old churches one of which had all the walls and ceilings decorated in Gilt. Walked around some of the town squares before driving out to the area near the equator for lunch at the Crater restaurant. The restaurant sits on the rim of an old imploded volcano. The view was spectacular and the food was very good. We were also serenaded by two musicians. After lunch, we were driven to the equator museum where we were able to straddle the Northern and Southern Hemispheres at the same time (actually this is about 6 minutes off of the GPS true 0 line but it is close enough). Arrived back at the hotel about 4 PM for a much deserved rest before dinner.   We left for dinner about 6:15 PM and went to Sucre's Old Town Theater Restaurant.    The dinner was excellent and we were entertained by a very good operatic singer. Sat with Joe and Eileen from Staten Island and Dave and Louise from New Jersey. We may see Dave and Louise in June 2011 since they have tickets for Celine Dion. As it turned out we sat with these two couples (and two other couples) on the ship for meals also.   As in China, we have had our free beer at all the meals in Quito. Back to the hotel by 9 PM so we could organize our suitcases since they had to be outside our room by 5 AM the next morning for inspection by the National Park Service to ensure that no illegal food/seed items are taken to the Galapagos. We don’t see our bags again until we get to our room on the ship. The Marriott beds are nice but we spent another restless night thinking about our soon to begin adventure.



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