Quito

Delivery
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I’ve now spent a few days in Quito, before and after Galapagos Islands and it’s been a pretty relaxed visit.  Quito is at 2800 metres which has been a cheap thrill as all you need to do to get a rush is stand up fast.. The city is situated in a valley surrounded by high mountains and volcanos and is made up of the ´old town´ and ´new town´.  The old town had lots of beautiful Spanish style buildings in narrow streets and new town is a hodge podge of old, new and in progress.  The city is fairly dodgy with lots of muggings and there are police all around (with about a dozen different types of uniforms). People are pretty relaxed with no hard sell or haggling. Though  I think I may have worked out why... all the drivers love to beep their horns and it must be a nice little way of working out some frustrations each day... traffic stops ´beep´; light turns green a millisecond ago ´beep´; mother-in-law coming for dinner ´beep´..

Narelle and Melissa
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On my second day I went up to the top of a mountain that is 4100 metres high and you look out over the whole of Quito and the planes landing in the city - very odd!  The altitude wasn’t too bad, just took it slowly..

The French got something wrong, no really they did!

Today I went to the equator line and took the obligatory photo of me standing on each side of the equator.. but I also visited the smaller building down the road which is apparently on the correct equatorial line.   The Incas said where it was ages ago, but the French said it was elsewhere and that’s where the fancy monument is, however with the help of GPS it turned out the Inca were correct - but the monument remains.. The guy at the little building did a presentation on how all the Inca ruins in the region line up with the equatorial line and the solstice paths to create a star pattern which was quite interesting..  Though the guy did seem somewhat indoctrinated.. his eyes glazed over when he spoke about the director of the research agency.

4100 metres..
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Have also been to markets, wandered around, eaten very well (lots of chicken) and had some of the best hot chocolates in my life :-)