Today was an easy day. Sue went to have a pedicure and I had a rest. We had a look around the old town of Quito and went to the Cathedral Museum and the Convent Museum, but they weren’t very exciting. Each had lots of gory paintings of people in hell and hanging on crosses. We returned to the hotel to find our laundry still not back. Thus ends the shortest diary entry of the trip so far.

The shiny tiles, the uncomfortable seats, and a PA system that sounds as if it was constructed from poly-pipe – we must be in an airport. Luckily it is only 15 minutes till boarding although I still might have to be woken before we leave. We are now more than half way through our trip and have almost seen the last of the big cities (airports and one night in Quito excluded).
We are flying TAME, which I think is our fifth airline for the trip, having flown Air Tahiti, LAN, Star Peru and Air Peru. It is a four hour journey so hopefully we get fed at least once.

This morning we went to the Telefériqo, which is a cable car to the top of the mountain behind Quito. The top is 4100m so it literally left us breathless. It seems like there were big plans for this place, but there were few people there and many of the areas allocated for shops and food stalls were empty. It did give us a wonderful view of the city in the moments when the cloud cleared. From here we went to “Cuidad Mitad del Mundo” which is a low rent theme park built around the equator (well actually 240 metres south of the equator). There is a tower built on the Equator which has a lift to the top, from where you can see that at least at this point, the Northern Hemisphere is just as crappy as the Southern Hemisphere.

We had a huge lunch at one of the many restaurants here including (strangely enough) a bottle of wine we would not have been able to buy in the city. We had a lot of Spanish practice with the waiter, and at one stage I was explaining the Australian political system which was no mean feat.

A long drive back to the city then saw us exploring the delights of cable TV while resting off the big day.

Wow, we are just south of the Equator, but at 2800m and stuck between two mountain ranges, the weather is not that tropical. Flying into Quito the countryside looks lush and green. The houses are more modern than in Lima, the air is cleaner and the traffic much better. The hotel is in one of the main streets in the new city and only a short walk to a large park that had a handicraft market in it.
On the way to the hotel, our transfer guide Jorge, told us that a referendum was being held on Sunday and for three days before it the sale of alcohol is forbidden. Most bars in the city were closed as there was no pint in opening, however, we were able to buy beers in our hotel and drink them in our room.

Tonight we went to dinner at a place called “Spicy”. The “i” in Spicy is a stylised chilli and I think it was the only chilli in the restaurant. When Sue told the waitress she was allergic to garlic, the reassurance came back that no item on the menu had garlic in it. The meal had been cooked in a way that managed to remove every vestige of flavour from it. I am now in the situation where my stomach says it’s full, but my mouth hasn’t registered anything going past.

Our tour officially starts tomorrow with the activity being “Arrive Quito”. In the evening we should have a meeting with the tour leader. Tomorrow morning we shall try and find what pleasures Quito has to offer.