June 27 - Quito

Our cruise/tour package includes a day tour of Quito and today was the day.  We left the hotel at 9am and headed for the old part of town.  It is old enough and still original enough that it has been designated a World Heritage Site.  Other than being in the New World, it looks a lot like the city centers in Spain or Italy.  Narrow streets with shops on the ground floor and apartments above, most with balconies.  There is a lovely square dedicated to the independence of Ecuador from Spain with native trees gathered from around the country.  We were fortunate that the pink one (name forgotten) was in bloom.  From there we went to the Presidential Palace.  They have military guards standing ceremonial duty outside the main entrance and like similar places, they stand and ignore the stream of visitors passing by.   From there we went to several churches.  I am always amazed by how much gold is displayed in the churches while there are scores of beggars right outside.  Something just isn’t right. 

We then reboarded the buses and went to visit the crater of a local volcano.  Ecuador sits right on the Eastern Pacific Rim-of-Fire and has seen regular earthquakes and frequent volcanic eruptions.  We had lunch at a very nice restaurant located right on the rim of the crater, it wouldn’t take much of a shake for it to be on the bottom or the crater.  One of the highlights of the restaurant was the toilets.  Nothing fancy, but the door signs didn’t leave any question about which was which.

After lunch we went to the final stop of the tour, the middle of the earth.  There is a reason Ecuador has that name, the equator runs right through the middle.  Since we have several pictures of us standing in Greenwich astride Longitude Zero, it was clearly necessary to have pictures on Latitude Zero as well.  So after climbing the tower and a short stop in the souvenir shops it was back on the bus for the trip back to the hotel.  Tonight is a dinner and folkloric show.  Could be interesting.  (Wasn’t a folkloric show, just a very talented singer doing opera and popular tunes.  Still a good show)

June 26 – Quito

Trouble getting to sleep last night, two hour time change but then no problems.  The altitude doesn’t seem to be much of an issue, until you start climbing stairs…then even a couple of flights and you feel it.  The forecasts were for showers, but this morning is perfect, sunny, puffy clouds and temperature around 70F.  Time to get in a taxi and go to the museums and markets.

Back from our outing.  The taxi from the hotel to the museum was totally painless.  The doorman called the taxi, told him where to take us and off we went.  Turned out, we could have done that ourselves since the driver spoke excellent English.  The museum is arranged chronologically, starting the the early inhabitants who probably walked across the Alaskan land bridge about 40,000 years ago.   They have an excellent collection of beautifully worked obsidian arrow and spear points.  It then progresses through the development of both the Andean and seacoast tribal artifacts and then into the conquest of the entire South American coastal area by the Incas from Peru.  Unfortunately, the “Gold Room” was closed for renovation but they did have one incredible golden mask on display.  Shortly after the Incas unified the country, the Spanish arrived and most of the local cultures were wiped out.  I guess it is amazing that as much as they have still exists considering how the Spanish and the “Padres” tried to destroy anything that related to the “pagan” culture.  The museum then follows the evolution into the Spanish era with an extensive display of 17th and 18th century church art, but how many Madonnas can one person take?   The timeline then follows into the revolutionary period and into the modern.  We stopped at the revolutionary stuff.  From the museum we went to a local craft market.  Row after row of very similar objects.  Some very much mass produced and a few, actual crafts.  After lunch at a local cafe, we found a taxi on the street and returned to the hotel.  One thing making this excursion easier is that the national currency is the US dollar.  Ecuador doesn’t even pretend to have their own currency, everything is the good olde green back.

Thursday June 25 - Quito

Made it to Quito with out too much hassle.  Only a one hour delay on the flight from Miami.  We had emailed the hotel in advance and they were waiting at the customs exit with a sign with our name on it.  Fifteen minutes in the van and we are in our room at the Marriott.  Tomorrow we have a sightseeing day on our own.

Getting Ready – Monday June 22, 2009

Well, we haven’t really done much yet to get ready.  Reality is approaching and we leave on Thursday.  Hard to know what to bring since we are going to be everywhere from sea level to 12 or 13 thousand feet.  The sea level time is right on the equator, but it is also in the middle of the Humboldt Current, so it is also hard to predict the weather.

One of the concerns we have is that baggage is severely limited due to the charter flights in the middle, to/from the islands.  The cruise people tell us that the limit is 30 pounds.  Based on what we have learned from the travel agent and the airline, it is probably more like 20 kilos (44 pounds) but the cruise doesn’t want anyone to have issues and therefore publishes the 30 pound limit.