4 May 09

We arrived into Quito, the capital of Ecuador, last night and checked into what would be our final hotel staying in as a group. Although Tim and I are quite over the whole 'group' and 'getting up at the crack of dawn' thing, there are a handful of people we will miss hanging out with (and some, not so much!).

Quito is fantastic! Its still cultural and has that South American vibe but with great bars, nightclubs, restaurants and stores. Its definitely more developed and modern than most other places we've visited. We definitely think we will come back here soon and have a month's worth of Spanish lessons. It's one cool city.

Today we went to the equator, which wasn't even the real equator! Haha Well, we went to the monument which has been placed in the area to mark the equator, but unfortunately some dumbo, all those years ago, measured the lines out wrong and the real equator lies some 60 feet to the side. Its quite sad that so much effort went into the building of a monument (which is quite outstanding) which depicts something completely wrong. A little funny too. Apparently all that marks the real equator is a stake in the ground - awesome. (P.S. we didn't find the famous equator museum either, which we were really bummed about. You get to do all sorts of weird and crazy things here that can only be done on the equator. Oh well, next time.).

Last night we enjoyed a delicious tapas dinner at a place called Latitude - all the tapas, beer and wine you could handle, for only $20 each! Bargain! And the tapas wasn't the cheap type you'd expect with such a deal. It was DEEELICIOUS!

Tim and I had to leave dinner early though (BOO!) to call our insurance company about this whole swine flu thing. Bad news - they will not refund the cost of our tour in Mexico if we cancel, but, they will cover us if we get sick whilst over there. Hmmm…what to do?