From San Jose, we flew into Quito where we would spend a day before going on to Galapagos. We had one full day in Quito, there was quite a bit to do so we hired a private guide (fancy, eh?). Our guide was a nice middle aged man from Quito. We spent the morning travelling out to the equator line. The Equator is about an hour from Quito and is quite an interesting trip. Our first stop was the 'Mitad del Mundo', or Middle of the World as measured by French scientists in 1736 and the monument built there. With the invention of GPS, it was discovered this line was about 300m off the actual equator line - which was our next stop. At the equator we took photos each standing on the side of the world we were born on, played games and performed experiments on the line - such as emptying a sink of water on the equator, south of the line and then north of the line to see the water flow down the drain in different directions and making an egg stand on the head of a nail (apparently this is something you can do on the equator but no where else?). We spent another 45 mins or so learning about the Ecuadorian tribes living deep in the Amazon and a few of their customs - including looking at 2 shunken heads with step by step instructions on how its done (with pictures).

We travelled back to Quito stopping at a viewing spot overlooking the city where you really get a scale of how big it is - buildings as far as the eye can see, and spent the afternoon walking around the old town which is now a Unesco World Heritage site. It's very bustling full of street vendors, tooting taxis and police at almost every corner directing traffic (even when the traffic lights appear to be working perfectly) . It's full of beautiful ornate churches, one we saw had its interior walls covered almost completely in 24 carat gold.

We finished up just before 6, pretty exhausted and met with and had dinner with our tour group that we would be heading to Galapagos with very early the next morning.