Ok, so its been a while I know but here goes todays events? (I'll write up the Galapagos details tomorrow - too tired to do it now). We arrived back from the galapagos islands yesterday & went out for dinner with some of the people from the tour (we're all staying at the same hotel) last night.? Today, some of the same group joined me & helen to the equator; citad del mundreo - or something like that (basically, the centre of the earth)!

We took a bus from Quito for about an hour to get there - what an experience.? It was dirt cheap (although we got slightly ripped off in the taxi on the way home, even though we did the usual 'quanta cuesta?').? The bus barely stops for people to get on and off, the ceiling was kinda wall-papered in this seventies vinal print stuff & south american music was blarring out of every possible place!? Even though; the journey took us through some of the poorer parts of the city and past some colleges specialising in military & football....random, I know - it was still quite a good experience.

We decided not to pay the entry fee to the monument that everyone gets their photo taken by as its actually in the wrong place & nothing much else around it worth seeing - so instead we took photos from the gate (we are on a budget lol).  Just up the road from this is where you can find the real equator - fancy building a giant marble monument to find out a decade latter you were off the mark by a few hundred feet

Anyway, we did the usual experiments, watching water go down the plug hole the wrong way, strength tests in different compass postions & the balancing an egg on the nail trick - for which I got a real life colour certificate for accomplishing that one (woo hoo)!  We were also shown some pickled specimens from the amazon jungle (not quite sure what that had to do with the equator) - lets just say I hope I don't bump into any of them when we're there.  Our guide also explained a little about the Inca history etc & finished the tour by showing us their ever so pleasant ritual of shrinking human heads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Yes these lovely people quite some time ago believed that important people within their communities should have the delightful experience of having their heads decapated when they died, but not being satisfied with that they boiled the skulls until they had shrunk to the tiniest size ever....um nice?!?  Our guide felt that for us to truly understand the Incas madness we should see one they'd done earlier!  It was rank & reminded me of that bit in the 'men in black' movie when an alien guy gets his head blown off and regrows it but half the original size.

We spent the rest of the day downloading our photos back at the hotel which took hours and we still haven't downloaded them all yet - but at least I can finally do it!  We said goodbye to some of the people off our trip which was surprisingly upsetting - we've only known them less than a week but we had a great time with them, so its sad to see them go.  We are def going to meet up with Jeff from Oz again in Cusco for the festival though & hopefully again in Rio as he wants to come out to celebrate Helens birthday with us. Had dinner out again with two others from our galapagos trip (Rebecca from Oz & Vinnie from New York).  We found the best place ever a few blocks from the hotel taht served crepes (savoury & sweet) & they were to die for.  I cannot explain how good these little pancakes were - they were so good that Helen & I have decided that were going to spend the rest of our time in Quito in a hostel just a few minutes away so we can eat them everyday - they were THAT GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We plan to leave Quito on Thursday & head up north to Otavalo for 3 days where there's a great saturday market, so finally we can get to go shopping (other than postcards, I've not bought anything yet!).  We've booked some accommodation called La Luna which is up in the Andes - so I'll let you know how that goes.

I know I've not written anything about our Galapagos trip yet but there's so much to say, hopefully I'll get round to it before thursday this week - I can tell you though it was totally amazing.

Missing everyone lots of love Kez xxx