Quito
We didn't know much about it before we came here, but Ecuador is fabulous! 
It has been formed by volcanic action, rather than earthquakes, and even from the air, it looks completely different to other places we've been to in South America. The volcanoes, with their snowy tops, are clearly visible above the clouds. The mountains and hillsides are lush and green, with deep folds, like those in North Island  New Zealand. Up in the highlands, there are numerous vast, completely flat, plateaux, with patchworks of fertile farmland and small towns and villages. Down in the huge bowl shaped valleys are larger towns and cities, one of which is Quito.

As we came in to land, I thought that Quito looked unlike any other cities we had seen, and one of the reasons was, that it looked finished! Houses had tiled roofs, traffic flowed freely along the roads, which were lined with trees and flowers and there were parks and gardens in the middle of the city. 
We had got so used to the way everything looked in Peru. We loved Peru, but Peru is not finished. None of it. Houses, roads, pavements towns, coastal resorts, all works in progress, all unfinished. The Incas hadn't even finished Machu Picchu! If something is finished, it will probably be demolished by an earthquake, and then the building work will have to start all over again. 

I did get a shock when I stepped off the plane, and instantly felt light-headed and breathless - I hadn't realised Quito was at almost 3,000m! So after being at sea level for the past few days, I would have to start getting used to altitude again. Everything looked so 'westernised', clean and modern - especially the cars. In Peru, almost all the cars are small, noisy, rusty and battered Daewoos. In Quito, straight away we noticed that the cars are mostly fairly new and well maintained, with all the usual makes, lots of 4 wheel drives, and the standard of driving is also completely different. They have to have 6 months of official tuition before they can take the driving test, and there is also an equivalent to the MOT test for vehicles. Ecuador is doing well economically since they 'dollarised' in 2000, and people we spoke to seemed to feel that they have a good standard of living here. 

When we arrived at our hotel, we got such a surprise - it was fabulous! Up on a hill, overlooking the city on one side and the countryside on the other, it was bright and airy, with a huge swimming pool, lovely gardens, and a restaurant on the 7th floor with panoramic views. We arrived at about 8.30am, and our room wouldn't be ready till 2pm, but they were happy to store our luggage and we could relax by the pool till it was ready. We had a huge buffet breakfast first, as we were very hungry after such an early start to the day. The hotel was really busy, as Ecuador were playing Colombia in the World Cup qualifiers, and we felt a bit out of place down by the pool, as we weren't wearing yellow football shirts! Tony enjoyed some football banter with the Ecuadorian supporters, while I reclined in the shade on a nice padded sun lounger and had a nap. 
We weren't really hungry in the evening, but thought we'd go to the restaurant to see if we could just have some soup. Unfortunately, there is a downside to staying in classy hotels, and they told Tony he couldn't come in wearing shorts! However, he could eat in the bar, so we sat up at the counter and had the local speciality 'locro de papas' thick potato soup with cheese and avocado on top - perfect.
The next day was my birthday, and I was keen to go on a trip to the Mitad del Mundo equator monument for a birthday treat! It's about an hour out of the city, but one of the doormen arranged for his taxi driver brother to drive us there and back, so that was great. We went to the Inti-Iñan equator museum, (which was outdoors, and not really like a museum), and saw exhibits from the amazon region, such as a real shrunken human head, a shed Anaconda skin, and enormous blow-pipes, lots of artefacts and a Pre-Inca burial pit, like the ones we saw near Nasca. Then there were some funny experiments you could try, which were supposed to be to do with the equator, (according to GPS, the line runs through the middle of the museum), which I enjoyed, being gullible, but Tony was very skeptical about the whole thing! 
Next we went to the nearby 'equator monument' which was built by the French, and about 400m away from the actual equator, but it wasn't too bad a calculation for its time. 
We had been a bit concerned that we had somehow booked ourselves into the wrong hotel, as there was no sign of anyone from Tucan Travel, and nobody else that seemed to be going on our trip to Galapagos, but when we got back from our trip to the 'middle of the world' there was a message from a guide to say he was picking us up at 9am the next day for our city tour.
In the evening, Tony zipped the trouser legs back onto his shorts, and we were allowed into the dining room for a nice meal and a bottle of Ecuadorian wine. It would seem that my resolution not to drink any more alcohol after the Pisco-sour hangover incident was short-lived!
It turned out that Tony and I were the only ones on the city tour, so that was a very personal service! Our guide was excellent and we saw and learned far more than we would have done had we just been looking round the city on our own. He would also be coming to pick us up the next day at 05.50 to take us to the airport for our flight to Galapagos, but not coming with us, and he didn't seem to know anything about the rest of the tour group!....Goodnight.