Great day in Quito! Last night I met a few people in the office area of the hostal I'm staying in. Mark and June are a nice couple from the west coast of Canada who have been holidaying in Ecuador for a week or so. Steve is an Aussie from Perth who's travelling Antarctica and South America for 4 months.

I ran into Mark and June again at breakfast. I told them I was planning to head to the government palace to watch the changing of the guard at 11am and they were planning on doing the hop on hop off tourist bus (I didn't even know Quito had one!) We decided to spend the day together and I really enjoyed it. Turns out the President himself was in residence so the changing of the guard was a big event with schoolboys singing the national anthem, a brass band, crowds and the president himself waving at us from the balcony. It was quite a spectacle!

The tourist bus then took us on a nice ride throughout the city. Great value for $12. We stopped off for lunch in an area near Mariscal and had a delicious feed in a restaurant that didn't look like it got many tourists. Our major stop was at the Iglesia de la Basillica. A great gothic style church where instead of ugly faces, the gargoyles are ecuadorian animals! I saw tortoises, boobies, frigates, armadillo, flightless cormorants and others I didn't recognize (unfortunately it isn't well maintained). We spent 2 hours here climbing up into the clock towers (not easy when I havent adjusted to the altitude yet!) We even walked along a wooden bridge inside the roof above the buttroses to the tower at the far end of the church. Inside the main towers is a gift shop and a cafe. I tried coca tea (not horrible) to try to help with the effects of the altitude. We then found the entrance to the main body of the church (separate entrance fee) so we could see the beautiful stained glass.

From there it was back on the bus to head up to El Panecillo which is a hill high above the main part of Quito where they have erected a statue of the Madonna which looks like an angel overlooking the city. The views from here are great and the face on the angel is beautiful. I don't quite understand why she has a dragon on a leash curled around her feet as she stands on a globe of the world though.

By the time we got back into Old Town it was getting dark. We found a pharmacy to get some after sun lotion (managed to burn my nose again today) and stocked up on snacks at a supermarket before heading back to the hostal.

While we were enjoying a dinner of cheese sandwiches Steve came in and offered to share a bottle of wine with us. A very tasty cab sav he'd picked up in Chile. Had a very pleasant evening chatting. Turns out Steve has already done Easter Island so I got some good tips including a Japanese restaurant I want to try there.

Got wifi to work on phone (briefly) but not on lappy so no photos yet.