Quito is the capital of Ecuador. We stayed nearer the old town as it was apparently safer than the modern area. We went for breakfast on our first morning in a lovely cafe. The decor was very religious, with paintings on every wall. Simon noticed that in one painting Mary was breastfeeding Jesus. Religious iconography in South America are very different to what we are used to seeing at home. Outside locals were shouting and selling their goods - the noise reminded me very much of Leicester market. The main square was very pretty and clean. Locals were always sitting on benches, chatting with friends or reading papers. Several young kids were shining the shoes of older men. Women, with children tied to their backs, wandered round trying to sell scarves and mousse in ice-cream cones. In the second plaza, near the large church, children played in the fountain while pigeons flew overhead. The city was a great place to people watch! We walked around the town and looked in a few Churches that were open. One Jesuit Church took priests 160 years to complete and it was beautiful. The inside was beautifully ornate with so much gold! We also wandered through museums and looked at the modern photography displayed. The building was just as pretty as the pictures we found inside with its sunny courtyard and decorative staircases. Back in the main plaza we queued up for a tour of the Presidents building. Despite the tour being in Spanish, we understood most of it. Fresh flowers were everywhere, and the biggest bouquet of roses I've ever seen stood in the hallway. There was a long dining table that had around forty chairs. At the end of the dining table there was another small open room which had an altar and gold design behind. A door led to a balcony which had a nice view over the main plaza. We were also shown a function room which was decorated with paintings of all previous presidents of Ecuador. In glass cases we saw the presidential sword and its casing, both off which were very detailed. An old Church that sits on the outskirts of the old town is popular with tourists who want views of the city. We took a lift part way and then climbed a spiral staircase three floors to the first lookout point. The panoramic view of the city was awesome. Ladders led us further up to the top of the spire. The openness combined with winds and approaching storms didn't make anyone feel overly safe. To get to the other spire we had to walk across a wooden bridge which ran above the central nave of the church. Although there was concrete between us and the nave below, we were constantly aware of where we were. The other side had more ladders reaching to similar heights but due to the electrical storm we could see, we decided against climbing again. On Sunday we made our way to the Equator. Within a week we had managed to pick up some basic Spanish but it was still poor. Despite this we managed to catch two buses and, without getting lost, arrive at the equator. We had been told by other travellers that there were two 'equator sites'. The original equator was very touristy and disappointing and the official GPS equator was really good. The first one we went into was the first mapped equator line. The Equator was discovered and mapped out by a French geodesic expedition team in 1736. At this site there was a huge monument, a false equator line and numerous restaurants and souvenir shops. The real Equator is around 250m down the road. Here we did loads of random experiments. We balanced an egg on the head of a nail and watched water drain clockwise, anticlockwise and then, on the equator, straight. The weirdest part was trying to walk on the equator line with our arms out and eyes closed. Both of us felt really unstable and neither myself or Simon managed to walk in a straight line! This second Equator exhibit also taught us a little about the original inhabitants of the area and numerous huts were set up as houses. After looking round all the exhibits, and getting a stamp in our passports from the middle of the earth, we caught the buses back into town. As we made our way back to the hostel we passed a square full of people dancing to artists rapping on stage. There were skateboarders and also graffiti artists spraying boards. It was really cool to see but felt much more Northern American than South! Back at the hostel we booked onto a five day tour in the Amazon Basin. We packed our bags, put stuff in storage and caught a bus to the reserve where we began our trek.