To the middle of the world: A day in quito

View from the top of the tower

Yesterday we didn't do much in the Galapagos before leaving. We bought some tourist shirts and then just hailed a taxi to go to the airport. It just happened to be Fabian, who drove us to the lava tunnels and the craters (I read today that they are actually sink holes not volcano craters). So that was cool.
You could probably tell the difference between my first post on the Galapagos and the last one. Everything costs so much, and everything costs. When we got into Isabela Island with our tour, we actually had to pay a $5 per person fee for using the port. It kind of took the sheen off it for me, really seeing how everyone is making a buck there. On the cruise we were well shielded from all of that. Our dives were also really short too, only 28mins each. Half the time of any of our dives in Australia. For $160 per person, that was a bit disappointing. It sort of makes me wish it was like the Galapagos I imagined when I was 10. No people on the islands, and the only way to get there was by boat, and you couldn't stay overnight on land. I forgot to mention that on our cruise the guide gave us a suggestion for our tipping of him and the crew. $20 per person per day for the crew and $15 per person per day for him. That's a lot on top of an already expensive trip. Considering the first day is a half day and the last is only until about 9am. Needless to say our tip was much, much less than that suggestion.

The guys who were taking so many photos

Today we were meant to go to Banos, but I woke up feeling pretty unwell. Think of ten ways to feel sick, and I was feeling all of them at once this morning. I picked over some fruit for breakfast before deciding I would just go back to bed. So Brandon sorted out a tour for us to do starting tomorrow and going first to Cotopaxi, then to the Quilotoa Loop, and then to Banos and back here. It's a fair bit more expensive than doing it by ourselves like we were going to, but with losing today it makes it much easier to fit it all in.
So by 10am I was feeling like food. Thank goodness pretty much every country sells hot chips. What would one do when feeling like death but needing some food. I felt up to doing something so we took a taxi and then a bus to La Mitad de Mundo, the middle of the world, where the equator line passes, apparently. I thought I was possibly dying on the bus, there seemed to be a tiny man in my abdomen stabbing me repeatedly. Coke seemed to kill the little man and I feel fine tonight. La Mitad del Mundo is pretty underwhelming. It's just a big monument with a lookout at the top and a museum in it, supposedly on the equator line. It's surrounded by shops and restaurants, and other smaller buildings with random things in them. You pay an entry fee and then another fee to get into each building. Hence we only went in the monument one. The highlight was trying to take a picture of the back of the monument. These 3 guys rocked up just after all the people cleared out and I was about to take a photo. So I sat there and watched them take a photo of all 3 of them, and then each one of their own. And then they looked at their photos and had to do them all again. I thought they were about to leave and they had the awesome idea to take handstand photos. So we had numerous attempts at that. Then I handed Brandon the camera with instructions to take the photo for me if they left while I went to the bathroom. Side note, ever seen a toilet paper vending machine? I have as of today. The guys ended up moving to a different vantage point to continue their photo taking and Brandon got the photo I wanted.
The next step was to find El Museo Solar Inti Nan, which was a few hundred meters East according to the lonely Planet book. Oh so wrong. After touring the town of San Antonio I asked in a shop and it was directly next door to La Mitad, due North... Anyway it was much better. For $4pp you got a guided tour of some indigenous houses and some info about shrinking heads tribe, and demonstrations on a whole different equator line. I am positive that the demonstrations about water turning different ways down a plug when moved 2m either side of the equator was a hoax. But it was fun anyway. We met an English girl on our tour, and we all headed back to Quito to the cable car TeleferiQo together. It goes up volcan Pichincha to 4100m above sea level. There was a good view of Quito on the way up but at the top there was far too much cloud. It's also gone up in price since the guide book was printed and we got massively ripped off by a taxi on the way back.

Shrunken heads

Quito from the Telerifico

Until next time.