Bienvenidos a Ecuador!!

We´re nearing the end of Day 3 here in Quito, Ecuador, South America... Of course, Day 1 didn´t really count, since all I did was land in Quito, meet Nic in the airport, walk 100 yards to the hostel, and pretty much crash for the night.

On Day 2 we moved to a hostel in downtown Quito, then bussed to Old Quito (after we figured out exactly how to do that) and checked out some old architecture and ornate churches.

Nic and I in El Plaza Grande, doing our best to look stately in front of the Presidential Palace.

A bit on Quito: The city´s actually at 9,200 some-odd feet (that´s almost twice as high as Denver), so wandering around with an almost 50 pound pack can tend to leave you a bit breathless, particularly coming straight from sea level. The weather over the past few days has been pretty much the same... mostly in the 60´s and overcast, with intermittent drizzle and the occaisional drenching downpour.

During one such deluge, we took refuge in an English-language bookstore, where we ran across books concerning both ¨The Body¨(BAAAAH-dee) and Mr. McGregor himself (EWAN MCGREGOR!!!!). I apologize to all readers who are not acquainted with these standing GFU phrases. Just understand that we were thrilled to our toenails upon their discovery.

That evening, we ate dinner to the while grooving to the sounds of a live Latin/Cuban band...

Nic getting his very blurry salsa groove on.

There were a few differences between Nic and I, and the majority of the people in the place:

1. Nic and I are Americans. Most people there weren´t - locals, or at least native spanish speakers. That´s good... we were hoping to avoid crowds of Gringos.
2. Nic and I are not a couple. We´re very firm on this point. For most of the night, however, we were completely surrounded by couples. Which leads to the third point...
3. During several of the most awesome songs, everyone... and I mean everyone... got up and salsa-ed with their date. The only people in the place not dancing were the band, the cook, the bartender, and the waiter... and Nic and I. As you can see from the above photo, however, we eventually overcame the problem. In the above photo, in fact, Nic is dancing with the girlfriend of the lead singer of the band. Incidentally, he was able to escape any bodily injury from the aforementioned bandmember.

Day 3 began with a surprise breakfast-in-bed from our surprisingly cheap hotel. The breakfast itself wasn´t a surprise... the guy knocking on the door at 7:30 to deliver it was, however.

Nic and I, hemispheres apart.

As you can see, we took a side trip out of Quito today, to visit both the Equator and the spectacular Pululahua Crater:

Yup. That´s the mouth of a (supposedly) extinct volcano behind us.

Also worth noting: Soccer (sorry! ¨futbol¨) is somewhat popular down here. It was hard to miss that fact this morning, when literally half the people on the street - teenagers, middle-aged-looking businessman-types, old folks, babies - were wearing the yellow Equadorian jerseys. It was also somewhat evident that the Equadorian team won its match today... as we returned to the city, the majority of the cars were honking, people were waving jerseys and flags, and... I´m getting kicked out of the internet cafe so the owners can celebrate. Vive Ecuador!!!