Quito sept 22nd

Miriam, our guide picked us up at 9.00 am for our city tour of Quito. Quito, although not a tourist town was certainly an interesting one. We visited Guapula and LaCompania churches, the San Fransisco Monastary. The walls of the old tunnels beneath the monastary have been converted to display artifacts and souveniers. Bobbie succumbed to buying some small ceramic wall plates. As we had left our money in the car we had to plead with the driver to come back after he had to negotiate one way traffic for twenty minutes. Poor sod. Following this we went to the El Panecillo Hill where a huge aluminium statue of the Virgin Mary looks out over the entire city. The streets were narrow cobbled stoned and extremely steep. Our next stop was the Middle of the  World, the equatorial monument. This consisted of diaramas of ancient Inca traditions.  Part of the experience is alledgedly being on the equator at 00 lattitude. Entertained with several dubious experiments all designed to prove we were standing exactly on the equator. Back to the hotel for a rest before our 5.30pm pickup for our evening flight to Lima