Quito

We landed in Quito last night at what turns out to be the new airport. This is both good and bad. The good is that flying and landing conditions should be improved (since it has the history of being one of the most dangerous airports in the world). Bad is that the new airport is about an hour drive from the old one. Which means that it is an hour drive + to any of the hotels since there is essentially nothing open near the new airport.

It was pretty dark by the time we got to the J W Marriott. So I grabbed this shot this morning.

the JW

After breakfast we headed out on a city which turned out to be no museums and a number of religious locations

Map of Quito City Center

Spanish style architecture

we had a stop for lunch

from the restaurant balcony

hanging out in one of the gardens

inner court yard at one of the stops

and I did spot this

well, at least one yarn store

From there we headed to the Equator. After all -it would make no sense to go to Ecuador and not go to the Equator.

map of the site

model of the monument site

Equator Monument

and I might just want to mention that the city itself is higher than Denver. Unfortunately the hotel is about 3000 ft above that, but the Andes are beautiful. The city is old, older than most locations in the US since most of us forget the fact that the Spanish Conquistadors were extremely active in Central and South America from the early 1500s onward.

the Andes