Well, it's tomorrow and I'm not terribly sick yet, but definitely feeling the head pressure and shortness of breath.  Roisin did come back and we did see the church, no robberies on transit!  The church was grand and majestic with impossibly steep and slippery ladders leading to the top tower, we had to cross a creaky wooden bridge to even access these, so it was by far the most treacherous church I can say I've seen.  When we came back I spent the rest of the night hanging out in the terrace, the view from there is absolutely spectacular at night.  The city’s hills rise in all directions full of sparkling city lights, and the aforementioned church glowed in multitudes of colours due to some well placed lighting at its base.  For anyone wondering if it’s really that easy to meet people when travelling alone, the answer is a resounding yes, at this place anyways.  As the hostel serves decent dinners, loads of travellers sat around the table and if you want a conversation just simply turn to the person next to you and say “hi”.  There was a variety of people to chose from: The eccentric talkative Swiss guy who has been on the road for 2 years and I suspect rarely sober in any of that time, the super nice just married couple on a honeymoon of sorts, the older Aussie couple with the loud and slightly overbearing wife whose shrill voice grew louder and more ever present with every glass of wine she polished off.  I mentioned to someone that I wanted to see the Equator the next day, “Mitad del Mundo,” and he replied by pointing out someone else who had said the same, so in a truly out of character fashion I went up to this guy and asked if he wanted to go together.  He was thrilled as he didn’t want to go alone either - Score one for me for taking the initiative!

            I didn’t want to go into town afterwards however so I crashed out at around 11 when the terrace closed.  Despite an incredible lack of sleep combined with sensory overload, I awoke this morning at half 6, an hour and a half before my alarm, unable to fall back asleep.  An English cabbie had warned me altitude was messing with his sleeping patterns as well so it could be this, or jus the fact I'm still running on an awful lot of adrenaline from just being here.

This morning after showering my first priority was signing up for a jungle tour the hostel is offering, 4 days and 3 nights hiking, rafting, animal spotting, even learning about the Shamanic rituals associated with ayahuasca, a highly hallucinogenic plant derivative I had read about in Breaking Open the Head (if you haven’t read this go buy it now, by Mark Mann).  The tour operator said this tour doesn’t offer the drug, just the ritual, but as in the book the people drinking it had to wear diapers and have personal puke buckets and were off their heads for ages, that’s just fine with me…  I'm not that hardcore I'm afraid!

I grew brave today after breakfast and decided to take a walk alone into Old Town to have a look around.  As a main drag runs one block from the hostel to the centre squares I figured it was doable even with my directional know-how, or lack thereof.  I didn’t get lost, but I didn’t really enjoy myself to be honest.  I was just too nervous about everyone around me, especially as two minutes from the hostel an old guy came up to me with his hand outstretched and actually tried to grab my arm, he left off easily enough when I said no, but still it's not a confidence builder.  I've devised a plan to carry personals which I hope doesn’t backfire. If I tie my purse as to be stomach length and keep it under my jacket, it not only hides my things but also makes me look pregnant, which should deter the knife pokers who slash at packets.  I could also however just be taken for someone with a purse under my jacket, so we’ll see how it goes.  I'm really hoping the jungle tour doesn’t fall through, for my guide said 2 others were interested but not confirmed.  As for this afternoon, I'm headed to Mitad del Mundo in a few minutes, and I signed up to have dinner here again.  I'm not feeling too guilty about not experiencing “Ecuador Food” as my purpose of this trip was not to enjoy the cities but alternatively the small towns, and once I'm in one I'll be much more willing to venture out for authenticity.

Ciudad Mitad del Mundo:

The walk to the “Ciudad Mitad del Mundo” (middle of the world)  is mandatory when a ride is in Quito, and is moving into a tourist town established in the equator or you are that one is actually in the middle of the world.

Once one enters to the tourism sector in this city, one encounters a small town that has several craft shops and restaurants, but mostly  is the monument to the “Mitad del Mundo” inside which does a Ethnographic Museum.

It is interesting to lie on the equator that is drawn on the floor of this town and stretching from the church of the same, until the monument “Mitad del Mundo”, the crucifix in the church is located exactly in half and leaving this party line on the floor, one can walk through the mass line and be balanced in the middle of the world, or you can put one foot in the northern hemisphere and one foot in the southern hemisphere and jump or take the step that you want, it can be done with hands supported by example in the south and feet in the north or vice versa.

After walking through this town and after visiting the monument that represents middle of the world, visitors can take a bus part to the crater of Pululahua volcano.

Great was my surprise and not find a crater as a hole Donat if not meet an entire valley with several kilometers,  that was formed in the crater of the volcano today off, from the viewpoint is an impressive sight and one wants to have more time not only to appreciate this valley if not to stay a few days in this natural environment.

In Spanish:

El paseo a la Ciudad Mitad del Mundo es un paseo obligatorio cuando se esta en Quito, y es trasladarse a una ciudad turística establecida en la línea ecuatorial o seas que uno se encuentra efectivamente a la mitad del mundo.

Una vez que uno ingresa al sector turístico de esta ciudad, uno se encuentra con todo un pequeño pueblo que tiene varias tiendas de artesanías y restaurantes, pero principalmente esta el monumento a la Mitad del Mundo en cuyo interior funciona un Museo Etnográfico.

Es interesante situarse en la línea ecuatorial que esta trazada en el piso  de este poblado y que abarca desde la iglesia del mismo hasta el monumento a la mitad del mundo, en la iglesia el crucifijo se encuentra exactamente a la mitad y saliendo parte esta línea trazada en el piso, uno puede caminar por la misa línea y ser el equilibrista en el medio del mundo o puede poner un pie en el hemisferio norte y otro pie en el hemisferio sur  y dar el paso al hemisferio que uno quiera, se puede echar con las manos apoyadas por ejemplo en el sur y los pies en el norte o a la inversa.

Después de pasear por este poblado y después de visitar el monumento que representa la mitad del mundo, los visitantes pueden tomar un bus que parte hasta el cráter del  volcán Pululahua.

Grande fue mi sorpresa y no encontrarme un cráter como el agujero de un Donat si no encontrarme con todo un valle de varios kilómetros de radio que se formo en el cráter de este volcán hoy en día apagado, desde el mirador se tiene una vista impresionante y uno desea tener mas tiempo no solo para apreciar este valle sino para quedarse unos días en este entorno natural.

So today Paul, Allison and I woke up early to head to Mitad del Mundo- or the middle of the world. We had a lovely breakfast of toast, jam, tea and fruits. Then we hailed a bus headed to MDM. We have to climb us this vicious hill that leaves you breathless after only 3 blocks. The altitude here is intense- your heart beats for fast and your lungs feel like they´re on fire. Alas, we made the hours bus ride to MDM for only .40 and to our surprise nobody was there. The site was massive, very touristy. It was cool to walk across the hemispheres and know you are smack dab in the middle of the world! But our lonely planet told us to visit the REAL equitorial line which was right next to the MDM complex. That truly was more interesting. The $3 tour includes physics demos that only happen at the real equitorial line. One moment, you are seeing water fall clockwise and seriously 3 feet was n the other hemisphere, the water move counterclockwise. But on the equitorial line, the water falls straight down. Also on this line, i got to balance an egge on a nail! An apparently, you are weaker on the line, which was demostrated with some strength demos. We even saw real shrunken heads, did a blow dart competition, and visisted authentic indegineous houses. On a side note, i forgot that i was on the widest part of the world, and also the part closest to the sun. I have a MAJOR sunburn. Now i am sooooo tan. I forgot to put protection and now i am so dark. After the tour, we saw some cool cultural dances for free! They were the traditional dances of CUenca and they were some energetic kids. After our dose of culture, we went back to Quito and had a great dinner with Rosita. Afterwards, we just played a massive game of phase 10, bullshit and speed.

We decided we better actually do some real sightseeing, especially after our disaster day yesterday! We woke up to it raining so we decided we wouldn´t go to the equator or the old town because we wouldn´t get any good photos. Then, no ATM machine would work for us, one ate our card (and a nice security guard assisted us to get it out... a warning to all - carry tweezers EVERYWHERE!), we had no money on us after buying tickets to 2 movies. Then,... on the opening scene of the first movie we realised we had already seen it. All we could do was laugh. What else!? We tried the ATM again after the first movie and were delighted that it worked!! We seriously tried 4 ATM machines and they all said that our bank wasn´t lonline or timed out?! Who knows, all we do know is that it eventually worked *sighs*.

We woke up, attempted to have a shower (the water here is suppose to be hot... could´ve fooled me...) and wash my hair. Because I´ve felt so sick with this damn cold in the last few days, it´s been a quick in and out. It´s not warm here in Quito, so having a cold shower has only made my cold worse.

ANYWAY,.... got on the bus to Mitad del Mundo which is about 22km away from Quito itself. Ecuador wure knows how to haul in the tourism. Mitad del Mundo can be explained to some extent like a mini-amusement park. For some reason you have to pay to get in ($2USD) and there is a big monument which also serves as the official museum and has the equator line running through it. Some dude marked it in the 1700´s although in reality it is actually about 150m off the REAL equator. Apparently you can see the ¨real¨equator but we couldn´t find it anywhere. We decided to do the only thing you can do here, and take this opportunity to do all those cheesy must-have photos (ie; kissing over the equator, jumping on the equator line, holding hands over the equator... etc etc). We were the only ones taking cool shots anyway, we didn´t care about the strange looks ;)

The museum ($3USD) isn´t all that interesting, but I guess it worth it for the view at the top. Pretty impressive really, the landscape is really nice. The entire place was pretty quiet, and comprises of restaurants and tourist shops, all at reasonable prices (and most not so pushy either which is just how we like it).

There are some nice murals around the place also, which we decided to take advantage of (or should I say Nathan was as you can see...)! Decided to take some arty photos with our camera, which is the only real good run it´s had! Turned out pretty cool in our opinions anyway.

It started to rain on the way back to Quito so we opted out of going to the old town today. Instead we thought the only decent thing to do for the afternoon was see another movie! So off to see ¨White Noise 2¨(pretty good too, I bit all my nails off...)!

Suppose to be going to Mindo tomorrow but we will see....

KERRY - The motley crew went to visit the Equator line today. We took the city buses this time and were very impressed with them - 25 cents for a ride on a very clean bus! Livingston should come to South America!

We arrrived at Mitad del Mundo and walked to the 'unofficial' museum which is aroud the corner from the French 'official' site. The unofficial musuem actutally houses the real Equator line, measured by GPS. The museum was cool, again lots of information about the history of the indiginoues people of Ecuador, but also some funky experiments such as balancing an egg on a nail on the equator line and watching the different ways water flows on the equator line as well as in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

We spent a good hour at the museum and our guide was really interesting and knowledgeable.

We caught the bus back to Quito and were starving so decided to have some South American steak in a local restaurant. It was really good steak - apart from the waiter messing up our order! Still it was an enjoyable meal.

Andrei and Steve then decided they  needed to make their mark in Quito and hit the bars in town. Nicola, Liron and I went out later on and sampled some very nice Strawberry Margharitas in a mexican restaurant. This is the life!

On Sunday the15th April 2006 we had our first pig experience. For those of us who our adventurous (ie non-vegetarians) we tried whole, face and all, slow-roasted pig in open air market served with mouth-watering potato stuff and whole batch loads of grease. yum. There are no real words to describe our gastronomic début, so we shall just say: " Thankyou for the piglet, the taste you gave me. Thanks for all the dosh you saved me, We couldn't have lived without it, we say in all honesty, we were hungry so we say thankyou to the piglet, for giving meat to meeeeeeeeeee." (composed and arranged by Nic, Katy and Sam. That's right, the attractive ones.) Damn we are hot!

The Equator is as amazing as a Scotch Loaf - how do they distribute the eggs so generously? Natural wonders abounded, from water that went straight down the drain to a goat with a massive nipple. Members of our group showed off their powers of concentration and aim by balancing eggs on nails and blowing poison darts at a cactus leaf through a blowpipe. We couldn´t give the experience five stars because the food service at lunch was appalling, one might even say non-existent, especially if you are served by a waiter with an out-of-place moustasche. Please do not go to Helado Chino unless you are not hungry at all and can bear to wait at least an hour. We also saw a 151-year old shrunken head. We wanted to go on a ferris wheel but it was $2 per person, a ridiculous sum in Ecuador.