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For our first full day in Quito, we got much accomplished. No small task was getting our bearing in a city where streets are named after dates on the calendar. I asked our waiter at breakfast how to get to Avenida de Colon and he told me to go to El Seis de Diciembre before turning right on Avenida de America. I misunderstood and told him we were only in town until the 18th of May, assumed he didn´t know where to go and thanked him before proceeding to find someone else to ask for directions. Only after coming across Calle 6 de Diciembre, did the puzzled look the waiter gave me make sense.

We were somewhat creeped out by our hosts and accommodations at Hostal Titisee so we moved one street over to stay our second night at Hostal Galeria, a certain step up from last night. Our main objective of the day was to visit La Mitad Del Mundo, which translated means ¨The Middle of The Earth¨.

Its a park and tourist complex about 23km north of Quito which at the time of construction, was believed to be marking a 200 meter line along the equator. Since the advent of GPS technology however, the monument has been discovered to be 240 meters south of the actual equator. After snapping dozens of pictures of us straddling the equator with the other tourists (surprisingly, we were only two in a handful of gringos sharing the day in the countryside with many local families), we strolled through the town of stores and restaurants that service the park.

We ate our first Ecuadorian lunch of empanadas and glass-bottled Sprites while we watched a band play some salsa music for a dancing crowd. We caught one of the blue buses back to Quito (30 mins and 20 km for 15cents!). We got back feeling tired, but since the sun was starting to set, we made a brisk walk up a hill (bad idea when you're still acclimatizing to a city above 9,000 feet) to see the Gothic Cathedral of Basilica de Voto Nacional.

Outside the cathedral we were approached by two little boys wearing school uniforms. They were doing an assignment for their English class and asked us a few questions in English while their dad recorded it.

Outside the cathedral we had panoramic views of the city and El Panecillo which is a mountain south of the city with a 40 meter high statue of The Virgin of Quito. We went inside the basilica and saw some cool stained glass. 

After coming back down the hill we passed through a artists market that we had seen earlier in the day near Parque Ejido (Ejido Park). Taylor bought a cool hand-painted piece from an artist by the name of Jorge Gran Cuscoyo.

After that, the plan was to head back to the hostel to shower before going out for dinner. We made it back to Galeria, but the next thing I remembered was waking up at about 2:30am. We came back and both just passed out! This may have been a blessing in disguise however, as we both woke up at about 7am today and are ready to get a start on things.
We will check out the South American Explorers club today to get info, and then probably start our journey south.