Tour of Quito- A Heritage site.

Monday, April 25- Quito
This  morning, it is our guided tour of Quito. We have now met five other couples who will be joining us on our Galagos tour on The Samba-name of our ship. There are three American couples,one Swedish husband and wife, and we couldn't believe it, but another couple from New Brunswick. How cool is that? They are by far the youngest twosome in our group. This is their honeymoon. They were married in August.
Our guide, Mauro and the driver picked us up at 9 am. We were off to visit the Basillica, which is the one Ron and I walked to the other day. We had not entered the other day so we did that. Very nice stained glass depicting the stations of the cross and much more.

Every Monday the government has the changing of the guards at 11 am. We were lucky enough to be able to witness this event. It is quite elaborate. We did not stay for the President's speech. He is not very well liked by the Ecuadorians. Our guide certainly had nothing good to say about him.

We then drove up to the highest peak in the city where there is a statue of the Lady of the Apocalypse. We took the pictures of Quito from above. It has a little over 2 million inhabitants. 

The Lady of the Appcalypse. There's a good story that goes along with this statue. She is also known by other names. 

Quito 

after this viewing, we board the bus to go to Mitad del Mundo, otherwise known as the Middle of the World. There's another great story here, it's not exactly at the right spot. They missed it by about 140 meters. Touristy with a lot of shops along the sides of the monument.

A divide in the equator

These seat are all over this place. They represent some of the hummingbird species found in Ecuador. 

We had lunch near one of the biggest craters in the country. It is eight km long. People live there. Not sure how they get in and out... 

This Llama was tethered outside near the restaurant. We have not seen this as a choice on our menus. It seems that they do not eat llama meat anymore, but we learned that some people do eat Guinea Pig. Not for me, thank you. Tonight will be a quiet one as our departure for the airport is at 6:30 am. Final destination- The Galápagos islands. Very excited to get there. I will probably be off line for the next eight days or so, maybe more. Not sure about connection on the islands, but we know that there won't be any on the boat. Buenos tardes.