Sunday, August 2nd - Outside of Quito

We went for a long drive today to visit areas outside of the city of Quito.  The countryside was beautiful!  Mountains, valleys, gorges, rivers, lakes....simply magnificent!  We even had a chance to see the top of one of the volcanoes clearly without any clouds!  It was majestic!

I couldn't help taking a picture of this dog...he had three legs...but got around great!

At the equator!!!!!

This was our guide for the day explaining the line of the equator on the globe statue.

There it is!

Mom in the northern hemisphere and me in the southern hemisphere!

Straddling both hemispheres at one time!  So awesome!!!!

A woman at the market that I bought a gift from.  She is wearing a traditional hat.

The Otavalo Market!

We stopped for lunch at a hacienda.  We had a chance to walk around the beautiful gardens!  This flower just caught my eye!  They have the most beautiful flowers here!  There is a tremendous rose industry!

So...at lunch they brought out the empanada appetizer in a music box!  We had no idea what it was until we opened it up!  What a clever idea!

There were tons of peacocks roaming the property!  This male peacock sat on the windowsill and enjoyed lunch with us!

Tomorrow we are headed to the Galapagos!!!  I'm so excited!  We fly to Guayanquil and on to Baltra Island in the morning.  From Baltra we take a short ferry to Santa Cruz Island where our hotel is!  The Internet is supposedly not so consistent....but I will do my best to keep in touch!