Quito, Ecuador
January 31, 2007
January 31, 2007
Today we took a trip 22 km outside of the city to see La Mitad de Mundo. The middle of the world is its own little city outside of Quito. There are several restaurants, parks, souvenir shops, with the highlight being in the middle of the “City.” There in the middle is a massive monument recognizing the spot on the equator when the latitude reaches 00.000.000. We headed directly towards the monument when we arrived.
Marc, with GPS in hand, was determined to verify the accuracy of the monument. The closest he got was 00.000.112 near the monument. He did find a spot with a reading of 00.000.049 closer to the fence of the city.
The highlight of the day, at least for me, was recording Marc standing on the big “O” for Oeste, or West, with the line dividing the two hemispheres below him. It was here that he let one rip, as he did in the Four Corners several years ago while traveling cross country with Mike T.; I know this because I have seen the tape highlights of that journey with Mike.
Tomorrow we will head to Guayquil, Quito and then over to the beach. The weather should be perfect—in the 80s almost all the time. We will relax on the beach for several days prior to returning to Guayquil. We hope to have internet access during that time, so keep looking for blog updates.
January 30, 2007
S 00°12.169
W 078°.29.830
We had a fantastic day exploring Quito. The town is broken up into three sections—Old Town, New Town and Mariscal Sucre. We hit all of them. As we walked from Mariscal Sucre through New Town, we got to the main park, Parque El Ejido, and continued through to Parque de Alameda.
We heard some noise in the distance, but decided to turn down a street and move away from the noise. Large crowds are not always the best places to be in foreign countries.
At the North corner of Parque de Alameda, there was a little monument that looked like a good lookout point. We climbed to the top, huffing and puffing a little since we are almost at 10,000 feet. We made it to the top and took a seat—we were the only people on top. This wasn’t a big monument; maybe 20 feet high with a weather vain on the top, but it was the perfect place for us to be at this point in time.
The same time we got to the top of the monument, we heard some yelling in the distance, and then we heard a few sirens. We looked out from the point we were sitting and saw some people running in the distance. A few seconds later the sirens drew closer, and we saw officers fully suited in riot gear. People were frantically spilling into Parque de Alameda, the look of fear in their eyes even though they are part of the protest.
Marc pulls out his camera to take a video of the protest and the people trying to escape the police in the riot gear. Next, the riot police unleashed the tear gas, as Marc captured the mayhem on his camera. The situation couldn’t have been too bad since the guy manning the hot dog cart was running with the protestors.
The tear gas cleared and we decided to depart from the top of the monument to complete our tour of Quito. We noticed a church from the top of the monument, Church of La Basillica, and decided to weave our way towards the historical monument. We did our best to avoid the protesters rest of the day, and it wasn’t too difficult since every where we went was heavily secured with police.
S 00°12.169
W 078°.29.830
We had a fantastic day exploring Quito. The town is broken up into three sections—Old Town, New Town and Mariscal Sucre. We hit all of them. As we walked from Mariscal Sucre through New Town, we got to the main park, Parque El Ejido, and continued through to Parque de Alameda.
We heard some noise in the distance, but decided to turn down a street and move away from the noise. Large crowds are not always the best places to be in foreign countries.
At the North corner of Parque de Alameda, there was a little monument that looked like a good lookout point. We climbed to the top, huffing and puffing a little since we are almost at 10,000 feet. We made it to the top and took a seat—we were the only people on top. This wasn’t a big monument; maybe 20 feet high with a weather vain on the top, but it was the perfect place for us to be at this point in time.
The same time we got to the top of the monument, we heard some yelling in the distance, and then we heard a few sirens. We looked out from the point we were sitting and saw some people running in the distance. A few seconds later the sirens drew closer, and we saw officers fully suited in riot gear. People were frantically spilling into Parque de Alameda, the look of fear in their eyes even though they are part of the protest.
Marc pulls out his camera to take a video of the protest and the people trying to escape the police in the riot gear. Next, the riot police unleashed the tear gas, as Marc captured the mayhem on his camera. The situation couldn’t have been too bad since the guy manning the hot dog cart was running with the protestors.
The tear gas cleared and we decided to depart from the top of the monument to complete our tour of Quito. We noticed a church from the top of the monument, Church of La Basillica, and decided to weave our way towards the historical monument. We did our best to avoid the protesters rest of the day, and it wasn’t too difficult since every where we went was heavily secured with police.
We ended the afternoon at the local British Pub having a few pints. Yes, this is kind of cheating since they speak English in the British pub, but it was day one—give us a little time.
I have to say our first day in Quito made us feel like home—those people in San Francisco protest everything too!
2 comments:
wow, only your first few days and already you're seeing riots and tear gas. never a dull moment, eh?
so...how was the surprise hotel??
your info is great thx
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