10/10/2012 - 13/10/2012 - Birthday Girl!!

Let the celebrations commence!

Storms building on our way to Hotel
Quito - Jumbo's nemesis!

Quito at night

After being rejected from boarding the direct bus at Baños (something about our nature obviously didn’t appeal to the driver!), we had another quick change on the highway outside Ambato where more dodgy Spanish dubbing was on show (why is it necessary to dub a movie into Spanish, and then also have Spanish subtitles?!?). Unfortunately all the volcanoes were hiding amongst the clouds, so we missed out on seeing the farthest point from the centre of the Earth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_points_of_Earth) – next time.

Stumbling on a mass in the old town

All smiles (and Guyaquil football tops) at birthday breakfast

Arrived safe in Quito, and before long had settled in at Hotel Quito, the first of Annaiza’s birthday treats. This is where the vigil for James (aka Jumbo) Balfour started – heard through secondary channels (i.e. Casa Balfour in Torquay) that his plane couldn’t land in Quito and had been diverted to Guyaquil. About as unlucky as you could get – the scheduled landing time nicely coincided with a torrential downpour. Fortunately they served mean steaks and tasty Oreo deserts in Guyaquil!  Thought we might as well wait in the hotel bar, and were kept amused over dinner by a crazy New Zealander helicopter pilot (self-funded as his IQ was insufficient to join the air force, according to him!) – apparently whenever a drug deal goes down, a New Zealander is involved somewhere – think the bottle of Malbec he put back loosened his tongue somewhat! 5 hours late, but safe, Jumbo joined us – relief all round and great to catch up over a beer together.

Love a bit of Bucks Fizz in the morning

It looks great Jumbo -
definitely get it!

11 October 2012 marked the start of Annaliza’s 4^th decade on this planet, and despite it starting over 16 hours earlier in Australia, we waited until 9am Ecuador time to kick the day off with a cheeky Bucks Fizz, followed by a lazy couple of hours taking advantage of the hotel buffet breakfast. Hadn’t been organised enough earlier to have our Galapagos trip sorted, so hit the pavement and tour companies. Lucky we didn’t wait – after deliberations between a south or west trip we landed the last 3 spots on our preferred boat – no one was working the bank holiday the next day so we very glad to have sorted… Not wanting to have lost the entire day to travel planning, we had a stroll round the Old Town, getting an experience of mass followed by unsuccessfully trying to convince Jumbo to purchase a multi-coloured hoodie. A brief rest before a spot of present opening over a bottle of bubbly in the bar – thanks for the amazing gifts familia Balfour! – and then it was out for a latish birthday dinner and drinks.

Wandering the Old Town

The hardest cake ever acquired!

Fun in the (not much!) sun!

El Mitad del Mundo - the equator line (well,
300m north of here...)

Another relaxed start (giving Jumbo the best chance of recovering from the double whammy of jet lag and altitude) over the buffet breakfast, before attempting some sun bathing – not the easiest given the lack of sun! Headed to el Mital del Mundo that afternoon – the reasoning seemed quite convoluted but Ecuador (Spanish for equator) is supposedly “officially” recognised as the middle of the world, despite 10 countries also being on the equator. The actual massive monument is about 300m off the equator, but the museum sits on the actual site, where the three of us got a quick lesson on Coriolis forces and saw the lack of vortex and rotation of water going down a plughole when lined up exactly with the equator versus clockwise in Northern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in Southern (amazing that 2m makes such a difference!). Also were shown how the more dubious experiments of egg balancing on a nail head (all 3 of us earned the certificate!), and reduced strengths and balancing ability on the equator. On further research, it seems that all of the ‘equator’ proofs may have been incorrect - http://ask.metafilter.com/54857/Why-did-my-muscles-turn-to-jello-on-the-Equator.

Egg balancing

And there's the evidence!

Self balancing - not as easy
as it looks

3-1, 3-1, 3-1!!! Only later out figured out our dodgy
shirts were different. Careful what you buy on the roadside!

Shhh - serious bananagrams action
is underfoot!

Whilst undertaking these highbrow experiments, Ecuador were playing Chile in the World Cup qualifiers, and after opening their account with an own goal we were in the taxi back to the hotel when they slotted in their third for a 3-1 victory. GGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL! Felt obliged to buy the knock off shirts in honour of the victory. Typically, on the day of our departure, the weather took a massive turn for the better, so before Jumbo’s first experience of Ecuadorian buses we had a proper poolside session.

More action in Old Town

Equator fun - shrunken heads, tribal gear (note the modest
string!) birds, totems and annacondas!

Key learnings:

 1. Buffet breakfasts are another travelling no no if you’re trying to lose weight!

2. Subtley trying to organise a birthday cake in a noisy bar when you don’t know how to say ‘birthday’ or ‘cake’ in the foreign language is a challenge…

3. Ecuadorian football shirts bought on the roadside (bartering power increases when the light turns green) are a fair bit cheaper than those from an airport!