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Ecuador 2020: Quito - Round 2

After I finished climbing mountains, I met up with Mindy in Quito. We used Quito as a base to visit the equator, Mindo, and Otavalo.

Our hotel room had a pretty good view of El Panecillo (12 MB warning): https://jsaxton.com/static_images/el_panecillo.jpg

Other photos from this trip can be found here.

Mindy made it! We decided to take a bus to the equator, known in Spanish as "Mitad del Mundo" There's a huge monument at the equator, but once GPS was invented, it was discovered that the monument was about 200 meters away from the actual equator. It is hard to balance an egg on a nail here, which is supposed to somehow prove that we're really on the equator. We also got to participate in other dubious experiments. The following day (Feb 22), we decided to take a bus to Mindo. This was the first I remember hearing anyone talk about coronavirus in Ecuador. Cloud forest on the way to Mindo To celebrate Carnival, a bunch of kids sprayed Mindy with foam. I got hit too! Don't listen to the State Department. Street food is delicious! We took a tour of a chocolate factory. We got to see the entire chocolate making process, starting with this fruit. We also got to eat some delicious chocolate at the end. We spent the night here in Mindo. It turns out it rains a lot in the cloudforest, so we hung out at the hotel for a bit and took pictures of wildlife. Once the rain stopped, I went ziplining. $20 for 10 ziplines, and they haven't had any fatalities since 2012! Mindo as seen from the zipline. The rain was really heavy and rivers were overflowing. Our taxi driver said it was really unusual. Traffic was awful on the way back due to multiple landslides. A trip that should have taken three hours took around seven. Lots of private companies operate buses at Quito's Terminal Terrestre, and the first step was to find a company that would take us to Otavalo. Otavalo is famous for its indigenous artisan markets. Not surprisingly, it's a tourist trap and all the markets sell the same mass produced stuff. Mindy was pretty excited about the popcorn we had with lunch. Carnival was crazy! Here you can see a bunch of youths jumping out of a truck and ambushing some other youths. We also spent a little time wandering around Quito's Old Town. The main square. Volleyball at Parque El Ejido. Instead of light rail or subways, they have these metro stations which were serviced by high frequency buses. It worked pretty well. The view from our hotel room.
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