Quito, the Pacific Coast and Mindo, Ecuador

The border crossing from Colombia to Ecuador ran smoothly and we arrived in Quito by the early evening. We got a taxi to a hostel (which had a roof terrace with excellent views of the city) then went for dinner with a Colombian guy called Juan Sebastian who we met on the bus. At the restaurant Ellie and Sebastian went for cheaper half portions which cost $1.50 but Mike chose the full portion for $3 - these turned out to be exactly the same size!

The next morning we explored Quito old town. The first place we went to was Plaza de Independencia. There happened to be some kind of independence celebrations going on and we caught the end of the speech given by the President.

There were soldiers marching in formation and various people in fancy dress entertaining the crowds, in quite random ways. At one point Ellie was taken from the crowd by a woman dressed in a kind of green pixie outfit and put on a stretcher where people dressed as doctors and nurses pretended to inject her with a large plastic syringe. It was all very strange and we didn't really know what to make of it but everyone was laughing and it was all being filmed for TV!

We then had a further look around the Old Town at churches, plaza's and important buildings.

We bumped into Sebastian and he had arranged to meet up with a couple of girls from Quito in the New Town, one of whom was a friend of his friend. We went with him and spent the rest of the day in a bar which had 2 for 1 cocktails. We drank a lot of Mojitos and it turned into an enjoyable drunken evening.

The following day we went with Sebastian to the Mitad del Mundo, where the equator line is. We first went to the Equatorial Line Monument, which is on the equatorial line determined by French explorers in 1736. Inside the monument is the Museo Ethnografico which exhibits artefacts relating to indigenous cultures.

However, the original equator line as called by the French is actually 150m out according to recent GPS measurements (not a bad effort for 1736 though!). On this line where the latitude is actually 0'0'0'' is the Museo Inti-Ñan. At this museum they do various experiments relating to the gravitational pull of the equator. These include seeing water in a sink fall straight down on the equator line, clockwise in the southern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere; showing that you have less resistance to force on the equator line; and allowing the tourists to have a go at balancing an egg on a nail (which was our favourite!).

We left Quito the next day and headed up north to the Pacific Coast. We spent a couple of nights in Atacames, which is a fairly busy beach resort. We weren't planning on going out on the first night but we ended up bumping into Ryan, a Canadian guy who we met in Cali. We had a few Caipiriña's, a local drink, in one of the many bars along the beach front with Ryan and a German guy, Max. We then had a few more back at their hostel and ended up almost missing our hostel's 3am curfew!

We spent a bit of time on the beach the next day, but despite being so close to the equator is isn't very warm and was very cloudy. Mike played football on the beach with some locals who almost started fighting a number of times during the game as they were always betting on which team would score the next goal!

After Atacames we got a bus to Mompiche, a few hours further along the coast. Mompiche is a rustic little fishing village which is at the early stages of being developed into a more popular resort, although the roads remain unpaved at the moment. Again the weather was cloudy and it was quite drizzly. We still had a good time though and did a bit of surfing, ate seafood and had a night out. We went to a bar on a beach a few times that is owned by some French and Portuguese guys where they serve excellent pizza. We also went to a club down on of the side streets where drink was really cheap and lots of locals and Ecuadorian holiday makers were dancing.

On the way back down south after Mompiche, we got off the bus a few hours before Quito in order to go to Mindo. In the manner we have become accustomed to, we were dropped at a junction in the road and had to wait for some form of transport to take us the rest of the way. This time it was three mountain bikers in a mini bus. Mindo is a small town surrounded by cloud forest and is a nice place for walking and relaxing. The hostel we were in had a large balcony with comfy sofas and hammock so spent quite a lot of time there! On one of the days we were there we walked to the top of a large hill, took a sketchy cable car contraption over a gorge, and walked a trail through the forest that took us to four different waterfalls.