Today we had to say goodbye to our Otavalo home. Marilyn and Glenn were such amazing hosts! And Isabel kept us caffeinated and well fed! Everyone was so great to be around and I know that they worked hard to take care of the seven of us. And they didn't complain once that we displaced them for a week from their regular rooms! We split up in two cars and started the two hour drive toward Quito. There was beautiful scenery on the way - and there was a ton of highway construction too! There is definitely a push to improve infrastructure, as we saw roadway construction in progress every day we were there! The tourist equator is not on the actual equator. Being that we are engineers and such, we chose the correct location as our stopping point. There was a monument and some shops around, but apparently nothing compared to the tourist equator. Still, we double checked with our GPS and got to be on both hemispheres at the same time! We stopped for lunch on the way and finally reached our hotel in Quito. It was a German owned and operated and the staff was very friendly. We hit the town for a small amount of time in the evening and had dinner and did some more shopping at the Quito market. Finally, we turned in for our last night in Ecuador.    At a rest stop. Left to right: Rene, Kevin, Lisa, Bethany, Steve, Julie, Ruth, Kendra, Luke (photo by Rene).    |
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