Saturday

It's 1 am, so this is going to be short. I promise a long update tomorrow with photos (i haven't' downloaded them yet)
We hired the guy who picked us up at the airport, Don Wilson, to take us to Otavalo market today. We spent the whole day out, went to the market and bought some stuff. It was pretty amazing there. They have all these people selling just about anything that you could think of. From toilet paper to animals. We had a good time there and bought some nice things. From there we went to Cotocachi, a town not too far away that is well known for their leather goods. We didn't' even shop while we were there. Ate lunch at a nice place and then headed to lake Cuicocha, an ecological reserve. this is a crater lake and the area is very beautiful. We took a small hike here. I thought I was going to die. This was no easy hike. We had fun there making fun of ourselves (me and Janet) about falling or dropping dead! On the way back we stopped in Cayambe where they have determined through GPS the true equator. There is a research project there that has created an amazing sundial and we learned a lot about the equator and the earth.
When we got back to Quito we took a walk to look for some snacks to bring back and then went out to dinner at La Rhonda, a very nice Ecuadorian restaurant. There was an Andean band playing and it was awesome. Like the bunch of idiots that we are, none of us brought a camera.
Tomorrow (actually later today)Don Wilson is picking us up to go to el Panecillo, the Mitad del Mundo and then possibly the telerfico(sp?) He is picking us up at 9 so I guess I should get some sleep.

More tomorrow, including photos from today