2 months after we last sniffed kerosene, we are back to the airport.
Hugo, the owner of the hostal "El Mirador del Inka" in Cusco kindly dropped us off this morning at 6am. This hostel is really nice and the owners are really helpful and friendly. They also provide tours and we got a wicked one. The hot water was not working all the time but we survived without it.
Anyway... Our flight in Cusco was delayed from 8.15am to 10.30am and before we started worrying about our correspondence, LAN put us on another flight and we arrived on time in Lima. A few hours later we found ourselves in Quito, chatting to Manuel, the local cab driver who starts his days at 5am to finish them at 10pm. He advised us to visit "La mitad del Mundo", 20km north of Quito, the 0'00''00 latittude point.
Think about Greenwich meridian but this one is the main horizontal one instead. It is also called the "Equateur". On the equateur, the water doesn't rotate clockwise or anticlockwise and there are no tornadoes as the opposite forces of Earth cancel each other. That sounds like a film but it is called the acceleration of Coriolis effect. Read about it when you have a minute. It sounded cool enough to go straight there before even dropping our bags at the hostel. We also thought it was a good idea to leave our bags in the taxi, and let the taxi driver to look after it. It actually was a good idea. When we came back Manuel was still waiting and we were secretly relieved.
In the evening we met Yvonne from the Uyuni tour, as well as Dave and Kirsten whom we've met in la mitad del mundo, in Quito's Old town for dinner. It was nice to chill but the local groups came one after another and played a couple of songs before asking for tips and leaving. It felt like a loud jukebox for which you have to pay for all the songs, but in some ways it gave us a real taste of the local culture.
We don't have time to visit Quito any longer as we are off at 5am to fly to the Galapagos. We can't wait to send you a post from there.
Ciao
wow your 2 months have flown by but you seem to be finding the best places in the world to see. Lake trip looks wonderful. I hope to go to Quito soon so will try to stay in that hostel. I walked the bridges with Annie Lennox on the 8th for women's day and the sun actually shone all day! Please look out for Tsunami warnings as news is full of South America being hit soon because of huge quake in Japan 250 miles from Tokyo and still caused devastation there and tsunami. 8.4 on scale Be safe and enjoy Galapagos love Bear
ReplyDelete