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On our first day in Quito all we manage is a sleep, a sit down in a cafe with a beer in the sun and a trip to the cinema to watch the new Harry Potter (which was excellent).
The next day we manage some retail therapy in the markets, me and Sharon both now on the hunt for presents to take home, holdalls have even been purchased to aid us in this quest!! Then we head again for a wander, this time in the old quarter, which is pretty desserted in appears on Sundays so the only thing for it is another beer! After lunch we head up ridiculously steep cobbled streets (in a taxi I might add) to the viewpoint at the top. A very pleasant afternoon, the locals were all out flying kites and the view back down to town was very nice. That evening I have my first bath in 10.5 months (clearly I have had showers in the meantime!!)
Equator time next and we head to latitude 0'0'0", proud of the fact that less than 1 month ago we were at the most southern point of the world and we have now made it (entirely on buses) back to the middle! We got our passports stamped, I recorded a video message for Mark and Vicky (with one foot in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern) and we took loads of photos of course. We are annoyed that we didn't check to see which way the water went down the plug hole, but I have it on good authority that it goes straight down here.
Then we pick up our tour and the nightmares begin.... cashpoints or more banks become an issue. Both Lloyds and Nationwide think that it's helpful after this long travelling to suddenly start cancelling my cards, not once but twice even after I phoned up to confirm it was actually me trying to get cash out of the cashpoint. Having to pay $500 local payment for our trip is a big issue, we trawl big hotels trying to get cash advances, but I don't think they liked the look of me in my hippy pants (if only I'd brought a suit away travelling!!). We even contemplated the idea of going into a casino buying chips with a credit card and then cashing them in. Lets just say our tour leader was being less than helpful, saying we wouldn't be able to go to the Galapagos unless we gave her the cash in full!! Trawling the streets of Quito with large sums of cash also wasn't appealing as I get the feeling it's a bit dodgy here too, the lonely planet even warns you to be careful. In the end we got away with writing her a letter saying we promised to get the balance out of a cashpoint on return and we were allowed to go....it was like being back at school. Lets hope this being on a tour thing improves.
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