Saturday 2nd June

Yesterday was International Children's Day and to mark the occasion a party was thrown by the church for the children at the volunteer project. We spent $150 on toys to give as gifts to the children - this was the donation made by Exodus (our trip operator) for our volunteer work. The children had a great time being entertained by a clown and all left with armfulls of gifts in true "CrackerJack" style! Afterwards we had a South American "knees up" with the local volunteers. They really didn't want us to go!

Later we went to a local bar with the Spanish School co-ordinators to drink beer and listen to the live music. A good time was had by all and we made it to bed at about 2 am!

This morning we returned to Quito to join the rest of the "overlanders". There are now 20 of us and we are not the oldest! David can relinquish his title of "abuelo" (this is Spanish for grandad), but only until August! We are being led by two young women - Nat from Oz and Sonia from NZ. We all went to the equator today. A monument was built surrounded by a very touristy park - one problem - its not actually on the equator, thats a few hundred metres north! At the real equator there is a small "museum" where they demonstrate the water going down the plughole and balancing an egg on a nail, etc! David was also able to show his expertise at blowing (non) poisonous darts into the target which was a large Cactus leaf. We were also shown some hideous pickled animals and insects and were given the recipe for shrinking heads and saw one they shrunk earlier! What have we got to come????

We set off at 8 in the morning - haven't seen the vehicle yet. We're heading south to Banos where we spend a couple of days. Just off to the Mongolian BBQ for our first group meal.

Chow