1. Mars, Eirik´s birthday, we strolled of the bus in Quito about 0600 a.m. Blindly following the lonely planet travel-guide we ended up in an ok hostel within walking distance from the centre. Quito is a big town, with loads of things to see and do. So we decided to split up the sights in "new town" and "old town" and use 1 day to explore each part. In the new town, day 1, we went to "parque Carolina" where there is a vivarium, a botanical garden, scientific museums and much more. Tickets were a little steep, so we looked more on the outside of things than on the inside. The highlight was the Vivarium, where they host loads of different reptiles from the rainforest. Nice to know what waiting for us in the rainforest, even though not all the animals seem as pleasant. As time passed we started to look for a bar to watch Chelsea - Man utd, wich was on at 1500 here in Ecuador. luckily, we found a huge sportsbar and had ourself a little

birthday - celebration there. And as you probably know, Chelsea won and Eirik had a blast! We finished of the day by falling asleep on the couch at the hostel, watching a movie.

On wednesday, we decided to change hostel. Mostly because we wanted something cheaper. We found "hostel san blas", perfect location, nice price and really pleasant owners. In the old part of town there´s more art and cultural museums, massive churches and basiliscs. Just walking around old town is a nice experience aswell, even though its a littly busy with tourists. Since none of us are huge art - fanatics, we managed to round of the day relatively early, saving up some energy for the day after and the walk up to the volcano Pichincha.
A short taxi-ride to the north part of Quito lies the volcano pichincha(apr. 4700moh) and the Telerifiqo, a gondol that takes you up to 4100moh. Unfortunately, when we got on the gondol there was a lot of fog, so we didnt get to enjoy the view of Quito and the landscape around on the ride up. In our travel guide, "south america on a shoestring", it´s written that the hike should be about 3 hours for fit walkers and that you need to aclimatise before trekking up. But as it turned out, walking from the gondol platform and up to the top is really not a problem before you get to the last 150-200moh. The hills are steep, and you feel the altitude on your body while ascending. We spent about 1.5 hours to the top, cashing in a new personal altitude - record. From the top we had a beautiful view of both Quito and a couple of the closest volcanos. We cought a short glimpse of Cotopaxi, a huge volcano not to far from Quito, but the clouds where to dense to really exploit the view. We also got to see some big praying birds up close. Magnificent animals.

Being in Quito, it´s almost mand¡tory to visit the ecuator - line and "la ciudad mitad del mundo". Again following the lonely planet guide, we ended up with a troublesome busride to the city, the book has its flaws. But after a 2-2.5 hour busride, wich costs about 4-5NOK, we got to the ecuator - line that the french measured in the 19th century. Its basically a small town, with a bunch of cafés and resturants, and a big monument where the first measurements where made. But, the best experience from the city isn´t the monument, its the insectarium. They have a huge variety of beetles, spiders, butterflies and more, both dead and alive. I´ve seen bugs like this on TV, but seeing them in real life, even though in cages, was really cool. You wouldn´t belive how big beetles, like the rhino - beetle and the hercules - beetle, can get in the rainforest. Wow. They also had butterflies who camuflage themselves by looking as an owl. Not just being similar, but when they have their wings out it´s actually like staring an owl in the eyes.

Of course, the french missed by a couple of meters, and after doing real measurements with GPS, they found the real ecuator, 300m north of "la ciudad mitad del mundo", and made a museum there aswell. It is basically a funny combination of indeginous history and experiments "showing" that you are actually on the ecuator. We recomend going there. The experiments are not to scientific, but good fun. And you get to see water flowing straight down a drain, without spinning. Something you cant see anywhere else in the world.

In the evening we had planned to see a friend of ludvig from Quito, they met in the states during the exchange progarm 6 years ago. We drove around with her and here boyfriend, seeing more of the city and stopping at a couple of places to have a cerveza or two. We rounded of the night by checking out a casino. Just for fun, we tried playing some roulette, and ended up winning about 20$ each. Wich is about 3-4 nights in a hostel, so good value for backpackers on a budget!

All in all, our stay in Quito was a great success, and we feel we got to do and see the most important parts of the city. Next stop, the famous marked in Otavalo!

Pictures are coming when the carnival is over :)