Arriving into Quito we could hardly believe that this was our last stop in South America after so many countries and so many good times.

The new city is an area full of bars and restaurants and it honestly feels like Temple Bar in some parts. We took it pretty easy in Quito, sampling the local cuisine and even finding a great Irish bar, Finn McCools run by Ursula from Armagh. We did take a wander around the Old City but to be honest that was as far as our cultural exploits went.. sorry we´re tired!

Otavalo is a town two hours north of Quito which is famous for its Saturday indigineous market. We took a trip up there on the Saturday and really enjoyed wandering around the stalls for a few hours, bargaining with the locals and admiring their traditional dress. All the women wear a long wrap around skirt and white blouses with gold beads around their necks and brightly coloured shawls. The men are less flamboyant but most of them have long plaits down their backs with dark brimmed hats.

No trip to Ecuador could be complete without visiting the Equator and so we boarded 3 local buses on a long and interesting trip out to see it. We were the only gringos on the bus so we got some funny looks, particularly from the children who thought we were real oddities. The French built a monument on the line where they estimated the Equator was many years before GPS became available and the monument is now like Ecuador´s disneyland called Ciudad de Mitad del Mundo (City at the centre of the world) with hordes of tourists having their photos taken with the monument and spending ridiculous amounts of money on ice creams and souvenirs. The funny thing is with GPS they have found that in fact the equator is actually 200 metres north of where they built the amusement park type monument and some enterprising young soul has set up the real equator museum. This museum at the real equator is small, has no way near as many tourists and show lots of semi scientific exhibits to show the effects of centrifugal forces on either side of the equator. They did the famous ´Which way does the water drain´ test and I was satisfied to see that on the northern hemisphere it goes anti clockwise and on the southern it drains clockwise while directly over the equator it goes straight down. Scientifically minded Gareth wasn´t so sure, however he did manage to balance an egg on the head of a nail and even got a certificate, we´re very proud!

As a final farewell to all the beautiful scenery we´ve seen and all the adventure sports we´ve tried we took a day trip out to Mindo in the Ecuadorian rain forest. We started off the day mildly with lots of butterflies, hummingbirds (God they move fast) and beautiful orchid watching. Then the real fun began as we got all harnessed up and ready to launch ourselves over the rainforest on 13 canopies (for all the kiwis reading this canopy or zip lines are actually flying foxes). It was absolutely amazing, we went flying (in all different positions!) across the rain forest suspended only by our harnesses attached to wires. The best positions were the Butterfly, where our legs were sticking into the air, held their by the instructor, and we were looking straight up at the sky, the trees and the rainforest covered mountains in the background, and Superman, where we made like Superman flying through the air. Absolutely brilliant fun and a great way to take in the breathtaking scenery. Oh and a few toucans even popped along to say hi.

After the canopy we headed to another area of Mindo and stripped down to go tubing down a river. The water was freezing and we were all sitting on top of huge tyres which were tied together and holding on for dear life as we went flying down the vicious white waters. It was good fun, though very nerve wracking as half of the time we were going backwards with no idea what was coming. When we had time to appreciate the views the scenery was gorgeous with tropical flowers growing all along the banks of the river but to be honest most of the time we were too busy trying to catch our breath and stay above water. Great fun!