Quito, journey to the middle of the world

Either side of our Galapagos trip we stayed in Quito, Equador. I think it is safe to say that it would be no-one's first choice holiday destination were it not for the regular flights to the Galapagos.

This is probably slightly unfair as the city does have several beautiful squares and a rather strange boast, in its northern suburbs it has "el mittad del Mundo" or "the middle of the world!"

The general ambiance of the historic centre with its grand buildings and squares is pretty relaxed although you'd be forgiven for thinking that every other person is a policeman of some kind, this includes the staff in the tourist information office!

Budget wise had been struggling to stay within our limits so we were glad to discover Almuerzos, this is a set lunch menu offered by most restaurants. The meal starts with soup, has a main course of fish (or meat, you do occasionally get a choice) with rice, usually a lentil or tomato sauce and some avacado slices on the side, it is served with a fruit drink of some description and sometimes even comes with a dessert. The whole thing usually costs less that 2 dollars per person and if you pick somewhere with plenty of locals inside it is usually pretty tasty.

In the evening we had several nights to explore the restaurants. We were given dire warnings about stepping out of the tourist zone, so we felt hemmed in to the historical centre where the restaurants are much of a muchness and a main costs between 7-14 dollars. Food is very much meat, some potato and veges an a slice or two of avocado.

There are two main groups of these restaurants, one on the main square in and near the archbishops palace commercial centre and the other is on the restored tourist street called La Ronda. The portions are usually massive in these places so if you have a small appetite skipping a starter would be a plan.

The pick of the restaurants were probably cafe Grand Plaza where I had a very good goat curry and "hasta la vuelta, senior" which had some good steaks and a decent seafood pasta but really we didn't have a terrible or brilliant meal while we were eating in the tourists areas.

Food wise the best find may have been the San Augustin heladoria which has loads of different sorbet flavours made from local fruits (such as cactus and passion fruit) and is definitely a great place to stop on a hot afternoon.

While we were in Quito our luck also ran out on the stomach front, so we only really did one excursion which was to the middle of the earth. We chose the cheap way to get there, which was 2 dollars each in bus fare, rather than the secondary option which was a 45 dollar taxi tour. The buses were very similar to catching the northern line in a morning but other than that got us there OK.

The middle of the earth itself is not really very impressive, it was designated by a group of Frenchmen who wanted a good triangulation point on the equator. They have built a whacking great stone building and marked the equator and a kind of theme park has grown up around it with shops and restaurants.

There are a couple of issues, 1) it is not technically on the equator and 2) the shops etc. don't really have much interesting stuff.

However five hundred metres down the road is the inti-ñan solar museum. This is actually on the equator and for 4 dollars a guide will take you through some equadorian history and show you a load of cool experiments you can do on the equator, such as draining water in the northern and Southern Hemisphere then on the equator, walking down the equator with your eyes closed (fiendishly tricky) and balancing an egg on a nail (surprisingly easy). I think had we paid the 45 bucks for a cab we'd have felt robbed but as it was only 4 dollars and 3 hours of our lives spent on buses it was probably worth while.

Next stop is Bogota, Columbia, which we are flying to despite the cost, mainly because the UK and Australian governments both have do not travel warnings for the border crossing in the south which we had planned to take a bus through.