Well we're done with the Galapagos but we're still in Ecuador in the capital city of Quito. Here are some pictures from out first couple of days of site seeing.


View from the top of a mountain overlooking the city. You take a cable car called the TeleferiQuo to get up there and then you can walk ever further towards the top. You can see that Quito is located right in the middle of the Andes Mountains.


The indigenous people of this region still live separately from everyone else, up in the mountains. Here is one of them on his horse.


Derek and cousin Alex looking over the edge of a precipice. Falling here would be a very bad idea.


A view of Cotopaxi, the largest mountain in Ecuador. It is also a very active volcano.


The Pululagua valley. This was once a huge volcano but the top was blown off during the last eruption. It is now the 5th largest volcanic crater in the world.


A real shrunken head. It is around 120 years old and was the son of the tribes chief at that time. The head hunters still shrink heads today, but are no longer allowed to do it to their enemies. Now they only do it to animals and members of their own tribe if they want to honor them.


I was the only one able to balance an egg on the head of a nail. You can do this anywhere but it is easier if you're directly on the Equator, which we were.


The Equator line. This one is actually fake though, it's around 200 meters off. Not bad though considering it was calculated before GPS or anything. We had visited the real Equator line right before this.


Llama eating some flower that had just been planted.



We had to try cui (guinea pig).


We liked it. Not enough to eat the head though.