We spend a day in Quito.
Quito.
April 2011.
We spend a day in Quito.
But it starts to rain, and we have to buy umbrellas.
We want to visit the Convent of San Francisco, the largest of the Americas, but unfortunately it is closed.
The merchant on the square takes advantage of the low activity to have a nap!
When Octavie sees a pigeon, she has to run after it.
Matthieu decides to launch an advertising campaign to promote our website and spend 1 USD for a beautiful sticker.
"To satisfy the curious," he explains.
The funny thing is that the day after we received an email from a motorist who had gone to our site!
We have a lot of trouble finding a bivouac in the vicinity of Quito.
After 4 hours of search, we end up in a natural park.
Fortunately it does not happen often.
In the morning we wake up in a beautiful scenery.
With this beautiful green grass it feels like the Alps.
Except that in the Alps, fence posts do not take root ...
We stop at the Mitad del Mundo, a small town north of Quito on the equator.
One foot in the northern hemisphere and another in the southern hemisphere !
The place is dedicated, amongst other things,
to the scientific expedition led by the French in 1736 under the direction of Charles Marie de La Condamine.
They managed to prove that the earth is oblate, and their work gave rise to the metric system.
In the park there is a huge swing, but Matthew is no longer a match for children.
He needs the help of Beatrix to restore balance.
In a souvenir shop, children try Panama hats, which are made in Ecuador as their name does not suggests.
Ecuador is also the land of flowers.
The area of Quito is covered with huge greenhouses full of carnations and roses that will be sold in Europe.
The Otavalo market is known as one of the most typical and the largest in the country.
We buy hammocks for the whole family.
But we are accelerating the movement towards the north because we are behind schedule.
As a result, children work in the car.
