A snapshot of our day

So we were wondering how Cully was going to do when he woke up and the short answer is he was feeling better.  We are still not sure that something isn't making him feel bad, but he was able to do everything that we did today and do it feeling pretty well!  So, praise the Lord for that!  Thanks for the prayers!

Our day started with a tour of Old Quito.  Our hotel is in the newer part of the city, so it was a little bit of a drive.  We boarded our bus (with the rest of our group...more on that later) and headed toward Old Town.  

The first part of the tour started heading up the mountain to see a statue that oversees Old Town.  Here is a shot of the city while we were heading up the mountain.  

Here is a shot of the statue.  She was beautiful!  They call her El Panecillo.  You can look up more about her on the internet but she has a lot of symbolism.  1st of all, she stands on a snake and holds a chain that is attached to the snake.  In Catholicism, the snake is a symbol that represents evil and thus she is holding evil back.  There is so much more about dancing and flying and the 12 stars in her crown represent the 12 apostles and such.  Pretty fun and once again, beautiful!

Here we are overlooking the city!

We then headed down into Old Town.  This arch is one of the original arches into the city when it was surrounded entirely by a wall.  They said that this was the gate that the natives would come in and out of from the mountains.  They had to leave at 5 pm, so about that time there was a mass exodus of people heading back to the mountains.  They had to leave because if they did not they could get in trouble for trying to live in the city!  Pretty crazy but true!

Another family shot of a bridge and cool street in Old Town.

This is a soldier that is posted outside the Presidents Mansion and Government headquarters.  There was one on each side of this breeze way.  

In old town, we visited several cathedrals and they were all beautiful!  It was funny because every one that we went into had a mass happening.  There are 7 churches on one street.  Each church has a convent, a boys school, girls school and public square for people to socialize in.  We visited 3 of the four and the last one is the oldest church in South America...San Francisco.  The seven churches are called the seven crosses.
 

After our tour, we grabbed some lunch and had the afternoon to do what we wanted.  After some discussion, we decided to get a cab and head to the Mitad del Mundo...Middle of the Earth.  We were a little hesitant with Cully and not knowing how he was going to do, but once we got there, it was awesome!  It was about an hour drive from our hotel.  We visited a little museum first and learned about the differences between the hemispheres.  The museum also had a lot of information about the different tribes that live in Ecuador including the tribe that Jim Elliot came to Ecuador to live with and spread God's love to.  They had examples of houses they would have lived in, tools they would have used, and weapons they would have used.  It was quite fascinating!

Here we all are standing in both hemispheres at the same time!

Here they are tight rope walking on the equator...so technically they are in neither hemisphere!

After the museum, our taxi driver took us to the official monument on the equator.  Here are a couple of pictures at the monument.  It was a really cool place that had many shops, eating spots, and museums as well.  We visited a couple shops, got some souvenirs, saw some creepy bugs they had on display and then headed back.

All in all it was an amazing day!  I promised a little bit more about our group...so here you go.  We are here with a travel company and thus are here with other people who are here to see the Galapagos and Ecuador. So, for the next 5 days, we will be spending a lot of time with them.  They are all super nice.  There are 10 of us all together.  There is one guy from Nashville, TN, one guy from Denver, CO, husband and wife from Omaha, Nebraska, and two ladies from Houston, TX. They are all super nice and I think we are going to have a great time.  The couple from Omaha have a daughter that lives in Gilbert, AZ.  What a small world!

So, tomorrow we have a wake up call at 4:30 am, leave for airport at 5:30 am, and then fly to the Galapagos at 8:15 am.  We should get there around lunch time they said.  We have to make one stop on another island.  Not sure why, just along for the ride.

So, I will try and post pictures tomorrow of our travels.  Our hotel is supposed to be pretty nice so we should have wifi!

So until then...

Grace and Peace