Our trip to the Galapagos, Ecuador and Peru - Day 1 - March 6

Day 1 of our tour according to Celebrity:  6 - 9 am Breakfast
       9:00 am Depart for full day city tour including lunch at Crater Restaurant and a visit to the Equatorial Line Monument and Museum.   4:00 p.m. - return to hotel.  6:00 Transfer to Sucre's Theatre Restaurant for dinner.

We walked for 2 or 3 hours visiting Churches, the University, the City Square.  I believe Quito is a UNESCO site.  The City is built on hills and all the streets are up and down.  The buildings have a Moorish/Spanish influence with arches and domes.  A very pretty city.

There were, of course the street vendors, as they are everywhere.  We were told to watch out for children who would pick- pocket.   There were a few urchins around, but they also had security guards everywhere, too.  The people are so friendly.  I never really felt threatened or at risk.

Some photos from at the University. 

A couple of photos from while we were up at the Crater Restaurant.  It is in a volcano crater.

at the Equater Line Monument and Museum.  Pat went up in the elevator and walked down the 8 floors with fantastic views.  It was a zoo getting everyone on the elevator.  I am short of breath, so do not want to do any more high altitude walking than necessary.  We get our Passports stamped with the Equator Monument stamp and a couple of stamped post cards.
Back to the hotel and freshen up. The hotel shop does not have sunglasses.. I broke mine.    I plan my packing for tomorrow because we need to put our bags out at 5:00 am for the flight to Baltra, in the Galapagos National Park.  We had a limit of 30 lbs for our bag and about 15 for our carry on.  They changed the weight to 44 lbs.  Oh well, perhaps I will buy some stuff  when there.
At 6:15 we get on the buses again and go to dinner at the Theatre Restuarant.  It is a served meal - we chose our menu earlier.  Entertained by a very accomplished opera and more, vocalist.
Its been a very busy, long day.  Tomorrow is an early start, too. 

 I have 48 photos for this day when I upload the album to the travel page of my old web page.  The ones here are a sample -- hopefully the best of the lot.  It is just not that easy to get good photos while in a tourist troupe.

At home today: our power was out from about 5:00 am to 2:00 pm.  We had very high winds.  Since I could not do much in the house, I went out and finished transplanting my little rock plants.  I created special spots for the plieones with spagham moss in the soil mix.  The blue poppy also got the same mix and elevated slightly from the present level.  I surrounded the plants with rocks to raise them a bit.  When I got in, the power had just come on.  I made us a comfort food lunch and then had a warm soak in the tub.    I am happy to have the little plants all transplanted.  I hope they survive.  Some of them are just the tiniest... 1" x 3" is the smallest.

I made a strawberry and rhubarb pie.  The rhubarb is very new and tender, so the sugar content seems a bit too much for the pie.  Its very good any way.