Quito

I arrived to Quito and walked through the historic centre and kept going to the new centre to find a hotel. Around the old centre the streets were lined with modern bars and restaurants, and before long the discos were starting to crank up. I settled down for a beer with the only problem that they would only sell sets of 3 x 1L bottles.... not to worry. A few locals joined in for a few drinks (Andrea, Jessica, etc) then we headed off to a local rock concert before continuing on to the salsateca to show off the dance moves for the rest of the night.
On Saturday I headed to the old centre to see the sights of town. The various plazas were impressive with all the old colonial buildings, as was the Presidential Palace. The highlight of Quito was unexpectantly the Basilica where they let me climb right to the top of 2 of the church spires. This involved plenty of rickety little ladders but afforded fantastic views of the entire city. In the evening we headed out to see the Saturday nightlife with everyone from the hostel. Needless to say that Sunday turned into a rest day with just a little walk around the cafes and watching a few movies with everyone at the hostel until early Monday morning.
With the remaining days in South America rapidly running out, I made an early start and headed to Mitad del Mundo which is the where the equator runs along just north of the city. First was the french calculated ecuator with a great big monument indicating the compass directions and the obligatory photo with the 0 degree sign. This marked the most northern point of my trip in South America, and plenty of long bus trips. After this was the peruvian gps calculated ecuator about 100m further north where the museum demonstrated the various phenomenans that occur on the ecuator. These are results of the correolis forces and were demonstrated with balancing an egg on a nail, the flow of water down a drain, and the reduction in resistance in your muscles. The museum also had a shrunken human head which looked cool. In the evening I caught up for dinner with Andrea, Jessica and friends, and then went out for a Monday night pub crawl with the hostal crowd. By about 3am we bumped into the Joannas (Giovanna and Yoanna from Lima) as they were knocking off work so we danced on till late in the morning.
Tuesday was my day to go shopping and replace the clothes and shoes that are all getting worn out after 5 months of travelling. Unfortunately after visiting almost every shoe shop in Quito, the biggest size available was consistently 2 sizes too small for me, so the shopping gets to wait until Europe. For the final night in South America I caught up with Jessica, Andrea and Co for a few drinks at our regular cervezeria, before having a food Argentinian parillada for dinner and then called past the bar where the Joannas were working for a few drinks, before moving onto another pub down the street.
Wednesday the Joannas and I headed up to the cable car (teleferico) that goes to the top of the mountain (4100m) on the edge of Quito. Unfortunately I only had a few hours until I had to get to the airport, and there was a very long queue, so instead we headed to the theme park and did a few runs of the loop-the-loop roller coaster and the spinning pirate ship.

The trips I need to come back to America for...
Venezuala, Colombia, Ecuador incl. Galapagos Islands - 3 months.
Central America (Mexico to Panama) - 4 months.
Trekking Patagonia, incl Antarctica - 2 months.
Trekking Southern Peru - 1 month.