Morning began in much the same manner, with coffee and hummingbirds on the upper deck. Then we had to repack our luggage and load it on top of a Toyota Land Cruiser. Seven gringo passengers then crawled in the cramped confines for the trip north out of Quito.

Our first stop was the Equatorial Monument. We took the normal touristy photos straddling 0 degrees latitude and then attended a short presentation on how the indigenous cultures had determined the exact line of the equator hundreds of years before the Europeans. And more accurately than the French surveyors who had located the current monument 300 meters off.

Back into the Land Cruiser and we headed off to Otavalo. After checking into the Hotel Otavalo we took a short acclimation hike out of town and through fields up to a "lone tree". There we had an excellent view of the town, a near by lake and what must have been a recent landslide on a hill facing us.

Scott, Steve and I had a beer downstairs before dinner and made plans to hit the local folk craft market when they opened the next morning at 6am.