As some of you may know, Caroline and I love our holidays. You may have heard around the office that we spend more time on holidays than we do at work. Not true! I have been asked to share some of our recent experiences. In February we visited South America for the third time. It is a place that we have enjoyed very much with it’s diversity. Mountains, lakes, volcanoes, lovely people and fabulous food. There are destinations for everyone’s taste.
This visit we started in Quito, Ecuador. Quito is one of the highest capital cities in the world at 2,850m above sea level. The city is surrounded by volcanoes which allows fabulous vistas that change constantly. The cloud cover comes and goes so fast that you see a peak one minute and then it is gone.
From many of the higher vantage points around the city you can look down on what appears to be a perfect mosaic. There are many fascinating and historical places to visit here, but we also ventured out into the nearby countryside – visiting the Equator Line. Most think this is just a line but there is a demonstration of the effect of North and South. Using just a portable sink and a bucket of water the sink is moved into three positions – one on the equator line and two metres either side, North and South. On the line, the water poured straight through, however at just two metres either side, the water obviously swirled clockwise and anti-clockwise, such is the strength. We visited Otavalo, a traditional native town with handicraft markets. We also visited Cotopaxi National Park, at 4,200 metres above sea level to see the amazing snow capped conical volcano. 
The air here was quite thin and you were reminded of that if you moved about too quickly. We also visited Mindo, a rainforest area to the North, which featured adventure activities, ziplines, waterfalls, rapids adventures and more, as well as lots of birds including many varieties of hummingbirds which were truly beautiful. Quito was a great place to visit and was the starting point of our trip which took us to the Galapagos next and then on to Patagonia.
These destinations will feature in our upcoming newsletters.
This article appeared in our May 2017 newsletter.
