Quito

Ecuador's capital and largest city, Quito seems to be a place you either love or hate.  We fell somewhere in the middle.  To be fair, Quito and I got off to a rocky start.  The city is divided into the Old Town, a charming section of colonial buildings, sprawlings plazas, and beautiful churches, and the New Town, a modern metropolis of bars, restaurants, and businesses.  Our guidebook told us that the bus station was a mere two kilometers from our hostel in the Old Town but we decided to take a cab rather than walk through the city with all of our belongings on display.  However, having been overcharged by taxis before, I was determined not to let it happen again.  When our driver, who failed to turn on his meter, began zigzagging through New Town I had a feeling we were about to be taken for a different kind of "ride." After about 15 minutes we arrived at the Plaza San Blas where our hostel was located and the driver told me I owed him $7.  As our 3 hour bus ride from Otavalo only cost $4 for both of us, there was no way I was handing this joker almost double that.  So I summoned up all the Spanish I knew and what followed was a 10 minute shouting match on the streets of Quito.  My side of the argument went something like this: "$7 is too expensive.  Is that the gringo price? Yesterday it only cost $3.  Why didn't you use your meter? I only have $3.  You can call the police, I'm not paying." Since he wasn't budging and a crowd was starting to form, I grudgingly handed over the money.  It wasn't until later that I learned the Old Town bus station had been moved to northern New Town and it was, in fact, about $7 for a taxi ride.  Needless to say, I felt like a jerk.  So if anybody out there knows the driver of Taxi 679 in Quito, you can apologize from me for wasting his time.
After this great introduction to Quito, we checked into our hostel where Laura did her best to calm me down and convince me to enjoy the rest of our day.  Since it was Sunday, the Old Town was closed to car traffic and made for an inviting stroll back in time to colonial days.  We took in the sights, snapped pictures of gorgeous churches and street performers, and had a drink in one of the many beautiful plazas Quito has to offer.
The next day we took a couple local buses (I was still not over our taxi experience) to the Mitad del Mundo, a tourist trap marking the equatorial line of Earth.  Besides an interesting museum focusing on the different indigenous tribes of Ecuador, the only real fun here was snapping pictures of eachother straddling the equator.
We spent the rest of the day touring Old Town, eating chocolate donuts which tasted neither like chocolate nor donut, and enjoying the sunset from our hostel's rooftop terrace.
In the end, Quito was a nice place to visit but we've learned that the big cities aren't really for us.

Rooftop view

Drinks and people-watching on the Plaza San Francisco.

Plaza San Blas and Dog

Straddling the World