At 9,348 feet, Quito is the second highest capital in the world after La Paz, Bolivia and is located 14 miles south of the equator. It was founded in 1534 and now has a population of 2 million people. The population of Ecuador is 12 million. I was very surprised to find out that since 2000, the offical currency is the US dollar. One country where I won´t have to figure out the currency. They do have Ecuadorian coins of 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50 cents along with US coins. I was at a store and counting out change and she pointed to one of our ¨state¨ quarters that I still had left over from home. She wanted it so I gave it to her and she said Alabama in her spanish accent. It was very cute.
In the afternoon, I took a taxi to Fundacion Guaysamin, a museum of the famous Ecuadorian artist, Oswaldo Guaysamin. There were 3 different buildings. One with his collection of pre-Columbian art, colonial art and then his own art. It was very interesting and I loved all the pottery. The pottery pictures are from this museum. I hate to admit that I hadn´t heard of him before but I did recognize some of his pieces by sight.
I had dinner at the hotel, ceviche is a popular Ecuadorian dish and so are empanadas so I had both. It was very good and only $7.00. They had a keyboardist playing and when he was finished he came over to talk to me for about an hour. He had been to the States and was desperately trying to help me with my Spanish!
