Feb. 13 – Quito to Riobamba

Before checking out of out hotel, we made more photocopies of our passports and other important documents, to try to speed up future border crossings.  We walked to the nearby market, and bought a white pineapple, which was on our list of Ecuadorian cuisine to try.  Getting out of Quito proved to be a chore;  it was a long ride, and we got confused a couple of times, and frustrated by closed or blocked streets, and exasperated by terrible traffic and horrible black diesel exhaust, but eventually we made it out the south end of this huge city, and on the Pan American Sur.

It was very slow going, on twisty mountanous  roads, although the roads so far in Ecuador have been some of the best we have encountered.  We did not get as far as we had hoped, and stopped fairly early in Riobamba, because after that town there appeared to be a long stretch of just mountain, with not much chance of finding a place to stay.

We tried to find a restaurant that served cuy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_pigs#As_food), another local dish that Levi wanted to experience, but our search for that proved to be a waste of time.  We asked a cab driver to take us to a place that served this regional dish, but all we accomplished was spending 30 minutes or so touring the neighborhoods of Riobamba, ans spending $3.00.  We settled on eating at a restaurant that advertised Texas steak, and had a very good meal after all.  Returning to our hotel, we enjoyed our white pineapple for desert!

Had no luck getting internet access, and had heavy rain all night.  It has rained on us every day that we have been in Ecuador so far.