From Middle Earth to Evolution

We are OUT of Central America (and hopefully won't have to worry about influenza A again).

We are in South America now, in Quito in Ecuador to be precise. We are here for one of the highlights of our trip - a week-long dive safari in the Galapagos islands which are off the coast of Ecuador - so we've taken a couple of days unwinding in Quito and sorting ourselves out to make sure we are as ready as possible for the trip.

Quito (lit. Middle Earth) is only 20km or so from the actual Equator line so we went down there yesterday. It's quite touristy but fun, we balanced an egg on a nail and learned the effects of the Coriolis force. And jumped back and forth between hemispheres like loons.

As an editor's note, we've finally put up all the blog entries that we've been putting off for ages while we've been lazing around the Caribbean, and I've annotated them with most of the photos we have taken. We'll be out of touch for the next week or ten days but will hopefully return with lots more excitement!

(later editors note - computer problems again so it will be a while before we get pictures up)