Christmas in Quito

One of my cowworkers had vacation scheduled over christmas so I had
to come over to quito to relieve him, which meant canceling our weekend
trip to visit the inlaws. (oh the pain). Quito isn't a bad tourist city, it's got
the 'mitad del mundo' museum where we saw the effects of the coriolis force
with water swirling counterclockwise on one side of the equator, and
clockwise on the southern side. Then I balanced an egg on the end of a
nail, and shot a blowgun at a cactus. All pretty entertaining stuff for a 12
year olds. These events took place on the actual equator, instead of the pretend
where the mitad del mundo monument sits.

For Christmas, south americans celebrate on christmas eve, with a late dinner, then opening presents at midnight. Since we couldn't eat until 10pm we needed a way to spend a couple
My wife and I took a tour around Quito's churches, and we also went up
to see the statue of the Virgin, which for christmas became part of what must
be the worlds largest nativity scene.




















The statue 2nd from the right is about 90' tall, the
other figures are constructed from christmas lights.
Pretty cool I thought. We opened our presents, and
my wife cunningly wrapped just the remote from
my new tivo that she bought me...whoohoo!

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