This morning we found a newly opened cafe with WiFi, so settled into their comfortable lounge chairs to collect emails and upload some recent contributions to whiteacorn. Unfortunately this took much longer than we had hoped as I found a bug in my whiteacorn code. The map of our camping locations was not handling southern latitude with 0 degrees correctly. I had to go back into programmer mode for a few hours to fix it.

Yesterday we realized that Nina's camera is not going to survive much longer, so this morning after the internet session we went to one of the local shopping malls looking for a replacement camera. No luck on the camera but it did give us some experience on one of the Quito public transport systems. The system uses buses that run on dedicated road lanes, has covered stations, and operates just like an above ground metro system. It seemed very efficient, and was certainly well used - that is crowded.

About mid afternoon after our shopping experience was complete we took the same transport system into Quito's old town. We only spent a few hours there so got just a taste. In particular we walked to the basilica on the northern edge of the old town that we had seen a few days ago when Gene gave us the circular tour. It was spectacular and somewhat bizarre, as right next to the basilica, on the up hill side, is a parking lot that is at the level of the basilica's roof line, and the paring lot is not what you would call clean or tidy.

Returning to the Mariscal neighborhood, where we are parked, we spent an hour having drinks alfresco, watching the comings and goings of tourists and local young people. People watching is such a fascinating pastime, despite all of the exotica of being in Quito, the behavior of the local youth is very familiar.