Between the two hemispheres.

"You can fall in love at first sight with a place as with a person" - Alec Waugh

I spent the last month in Quito, an Ecuadorian capital city located on the ecuator. While Quito is almost as high up in the Andean mountains as La Paz, my experiences in the capital cities of the two Latin American states were different in many ways. In La Paz I had more free time to explore the city, and living in downtown helped me to get out on my own and explore. In Quito I had little time to explore because I had class for five hours a day and lived in the suburbs of the city. There, I mostly hung out with my host family and got to know family life in Ecuador, which was a very fun experience.
Quito is a beautiful city with a rich historical and cultural backgrounds. My first memory of Quito is the tour of the historical center - the heart of the Ecuadorian capital. There are giant cathedrals and old churches constructed in the gorgeous style of the colonial architecture on every street of the historical center, sometimes more than one per street. Many of these have priceless paintings and artifacts, dating back to 1500s.
After touring the historical center of Quito, we went to the ecuator line that divides the city into northern and southern hemispheres. Basically, that means that it is winter in southern half of Ecuador and summer in the northern half.
Another flashback that stands out in my mind is the first day at the University of San Francisco de Quito. This is one of the most expensive private colleges in Quito - the tuition alone costs around $10,000 a semester. Even though USFQ is tiny, the campus is gorgeous, with beautiful landscaping, a pond, and a pagoda.
My last memory of Quito that I want to share is that of the Panecillo - a bread-shaped hill on the outskirts of town that has great views of the entire city. On top of the hill, there is a statue of the Virgin of Panecillo, who watches over Quito. Even though we came to Panecillo on a cold and cloudy day, the views of Quito were still impressive. Through the dark cover of clouds and smog, the buildings spread out into the distance as far as the eye could see. Thousands of cars passed by on the highways below, all hurrying to get more than two million inhabitants of Quito to wherever they were going. Below only the Virgin of Panecillo, we watched life from the top of the world, it seemed.
I have many other memories of Quito and Ecuador; most of them come from spending time with my host family - playing games, learning to dance, watching movies, etc. I am grateful for those memories because the best travel experiences don't come from places themselves - they come from people you meet there. Traveling opens up new doors to different worlds -but the people are the keys to understanding new cultures.