Day 46: Thunderstorms (Quito)

3/10/2017

After breakfast today we went back into the historic district to the Palaza Grande to do a tour of the Presidential Palace. The tour was much more exceptional than I was expecting. Our guide spoke perfect English and translated for us after doing each section of the tour in Spanish. We saw a mosaic that was made depicting an important battle that Ecuador had with the Spanish when they discovered the amazon river. Then various rooms around the palace. What surprised me was the collection that the president, Rafael Herraro has open to the public. He has received 12,000 gifts since taking office in 2007 which are all on display as part of a museum in the palace. All of the other presidents have taken these gifts to their homes. In addition, all of his medals that he has received and academic diplomas are also on display. My dad said this is something that U.S. presidents have done, but that's not something that I knew of.

After the tour, we stopped at a local artisan chocolate shop. The women explained the process of how to make chocolate, as well as the difference between regular chocolate  (95%) of chocolate and the pure chocolate  (5%.) Of that 5%, Ecuador chocolate is 60% of the market. Most chocolate has very little Cacao with mostly sugar and an alternate paste, whereas the pure true chocolate is mostly Cacao with very little additional paste and sugar. Coco butter is also part of the ingredients.

Afterwards we checked out of our hotel and moved to our new hotel in the north end of new town. Once settled into our room, a massive thunderstorm rolled in. I went to get a crepe at the restaurant next door for lunch while dad napped. Now, I'm just catching up on things I need to do while watching the rain.

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