Fun Facts

-Quito is the capital city of Ecuador and lies in the middle of the Andes Mountains at 2.850m (9,350ft) above sea level

-Quito lies just to the East of the active stratovolcano Pichincha which is also the name of the province in which it lies

-Ecuador is about the size of Colorado and is divided into 24 provinces, one of which is the Galapagos Archipelago (Islands)

-Ecuador has the most biodiversity per square kilometer out of all the countries in the world

-The country is split between the costal region, the highlands, and the amazon region in the mainland,                plus the Galapagos Islands

-Ecuador gets its name for being on the Equator.  The country was known as Quito, but when the French came to study the shape of the world, they called it the Land of the Equator so that there was no reference to the fact that they were in a Spanish domain and the name stuck.

-The piping in Quito is pretty awful and you can't flush toilet paper- you have to throw it away

-Ecuador uses the US dollar because their economy collapsed 10 years ago, but there is a change crisis and it is difficult to get change for $20s even though that's what ATMs distribute

-Ecuador is one of 2 countries in South America that doesn't border Brazil