Kofi Annan

While we were in Otavalo we saw on the news that Kofi Annan was visiting Ecuador, and planning to visit the Galapagos Islands. Fair enough - we thought nothing more of it.

Today we planned to spend wandering the Old and New Towns of Quito. We noticed straight away that there seemed to be a rather heavier-than-usual police presence in the streets, and our suspicions were soon confirmed when we saw a convoy of expensive cars zoom past us at high speed.

We chased after them (in a manner of speaking), and ended up waiting outside one of Quito's many historical museums. After about half an hour there was a bit of a commotion and suddenly out popped Kofi Annan himself, flanked by lots of scary-looking armed guards. Security clearly wasn't that tight however - we were only about two metres away from him. He and his entourage walked along the street, so we dashed in front of him with the TV crews taking photos and gawping. He ended up on Plaza de la Independencia, and went into the Palacio del Gobierno. We noticed later that the square was surrounded by riot police, and there were at least six snipers positioned on the buildings around it! Scary!

Well, that was pretty cool. So far in South America we have seen one head of state (Chavez) and now the Secretary General of the United Nations. Who will we spot next? ;-)