There are lots of great museums located in the UNESCO World Heritage listed historic city center of Quito, Ecuador. Some are historical sites and homes while others display art and artifacts.
The Equator monument at La Mitad del Mundo isn’t the only thing to see in San Antonio de Pichincha. There are some very interesting Inca ruins, the crater of an inhabited volcano, and another Equator museum which claims to be the true location of the Equator. You can do some of them on a guided tour booked at La Mitad del Mundo or it’s possible to do all of them alone.
I’ll be honest with you. Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World), a touristic “city” within San Antonio de Pichincha, is a cheesy tourist trap. Its large 30m tall monument is said to be exactly on the equator but is actually about 240m off the mark – but nobody looking at the pictures of you straddling the yellow line has to know.
When traveling between Colombia and Ecuador by bus, you’ll probably have to stop in the border town of Tulcán. It may not seem very exciting at first glance, but it’s worth stopping for an hour to check out a very interesting cemetery.
Riosucio is a town known for its biennial carnival, the Carnival of the Devil (Carnaval del Diablo). It’s one of the most popular and important carnivals in all of Colombia and takes place every January of odd-numbered years. Some rural areas of Riosucio are included in the UNESCO World Heritage listed Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia.
In my one day in Barranquilla, I found almost nothing worthy of a detour to this industrial city. For example, Barranquilla has been called “the Cleveland of Colombia“. That’s an insult to Cleveland.
La Popa Convent (Convento de la Popa) is a monastery at the highest point in Cartagena.
El Centro is the city center of Medellín. It contains some of the city’s most important landmarks. It’s also a great place to observe daily life. El Centro is officially known as La Candelaria and corresponds to Comuna 10.