On our last night we met a lovely Dutch couple while playing cards in the dining room of Casa Verde and spent a few hours drinking and chatting. It made getting up for our bus trip back to Quito a bit difficult. Our local taxi driver Adolphi was very disappointed that he was only driving us to the Banos bus stop and not Quito. So much so that Deryn and I agreed that he could in fact drive us all the way to Quito, saved us from hanging around the bus stop.
Our hotel Real Audiencia was in the heart of Old Quito, which made wandering around the old town very easy. Quito felt very different to the other South American cities we had visited – a weird mix of very old, run down but tidy, loads of cops and tourist police (made you feel safe, mostly) and some of the most intriguing looking people we had encountered to date. We spent the first afternoon exploring the old town’s squares – the Plaza Grande and Plaza San Francisco. We then headed to the Basilicia del Voto National – a church whose spires dominated the eastern skyline of the old city.
We paid $2 to check out the cathedral – OK – and then paid another $2 to climb the towers. The views of the cathedral from within the towers were amazing – we wasted $4 – and then you got to walk across the the roof of the cathedral, following which you could climb 3 flights of incredibly steep stairs to the top of the spire. Like climbing ship stairs. Just a a lot higher. Definitely worth doing. Dinner was our most expensive since Cusco at $32. Hell’s teeth.
We did a 3 hour guided walk of old Quito the next morning. The tour started at the Community Hostel – a really buzzy, nice place. We wished we had stayed there – everyone was so friendly. The first stop of the tour was the local market with numerous stalls visited and sampled. The rest of the tour was more historical but really, really good. A nice mix of history, culture and even economics. After a lunch in one of the many dodgy looking chicken places, and a kip, we headed back out to explore some of the stuff we had seen in the morning but wanted to see more of.
First on the list was the Casa Gangotena – the best museum I have ever seen for making history real. After a bit of a battle with a big group of students, we found our mojo and enjoyed a hour of trying to figure what the hell was going on in these lifelike scenes. All the signs were in Spanish – except the names of course. We also took a fair few photos after being told we were not allowed. Tsk. Tsk. It was then a quick viewing of the Salvador Dali exhibition of a whole load of his sketches. He was one weird, organ obsessed fellow. We had dinner in a pub in the old town’s party zone which was a wee bit spoiled by my dodgy chicken. Two bites and I knew it was wrong. No after effects thankfully.
We moved to the Swissotel on Friday morning as part of our Galapagos package. We got there early so was told to go have breakfast (second for the day) while our room was being prepared. Nice. We then headed up the TelefericQo – Quito’s gondola up the east side of Pichincha Volcano – to a height of 4000m. Our taxi to the start did not have the grunt to get up the steep last km of the road so Dits and I had to get out and walk. Not easy at 3100m. Compounded with this was the fact that it was overcast with rain up top. However we soldiered on, paid our $8.50 and had a gondola to ourselves. It was a spectacular climb, even with the last 5 mins being completely clouded over. The top was shrouded for the first 30 minutes before the cloud lifted and we got to see some of the spectacular scenery. Once again the ever popular swing was sampled – best yet! We could not see the other 5 or 6 volcanoes but it was still magic. Even after getting soaked in the hail downpour. We had our own gondola again on the way down – dodgy looking gringos perhaps?
We walked some of the journey back to the hotel – not the most attractive area actually. Then it was cards and our free Mojito, followed by a buffet in the executive lounge. We gorged before crashing nice and early on account of our 5.15am pick up in the morning.
And now some Quito observations – they sell motorbikes with TVs, beds an fridges. Like Harvey Norman with a motorbike section. They have triple length buses. And coffee comes in a concentrated form that looks like soy sauce. You mix it with hot water. There are many desperate looking Venezuelans. Mostly selling lollipops on the side of the road. One traveller we met said the border crossing from Colombia was a tragic sight. She said there were literally hundreds of Venezuelans, some in UNICEF first aid tents, all desperate to escape.
