Day 14 - In and around Quito

This morning we had time for a better look round our hotel.  It may not be as nice as the one at Cusco, but the staff are all lovely and it is lovely to look at.  The dining area is particularly spectacular with a statue in the middle.  Apparently she is a Corpus Christi dancer. Breakfast was the same sort of buffet we had got used to in Peru.

Our first visit of the day was to the viewpoint at the statute of the Virgin Mary given to Quito by France
.

Then it was down the hill to the city centre.  Having a guide who is also the driver is very different from Peru, as he needs to find a place to park.  This seems to be accomplished by greasing the palm of a local.  The vehicle is also very different as it seems to be his private car, a rather old Suzuki Grand Vitara which is not cleaned daily like the buses in Peru.  His driving style so far has been ‘interesting’.

Once out of the car we walked into the city on the triumphal route of the locals who beat off the Spanish.  Our first church was the Iglesias Santo Domingo, very impressive.



Then it was on to the Monastery of San Francisco, which Diego told us is the most important church for the locals.  He expected to be able to get in for free, but it was closed, so we had to go in via the cloisters for which there is a charge.  It was very impressive.


Our final church was the massive grey Basilica del Voto National which is quite plain compared with the other churches, much more like an northern European cathedral.
On the way to the Equator we stopped for a snack of empanadas at a roadside café.

Our Equator experience was Museo Solar Inti Nan, which is on the site of an ancient burial chamber, rather than the Mitad del Mundo park.  Apparently neither is actually on the equator, but the experiments worked!

We saw the main square once yesterday, but didn’t take photos, and twice today.  The first time it was absolutely submerged in a big celebration and demo, attended by lots of police some with riot shields, but we didn’t see any trouble.  After our tour, we went out again and the sky was really dark, so not the best photos.


The guide book said the must-see church was the Iglesias de la Company de Jesus.  As it wasn’t on our tour, we headed out to see it and it was absolutely magnificent.  We got stuck in there while it rained, which was no hardship.  

We then went to one of the cafés in the Archbishop’s palace building for meat stew, which turned out to be a huge plate of meat in sauce, potato, rice, avocado, and salad.  Very good value.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 23 - Fernandina and Isabela islands

Image
The boat moved overnight, which was a 13 hour trip.  The sea was rather rough, so despite seasick pills, Glynis didn’t have the best night and didn’t want a great deal of breakfast.  The first activity of the day was a panga (RIB) ride along at Mangle Point on Ferdinanda Island.  What we saw was simply amazing . . . The late morning activity was snorkelling which Glynis decided against, after her bad night, so we sat on the sun deck and watched for the pangas coming back. After lunch we moved to Punta Moreno on Isabella island and after another panga ride along the coast, which showed just how good the RIB drivers are, as it was pretty rough, we landed on this relatively new section of island for a walk. This was all about lava flows, it was desolate with only a few cacti.  Further in were fresh water ponds with one solitary flamingo.   On our way back we had a very lucky encounter with a fishing boat cleaning the fish.  They were surrounde...
Read more

Day 3 - Around Arequipa

Image
After a good sleep, a nosebleed was a bad start to the day for Glynis, but it settled down and we made it to breakfast, which was interesting.  Coca tea was an option and so was fried pork, an interesting change from bacon, but we kept it light and just had fruit and a small amount of the interesting cooked options. Our guide for this area, Grace, arrived promptly at 9am and we set off in a minibus just the 2 of us to two viewpoints outside the city.  The first looked across the valley of the Chili River to the Volcanoes Misti and Chachani and out to the right we could see Pichu Pichu.  The second looked out from a church through arches with text celebrating Arequipa.  We then headed to an Alpaca 'factory' where we saw the animals and learned to distinguish alpacas from llamas and vicunas. Once back in the city centre, we saw a mini festival of Puno people before we visited the Museo Sanctuaries Andinos dedicated to the frozen sacrifice of a young gir...
Read more

Peru and Equador

"If we are going all that way we should go for at least a month" said Pete early in 2017, but has denied it ever since.  A month in October and November is it seems the most inconvenient time of year! Back in February we spent quite a lot of time deciding what we wanted to see in Peru and Ecuador and approached 3 companies for itineraries and quotes.  Only one really listened both to the time of year we'd decided on and put in all the things we wanted to see, so we chose Bespoke Latin America.  It would be expensive but included all our must sees and many of our would like to sees. After  a year of hiccups and surprises, it was October and we were finally ready to go. Or so we thought; read our blog to hear what we managed to miss or mess up!
Read more