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Published: December 23rd 2011
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We arrived in the Ecuadorian capital after a nice and short bus ride which was a welcome change from the usual. Quito is after La Paz the second highest capital of the world at about 2800m and luckily we were still used to the high altitude and could enjoy the city a little bit more than La Paz.
The main parts of the city are the historical center with lots of churches and museums and "new town" which is less touristy and more comercial with lots of restaurants and bars. Our hostel was at the edge of the historical center and we were quite in the middle of things.
Our first goal in Quito was to book our trip to the Amazon and we will write all about that in the next blog post. After the trip was set, we were ready for some sightseeing and started at the botanical garden in "new town". The highlight was definately the butterfly house and we got a first glance of some critters we would see again in the Amazon. Tarantulas, I am talking to you.
The Ejido Parque in "new town" hosts a daily crafts fair and we stopped by
twice for some souvenir shopping but the modern part of Quito was really not that exciting in comparison to the historical center which is also an UNESCO world cultural heritage site.
The streets in the historic center are aligned with many colorful houses and overlooked by some impressive buildings. The Basilica looks like a smaller version of the Cologne cathedral, the San Francisco convent hosts parrots in the courtyard aswell as a collection of religious art, the president's palace offers free tours, the former archbishop's palace is now filled with shops and restaurants and the church "La Compañía de Jesus" is decorated with tons of gold, typical South American kitsch. The hill "El Panecillo" with its angel statue on top thrones over all this.
We made our way through town mainly by bus and it happened a couple of times that we were the tallest people on the bus. Quite amazing.
A lot of small stores in the center sell roasted nuts, turrón and the before mentioned "dulce de guyana" and we stocked up on those sweets as a substitute for all the christmas candy we are missing out on.
"Mitad del Mundo", the middle of
the earth, the point in which the equator passes is located about 35km outside of town. Actually, the spot in which the monument is standing is not really the equator, it has been measured with GPS devices that the equator passes about 240m north of the monument but oh well, if Ecuador doesn't mind, we don't mind and we went for a quick daytrip to stand on the fake equator line.
Quito has apparently built a couple of new bus stations in the past years. They all cover different directions, so if you want to go north from Quito you have to go to the north terminal. Easier said then done, especially if the taxi driver doesn't know a) that there is a north terminal and b) where it is. We cruised around town with the taxi driver asking random pedestrians where to go for a while. When we finally passed a bus station, we thought we made it after all but the taxi driver just drove by and it took him three wrong turns to get back, even Grim didn't think it was funny anymore at that point. We finally made it there after an hour. Hooray.
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Markito de Quito
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I like the parrots!
Juuhuu! Sophie boo and Grim! What a great post this is about your time in Quito! I've been to Quito before and it's a nice city with a high altitude that almost killed me. Not really, but it did make my blood pressure go up, making for a nice, hard pumping sensation in my veins. It seems like you had a good visit in the city! It's a shame you won't be going to the Galapagos. I was there as well and it was just awe-inspiring. Too bad the local government is corrupt about letting people in. Anyways, I enjoy your posts. Keep it up and send me a postcard!