Christmas in Quito

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We arrived after too many hours of travel in Quito at about 1am but fortunately we had an airport pickup from our hostel which was wonderful. We decided to stay in La Floresta which is just outside The Mariscal District. It's a safer area of town and the hostel was very nice. We spent a full day wandering the streets of the Old Town with beautiful plazas, street performers, and old churches.

Yesterday, we did some shopping at a market an hour and a half outside of Quito in a town named Otavalo. The market was huge and there were vendors selling all types of Ecuadorian goods and food. The market not only took up the entire village square but branched out into the surrounding streets. These people are tough negotiators - everyone there negotiates prices. We bought these little donut shaped buns which was all we could afford for lunch after our shopping spree...haha. For our Christmas Eve dinner we made a quick shrimp stir fry, ate the buns, and devoured a whole Panetone with some Champagne. We also bought and lit sparklers and took pictures in front of our Hostal´s Christmas tree with some very cool pj´s we bought at the market.

After attending mass on Christmas Day we hopped on a bus down to Latacunga where we were able to have another Christmas feast at a small restaurant (Latacunga is 3 hours south of Quito). It was a really cool restaurant called Chugchurcas La Mama Negra. We ate the town´s traditional dish, which is called Chugchucara. It essentially fried pork meat with sides of hominy, potatoes, corn, and some other tasty stuff. It was a cozy little spot and a perfect place to have Christmas dinner in the town. Later, we came back to our hostel and watched Home Alone with some other travellers (the only semi-Christmas movie there!).

Tomorrow, we are off on a bus again to another little town (Isinlivi), and then we do a couple of days of hiking (stopping in villages for the night). We are doing the Quilatoa loop hike and will see a crater lake on our last day!!

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