Galapagos and Beyond: day 3 - Quito Airport area

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Quito is the capital of Ecuador and is 2,850 metres above sea level. The word Ecuador is Spanish for equator and the central square of the city of Quito is located about 25 kilometres south of the equator. It is the second highest capital city in the world, the first being La Paz. Quito is located on the eastern slope of an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains. When you travel into the town from the airport one wonders at how some of the houses manage to cling to the mountains as they seem to be precariously balanced. But more about our journey into the city later in the blog.

We had arrived after midnight at the new Mariscal Sucre International Airport which opened in February 2013. It is the busiest airport in Ecuador and is located about 18 kms outside the eastern part of Quito. We stayed at the Wyndham Quito Airport Hotel located within walking distance of the airport. At least it would have been within walking distance if it weren’t for the fact that that there are only partial pedestrian pavements.

We woke up on day 3 of our journey at 5.30 am. Our body clocks were so out of synch and totally confused. After the initial 10 timezones ahead of home, we were now 2 zones back, for a net of 8 hours before our base time - oooh!

Don and I were a bit hotel bound. Don had discovered no Chabad House in Quito for Shabbat meal accommodation. But he had connected with a rabbi in Ecuador and his associate Rabbi Yochanan Doniel. Before we had left Israel we had communicated to tell him that we wanted cold food for Shabbat. We had been in contact with him by voice and mostly Whatsapp messages. We used Google-trans extensively to translate from English to Hebrew and to help read his messages vice versa. So we weren't sure what we were going to get. He finally arrived at the hotel with a ginormous box of food for two! Apart from fish and chicken there were six salads, four challot, cup cakes and a big lemon drizzle cake!

We barely had time to visit the mall across from the airport which was just a big food court with several banks and a pharmacy in the car park. Without good foot paths we took the hotel shuttle there and back. The Baskin Robbins ice cream bar solved the problem of lunch.

Then back to the hotel to get ready for Shabbat with private davening, eating our Shabbat dinner, and an early night.

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Photos

Looking up from the new Mariscal Sucre International Airport
The new Mariscal Sucre International Airport at 2400m replaced the older airport which was even higher at 2800m and challenged pilots flying into and out of Quito Ecuador.