South America Day 67 - Quito

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Today we are sightseeing in Quito and changing hotels. There is an important reason for this prearranged change, but the old man can’t remember what it is. Our new hotel is 1 km away. The old man is too tight to pay for a taxi ($1.25) but worried it isn’t walkable with luggage, so we are to do a ‘trial run’.

After staking out our hotel, we head for the Plaza Grande, which is no longer barricaded off. We want to tour the Palacio de Gobierno, but you have to book in advance (thanks Lonely Planet).

Next, we visit the Museo de la Ciudad. This is housed in a 17th century hospital and gives (theoretically) a chronological history of Quito. The old man gets impatient and bypasses a group of school kids, so we are going backwards in history, witnessing the fight for independence prior to colonisation.

In the final gallery is a temporary exhibit. There’s no indication of what this exhibit might be. It turns out to be the history of Quito’s markets, so an anticlimax.

It’s time for the real journey to our new hotel. Google Maps says it’s a 15 minute mainly flat walk. 25 minutes later, having hauled our luggage up an enormous hill we reach our destination (thanks Google).

In the afternoon we walk through Parque la Alameda, past the National Assembly with its colourful collection of hummingbird sculptures, to the Casa de la Cultura. This huge, round glass building houses the Museo Nacional which takes you through the history of Ecuadorean art. There’s some great stuff here. My favourite is a collection of sculptures called La Carga, which depict Ecuadorean women going about their daily business. There’s also a great ‘play area’ where you can interact with the art and even climb inside a painting.

The MuNa also has temporary exhibit; the work of artist Hernán Illescas, which is for sale. The old man determines to win the lottery, come back and buy ‘La Migración sueño en la Memoria’, a snip at $20,000.

The three of us walk the 2 miles back to our hotel (I appear to have adopted a dog), stopping for dinner at a trendy microbrewery called Bandido Brewing. We are the oldest in there by a good 30 years. We are served by a girl with green hair and multiple piercings and feel terribly out of place. Craft beer is wasted on me, I return to the Hotel for a bottle of cheap lager before another early night before tomorrow’s train trip.

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