Beautiful city to stay in for a while

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On the way to Quito we passed lots of rose farms. According to Tina, Ecuador roses are very expensive in Europe. These varieties would not grow anywhere else, they needed to be grown at around 2000 meters. Although they provides jobs and security for local people, the safety record is poor and employees health is often affected by the chemicals.

We arrived in Quito in the early afternoon. First impressions were of a modern clean city sprawled in the hills. Very colourful. The new town is Gringo Land. Nothing there except hotels, restaurants and shops. Convenient but soulless. The hotel Alston was very nice, with some character added to a modern building, including a lovely wooden staircase. We had a bath in our room. A man from the hotel worked very hard to find us a plug that would fit. 3rd one worked but couldn´t get the water hot enough. Oh well.

We had 10 days in Quito between legs of Dragoman trips. We had arrange to stay with Byron, a friend from Pieter´s postcard trading. There was a group dinner and we were meeting Byron so Aimar suggested he come along. Byron arrived with a friend, Tanya, who works in PR at the American Embassy. It was lovely talking to the both. And we still got to say goodbye to people who were departing after this leg.

We found out during the evening that 2 guys from the Toucan truck had been mugged in the area by knifepoint. Apparently the old town had been cleaned up but all the bad guys now hung out at the new town. We were happy to be moving to the old town.

Byron was lovely. He took a day off to pick us up and take us to his place, and to show us around the old town. His house is near the bus station and very handy to town. Recently painted, he has 5 bedrooms, a huge living area and a dog called Cookie.

The old town is beautiful, full of old colonial buildings and busy streets. After seeing a couple of museums we visited the gold church, Compañia. It is absolutely spectacular with lots of gold on the ceilings, walls and everywhere. It was blinding really.

We took a taxi up El Panecillo, to the virgin of Quito. Fantastic views from up there. They recently installed a figure behind the virgin to commemorate independence. A man holding a flag, best seen at night. Very pretty colours when lit up. We went to a posh restaurant on the hill called Pim or Pims. A little pricey but great views, good service and good food. We tried traditional dishes with Sangria. It was a lovely afternoon.

The next couple of days we decide to stick around the old town and do some more museums and wander around. A number of them were closed but the ones we visited are listed here. I must apologise for a lack of addresses for anyone looking to use this as a reference. The blog I had these listed on previously appears to have lost the entries I made ... hence the switching of blogs.


Museo Alberto Mena Caanao For $1.50 we got a free guide who showed us around the historical wax displays and explaining about Ecuador geography and nature through series of big photos. She was very interesting and we enjoyed the visit.
Museo Casa Maria Augusta Urrutia The lady who lived here only died in 1987. She had a long life of charity work, feeding poor children in her house. The house is beautiful with lots of rooms as they whould have been 60 or 80 years ago. The bathroom is spectacular with big round stain glass windows at either end. The guides don´t speak english but there are english explanations in each room. A really nice place to visit. Entrance $2.
Museo de la Cuidad There is a very good permanent exhibition of the history of Quito. The first room is very modern with neon lights representing a bird on the ceiling in a dark room with a fake forest. We were there when there was a temporary exhibit of Miro. That was really good also.
Museo Fray Pedro Bedon The convent is now a college and we had to walk past all the kids to get to a beautiful meeting room. Not sure of the proper name for it. They have lots of wooden seats lining the walls and all the pictures of the saints showing how they died. $2.
Museo de Manuela Saenz Only 80 cents to get in. Mauela Saenz was an important figure in the independence, a friend of Bolivar and Sucre. Housed in a run down building with a nice wooden staircase, it is interesting because of the historic objects belonging to Saenz and Bolivar, but the guide was spanish speaking only so we couldn´t really the in depth knowledge we would have liked. There was a room full of ivory objects and some whale bone. The objects were beautiful but the source of the objects made us a little uncomfortable.
Museo del Agua On the hill behind the San francisco church is the old water treatment plant. 18 months ago it was converted into a museum. Hugely interactive, with enthusiastic english speaking guides, we had a fantastic time being big kids, playing with the bubbles and making fog and going down slides and through tunnels. $2 entrance. And fantastic views of the old town.
Museo del San Francisco We have seen a lot of churches and monasteries, and this one was fairly consistent. The museum of religious artifacts was good and the courtyards very pretty. We could not fully appreciate the church as they had scaffolding up, restoring the ceiling, but from what we could see it is spectacular. And there were lovebirds chirping away in a tree. $2.
Museo National del Banco Central Originally thinking that it would be something related to the bank, it was actually the national museum. The ground floor is pre-columbian including a fantastic gold collection. And there was also colonial and modern art. The religious art was displayed in categories of the periods which we hadn´t seen before. Some of the modern stuff was OK. A matter of taste. At $2 it is a bargain. Just have to work around the gaggles of school kids.
Museo de la Cultura Ecuatoriana Another $2 gets you into this fanscinating display of modern art, musical instruments and costumes of the different regions of Ecuador. The museum is spread over 2 floors with huge empty spaces. Especially with the art on the ground floor it was just empty space as the picture were around the walls. With a curve to the rooms and the automatic lighting keeping all but what we are looking at in the dark, it was an eerie museum to look around. Cool.
Museo Jacinto Jijon y Caamaño Housed on the 3rd floor of the library building in the PUCE university, this small museum contains objects related to the university and the people working there ... we think. Couldn´t really tell because it was all in spanish. Ther is archaeological findings, as well as colonial and religious art. There was a fantastic and brightly coloured representation on wood of famous people, including Caesar and Napolean. Very pretty. $0.60 entrance.
Museo Abya-Yala This is a small museum dedicated to educating people about the differnt indigenous groups of Ecuador. A good display of costumes including crowns made of parrot feathers. Tools, traps .. some like those we had already seen in the jungle. Stuffed animals and information about the influence of the oil companies. Lots of english to help. $2.


Ecuadorians do not always do dinner, their big meal is generally lunch. At Byron´s, we enjoyed coffee and bread in the evenings. We bought cakes for one supper. And once we went to a restaurant upstairs in the courtyard off Independence square where we had empeñadas and bolones and a delightful hot drink served in a shot glass. Sweet and fruity, I wish I could remember the name of it.

Went to a movie. First one in more than 3 months. Unfortunately, the theatres website was screwed up. We went to see 300, but it was was not playing english like the website said so we ended up seeing Spiderman 3 which was a little rubbish. But it was nice to be in a theatre again. Byron came with with girlfriend, Angela, from Columbia. She is lovely and very shy.

We went away for the weekend with Byron and Angela but we will write about that in the next entry.

Monday, a lot of the museums are closed, so we went to the botanical gardens. Small but beautifully kept, they had mainly ecuadorian species, lots of labels and descriptions (in spanish only). They had 2 greenhouses full of different varieties of orchids. That was definitely a highlight.

We went to a mall as well that day, Quicentro, very big and modern, we had Taco Bell for lunch. So far all our taxi rides had been OK. Some had tried to fix high prices for rides but we told them where to go. From the mall we got a taxi who turned on the meter but were convinced the meter was tampered with, it was going way too fast. The driver was crazy, going way too fast and revving a lot. The car eventually died (fuel problem) and we welcomed the opportunity to get out. It for that reason that next day we took the trolley bus to the new town to go shopping and arrange travel from Caracas. Generally crowded, you can go anywhere on the line for 25 cents. You put your money into a machine to gain access to the covered stop. No tickets.

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Photos

Water museum
The bubble room

Water museum
Something about surface tension

Water museum
School kids getting very wet