Advertisement
Published: November 28th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Back in Quito We left the airport with relief and got shuttled back to Hostal La Iguana for the rest of our stay in Quito. We went out for a cheap meal at a sweet pizza place near our hotel. Curiously the waiter seemed to enjoy giving us swapping our paper placements which were printed with stories of famous Quito characters. The English translations were hilariously poetic, the wording rather hyperbolic. The charming waiter, who spoke no English, seemed really pleased he´d found something in English for us, bless him!
The Teleferico The next morning was nice and sunny, so we decided to head up the Pichincha on the Teleferico cable car. Our taxi dropped us off at a spookily empty theme park, which reminded us of Pleasure Island in Pinnochio. There was more life at the gondola, with a small queue of people waiting for the super slow cable cars to creak around to them. As the line lengthened, the gondola suddenly went into warp speed and we were charging up the mountainside, arriving into the thin air of 4100m (13,500 ft). We certainly noticed the altitude as we walked further up the hill tracks, which afforded fantastic views
of the city below. We didn´t realise just how huge Quito really was! We bumped into a cute little girl, who mischieviously shouted "How are you?" in English as we walked passed her. By chance, we ended up together in the same gondola on the journey back down, and this when we both regretted our lack of Spanish, because she tried to talking to us and we would have loved to have a conversation, but we couldn´t understand her. If you are planning to visit South America, try to learn as much Spanish as possible before you get here, so you don´t miss out on the opportunity to chat to the locals.
Quito Old City Tour We finally managed to catch our tour of the Old City the next morning. There was just us and a hilarious guy who introduced himself as "Nat - from the United States of America!" in the broadest Southern drawl, without a trace of irony! He was very proud to be American and from Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy he proudly told us (Jim would have enjoyed a good Civil War chat with him). At first, he seemed a little odd and his
crazy accent gave you the impression of the stereotypical stupid Southerner out of the movies, but it became obvious he was pretty intelligent and we were embarrassed by his fluent Spanish. He was probably just a bit eccentric, furiously scribbling every point of interest highlighted by our friendly tour guide. The tour itself was very interesting and informative, beginning in Plaza de Indepencia, with the statue of indepedence, the Archbishop´s Palace and the Presedential Palace, outside of which the president Garcia De Morena was assassinated. Next we visited the Wax Museum, which proved to be a lot more educational than it´s name suggests (no Michael Jacksons and Joan Collins in here I´m afraid). The museum explained Quito´s colonial history and it´s struggle for independence (hurrah, for once it was the Spanish that were the bad guys, not the English like everywhere else we have been!). For some reason, we couldn´t take any pics, which was a shame because there was some hilariously gory scenes. Next on the list was Inglesia de Compania, a truly stunning Catholic church with beautiful, ostentatious Baroque architecture - lots of cherubs and gold leaf. The next stop was the civil museum where we learnt more
about pre-Inca history and also the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. The final stop was a walk through La Ronde, a pretty little street, which used to be inhabited by bohemian types, such as poets and artists. One of the building housed a display of children´s artwork, where they had drawn pictures depicting their dreams for the future, which was very sweet.
The Vivarium & Casa de le Cultura We had a lazyish day in Quito, starting in Carolina Park´s Vivarium, almost opposite our hotel. It had a surprising number of snakes and poisonous frogs, and we had the chance to hang a boa constrictor around our necks, which is always fun! Next we took the Trole to Eljido, to visit the Casa de le Cultura, which sounded good in our guidebook and we were lead to believe it had English information. Unfortunately there were no English information boards or guide, so we wandered around the eerily empty museum, which was very dark to help preserve the collection of Ecuadorian art, musical instruments and traditional costumes. Unfortunately, we found it a bit dull!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.091s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 10; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0559s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Debra
non-member comment
Well'are
You should know better than to judge someone by their accent. I like that Nicholas Cage syrupy voice, preferably with Nick Cage attached (Hummingbird.) Rachel, that snake suits your pink top. Boa, you sure know how to accessorise!