Quito: Day 4

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Day 4. March 11, 2011: Quito by Spanish Taxi

Breakfast
We slept until about 8:30 AM then had breakfast. Anne tried to shower but the water was WAY too cold. Luckily we both had showered the night before... so no biggie. We went to the corner of Sucre and Guayaquil and hired a taxi. The driver didn't speak English but Anne was able to get him to understand what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go- Panecillo (Virgen de Quito), Le Cima de Libertad, and the San Diego monastery.

Virgen de Quito
The Virgen de Quito is a winged statue of a dancing woman roughly 145 feet tall on a hill called Panecillo. Evidently this hill was sacred to the Incas because our driver kept telling us about a monument that looked like a round statue that the Incas used to worship at. He would point down the hill and pantomime people walking up the hill to the monument. Traffic getting to Panecillo was pretty bad and we took a u-turn by a giant flea market. We saw lots of locals bringing furniture to sell in their vehicles. It was amazing how busy and chaotic the place was for a Friday morning.

La Cima de Libertad
Next, we departed for Le Cima de Libertad. This is a museum dedicated to the military history of Ecuador that pays particular honor to winning their independence from Spain. It's at the top of the next hill with a great view over Panecillo, Quito and the monastery. When we got there, we noticed that there was some construction work going on - there was what appeared to be a fairly new gate. Next to the sign there were two interesting things: 1. a sign with the title of "Templo de la Patria" and 2. a guard with a gun. This was very confusing since we were looking for "Le Cima de Libertad". But at this point, we trusted our driver to get us to the right place. He exchanged a quick dialogue with the guard and we walked through.

First impressions- the place appeared to be a little bit drab and grey on the outside but there was a huge and very colorful mural above the museum. There were also some military relics such as old cannons on the property. The view of the city of Quito was truly amazing from this height and vantage point.

We went inside and decided to get the tour. So, we paid our entry fee ($2 each) and walked into the entrance of the museum. What we didn't know was that we were going to get our own personal escorts. Yes, that's right- plural. At the beginning one of the soldiers started gesturing at us and talking quickly in Spanish to a bunch of nearby teenagers. When we headed towards the entrance, the teenagers and the soldier followed behind. After glancing around the interior for a few minutes, we quickly figured out that they were going to be our tour guides. They had a script in English and everything. One of the teenage girls would read about the military history of Ecuador, various battles including the one where Ecuador won it's independence from Spain, and their most famous generals. When she got stuck, she'd point out the word to Steve for him to translate and finish the sentence. She did pretty good for a non-native English teacher. You could tell she wasn't comfortable or confident because she kept trying to convince one of the boys to take over... he refused each time.

We thought the soldier would leave us at some point during the tour but he didn't. Instead, he took out his camera and started taking pictures and videos. He stayed and escorted us through to the end of the tour in his military fatigues and combat boots. It was a little out of place for him to be holding his shotgun strapped to his shoulder with one hand and his camera in his free hand. Steve did try to learn more about him because he was actually very friendly. He smiled through most of the tour. It was very strange since we were the tourists but it turned out to be fun.

The girl mentioned the Galapagos Islands during the tour and we told her we were going tomorrow. She said it was very dangerous because of the Tsunami. Of course we were like "what tsunami?!". She couldn't speak enough English to give us the details we wanted. Anne translated tsunami into typhoon and remembered that there are no typhoons or hurricanes at the equator, and coming from a hurricane prone area like Houston, how could we miss that coming towards us? Hmmm.

San Diego Monastery
This 17th century monastery is almost halfway between la Cima de Libertad and Panecillo. We were able to point it out to the taxi driver and communicate that was where we wanted to go to next. When we arrived, it just so happened that a funeral procession was exiting the church next to the monastery. There was a really sweet old, really skinny Ecuadorian woman that gave us a Spanish walking tour of the monastery after taking our entry fee of $2 each. She had lots of keys on a huge key ring. Some of them looked like they dated back to the 1600s! She would pull them all out at different doors to various rooms and parts of the monastery that she wanted to show us.

There were beautiful courtyards with gardens and many restored rooms including the kitchen, sacristy, the charnel house (place where they did mortuaries), refectory (a place to reflect??), cells of the monks (complete with a leather bed with cow hair on one side) and an original pulpit. We also saw colonial and religious artwork that included a famous painting of Jesus and the disciples at the Last Supper eating cuy - the local delicacy of guinea pig (no we didn't try any).

Plaza de San Francisco
We paid the taxi driver $30 and he left us at this large public square. He was very enthusiastic and provided his cell phone # in the event we wanted him to take us around again. Maybe he just thought Anne was cute and hoped she'd call. I can't blame the guy... she's quite a catch. Anne thinks he just wanted our "easy gringo money". We explored the area and ate a small local restaurant.

Hotel
We got back to the hotel early afternoon and saw the news online and on the TV. It turned out this was the day that Japan experienced the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that caused a tsunami to race across the pacific and that was projected to hit the Galapagos that evening at 5 PM. Anne actually saw news footage of Lonesome George being carried by a bunch of people to higher ground. We were still missing our travel documents. Steve calmly emailed and repeatedly called our travel agent in an attempt to get closure (and a calming effect on Anne). We finally got her (the travel agent) and she was able to send everything over by courier. In the meantime we made arrangements for a hotel in New Town when we come back to Quito. The agent told us over the phone that the trip was still on but that our flight might be delayed because of flights leaving the Islands. She said head to the airport at the appointed time. We then went out for the evening (see below). When we got back to the hotel our travel documents were there (yay!) and we packed and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Iglesia de San Francisco
We left the hotel and went back to Plaza de San Francisco. We wanted to tour Iglesia de San Francisco. We noticed that there was a huge mock up cloth screen of the altar suspended from scaffolds. They were doing restoration on the church. There was lots of gold leaf paint, pictures of Saints, altars, dark corners and the typical religious artifacts. There were people walking to the different altars and singing in Spanish.

Museo and Convent de San Francisco
We then went to the museum and convent that was next door to the church. We saw lots of old religious art, especially of a man named San Francisco (shocking, I know). The museum was well maintained with absolutely beautiful courtyards and we went into the choir area of the church where the pipe organ was. The pipe organ was broken and too expensive to fix.

Plaza de la Independenica
Afterwards we walked over to this plaza. Since it was Friday night there were lots of couples and families out around the square. We sat and people watched for a little while. Next thing we knew, we had a Hare Krishna talking to us. We told him "no comprendo, no hablo espanol". Then we went into the converted Arch-bishops palace for dinner.

Dinner
We ordered a plate of empanadas and a meal that we shared of chicken and mushrooms that was kind of like a chicken marsala. When Steve asked for the check, he said "la cuarenta, por favor". The waiter went in the kitchen and we heard laughing. Steve had asked for "the 40" instead of "the bill". Anne was proud of Steve for making an effort to communicate in the native tongue instead of forcing the waiter to interact with us in English.

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