Blogs from North, Ecuador, South America - page 19

Hola from Quito, Ecuador! So, I am finally in South America yay!My flight arrived in the middle of the night so I was picked up by Omar and his wife from my hostel and they took me to my room (trying desperately not to wake everyone up!) My first day in Quito I went on a walking tour of the city, led my the lovely Obi. My hostel is situated right next to the Old Town so we got to see so many beautiful buildings, I just wanted to take pictures of everything! First of all, we visited the market and saw some different looking fruits. I treated myself to a smoothie which was lovely. After, we walked around the city and went inside one of the many churches. So beautiful inside. We were then brought ... read more

DAYS 24- 6. We arrived one day early before the start of our trip. What a contrast having been as low as 55 degrees south at Ushuaia, whereas Quito is on the equator at 0 degrees or more than 6000kms north. The altitude certainly takes your breath away and we needed to slow down to get used to it. Quito sits at an altitude of 2,850 m under the gaze of Volcan Pichincha and is known to be one of the most attractive cities in South America and we agree although the volcano was mostly in light cloud today. The city is long and thin as it stretches along a central valley formed by the east and west ranges of the Andes. While intending to have a quiet day to further acclimitize we teamed up with ... read more

Hello everyone! So I arrived safely after my rather long 24 hour journey to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. I arrived to my hotel around 1:30 in the morning. This morning, I woke up around 8 and had breakfast overlooking the historical centre of Quito. I then felt rather lazy so went back to my room for a little while. When I eventually got round to leaving, I had a look around the city centre and saw some of the beautiful churches. I then took a four hour trip South to the Black Sheep Inn, an Eco lodge in Chugchillàn. Good tip from Fi and Dunc- thanks guys! It's amazing here. Once I was settled in, I met the guys who were sharing my bunkhouse and we went for a walk to see some of the ... read more

27 January 2014 – Monday – Quito, Ecuador A strange start to the morning: a very brief visit to the South American Explorers Club building where the ‘President’ tried to recruit us for all kinds of tours, even a tour to the local prison. His sales monologue was uncomfortable and weird and a little bit creepy so we informed him that we were only in Quito for a couple more days and left the building. Next followed an attempt to have a coffee and use the toilet at the Juan Valdez cafe without handing over our passports. We also went to the nearby Cafe Libro but they don’t open until noontime. So we returned to our apartment where Joan whipped up an egg and bacon omelette. We went to the Botanic Gardens and spent a couple ... read more

25 January 2014 – Saturday – Quito, Ecuador Today we visited the historical centre of Quito. In 1978, along with the historical centre of Krakow, Poland, was the first city in the world to receive World Heritage Site status from UNESCO. In 2013, Quito was nominated for the prestigious "World Travel Awards" in the category of "leading South American Destinations". Quito has the largest, least-altered, and best-preserved historic centre in South America. It is considered one of the most important historic areas in Latin America. There are about 130 monumental buildings (which hosts a variety of pictorial art and sculpture, mostly of religious inspired in a multi-faceted range of schools and styles) and 5,000 properties registered in the municipal inventory of heritage properties. Although a multi-million dollar regeneration program has claimed to leave the historical centre ... read more