Quito

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I've said before that people don't come to South America for the cities. That remains the case even when, like Quito, they have been recognised by UNESCO with World Heritage status for its old town. (Quito's tourist literature proudly boasts that it was the first city to be assigned this status). However, despite such august plaudits, to me, nice though Quito was, it was really just one in another long line of South American cities.

I'd arrived late on Friday night, meeting the pick up from the hotel at the airport and finally making it to my hotel at around 1.30 in the morning, so my first chance to get a look at the city was Saturday morning. At first glance it seemed small and a little provincial (particularly after Lima), although undeniably pretty in places. The squares were nice and the churches (particularly San Francisco) were ornately decorated, but none of it seemed exceptional. However, if my impressions of Quito were on their way to damning it as run of the mill all of this changed when you climbed a hill and gained some perspective. The city opened up if you could get high enough, stretching up along the valley and threatening the steep slopes of the surrounding hills.

It may have been a result of seeing Quito on Saturday morning but the city itself felt like it had a bit of an edge to it. There seemed to be a desperado on every street corner. Or to be more accurate, he frequently seemed to have fallen off the the corner and be floundering hopelessly somewhere in the region of the pavement and the gutter. Perhaps it was just that Cusco and Lima had done a better job of keeping the tourist insulated from some of the less savoury aspects of South American life, but in Quito (at least in those parts of the old town I visited) there was a fair degree of public drunkenness to the point of people passing out on the street, the prostitution was a bit more blatant, and back in the Mariscal area, where our hotel was based, the begging a little more intrusive and persistent.

However, I was in Quito only in part to see the sights. My main priority was to meet up with John and Penny, who had flown out from the UK to join me for the final couple of months of my trip and in the second instance for the three of us to book up our trip to Galapagos. After three months travelling on my own I was very much looking forward to meeting up with friends. I'd met some really nice people during my travels but this would be different. It would be good to catch up on news and swap banter over a couple of beers. We met up at breakfast and both seemed to have travelled well, although JK's bodyclock had yet to catch up with time zone. .

Greetings over and news exchanged we set about our Galapagos plans and immediately found that it would be harder work than we had envisaged. We were not helped by beginning our search on a Saturday. It soon became apparent that whilst the travel agents worked a short day on Saturday most of the boat operators would not be contactable until Monday, so we would need to return on Monday to book. Still our researchs had given us plenty of food for thought.

John had booked us into a very comfortable boutique hotel, which was in an excellent location for Galapagos shopping and also well place for Quito's liveliest bar and restaurant scene. Mariscal was slightly schizophrenic. By day it seemed sleepy in the extreme, even a pre World Cup friendly between Ecuador and Holland seemed barely to raise an eyebrow, However, after dark the area was transformed into the place for the local youth to see and be seen. Fortunately we were sufficiently distant from the main drag to avoid too much collateral damage from Saturday night's festivities.

Whilst we waited for Monday morning to tick round we entertained ourselves by trying to seeing the city's main sights. This largely entailed trying to get as high as possible in order to get the best perspective of the green hills and the contrasting sprawl. The best bet for this was the Teleferiq, a cable car that climbs over 1,000 metres up one of Quito's many steep sided valleys. The climb takes about 8 minutes and lifts you to a dizzying altitude in excess of 4,000 metres. Even on a hazy Sunday morning the view was spectacular. The journey also gave us a chance to play bit part roles as "Los Tres Amigos De Ingleterra" in the home movie of the Ecuadorian family with whom we shared our cable car.

In addition to seeing the sights Mariscal also provided us with plenty of decent restaurants and for the discerning drinker, keen to escape the local lager (the worst to date in South America) and prepared to put in the effort to track them down, some well concealed local micro-breweries. The food was generally excellent. I enjoyed a very good goat's stew and on a separate occasion, ceviche. And it is only the contrast (or lack thereof) that prevents me from indulging in more fulsome praise and descriptions. It was after Peru all very tasty but a bit Peru-lite.

Eventually Monday ticked around and we beat an exhaustive path around the various agencies before finding an itinerary, boat and dates that suited our purposes. As a result we have given ourselves a few days on Santa Cruz (one of Galapagos' main islands, and the island into which the majority of flights arrive) to arrange our own tours, and hopefully some diving before heading off on an 8 day boat trip around the western circuit of the Galapagos. Fingers crossed this should give us ample time to fully enjoy all the diverse wildlife, both on land and at sea.

Having fixed dates for Galapagos we have left ourselves a week for a whistle-stop tour of Southern Ecuador, before flying out to Santa Cruz on the 27th. Unfortunately, the timing has proved too tight for my hopes of climbing Cotopaxi. I spoke to several agencies about trying to arrange a climb for the beginning of this week but was only able to get them to commit to vague promises of next weekend, which really wouldn't fit in with our itinerary. Still Galapagos is more than adequate compensation...and in the mean time we head on to Banos (extreme sport capital of Ecuador) and all points South to pick up our flight from Guayaquil.

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Photos

Saturday Morning in downtown Quito
Photobombed by a couple of mean looking desperados

Comments

[Chris]

Hello
Excellent, looking forward to reading about The Galapagos and all before. Hi to all!

[jennifer]

Quito Recommendation
Just went to Quito recently myself. I'd recommend taking the walking tour - more info here: http://www.venturists.net/free-walking-tour-of-quito-start-your-visit-here/ Happy Travels!