Ecuador - Quito

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David here...

The 8.5 hour bus journey was the usual mix of bad films, terrible music, great scenery and the pain of reclining seats. Arriving at the Carcelen bus terminal, we were immediately surrounded by taxi drivers before we'd even got our luggage. We had done our homework though, and knew we could get a local bus from behind the terminal pretty much to our hotel. We had 3 bus numbers to look out for, but the buses didn't actually display any numbers. So we jumped onto one displaying Versalles, a road near our hotel.

The local bus wasn't too busy, but we couldn't sit together so I made my way further back and sat down. As the bus got busier a shifty group of people got on. Suzanne spotted them looking at her handbag and put her hand over the zip. They moved towards me. 3 men stood near me, one with a jacket over his arm, and a woman moved behind my seat. When the jacket guy 'accidentally' let his his jacket drape over me, she dropped some coins behind me onto my seat, a classic distraction technique. I was just getting hacked off with the guy and his jacket, so I flung it off me. Only then realising that they were trying to rob me. Sure enough, one of the zips on my bag was open about 1/4 of the way. Nothing of value in there at all, but a bit of a wake-up call. I collected the money and thrust it back to the woman and they all quickly got off the bus empty handed. The rest of the journey I was alert for a similar scam. Not the most welcoming start to our stop in Quito.

We eventually got close to our hotel, Casa Vintage. We'd booked the standard double, but as noone else was staying they gave us the king suite room, complete with a sitting area, massive bathroom and a spa bath. After the room in Bahia, this was a lovely and welcome treat. We freshened up after our long day of travelling and headed out for food. We were starving as we'd not had anything to eat at all. We headed straight for Shere Punjab, a highly rated Indian only 15 minutes away. As close to a proper UK curry we've had, with a perfect level of spice for us. It was lovely, though you do pay a bit more for that level of quality, the bill was $40, but we felt it was worth it.

It turned out that our waiter during the meal had come from the UK after living there for years. His name was JD and he had lived and worked in Slough, Birmingham and London. His visa extension had just been declined, after spending £25,000 to get it put through, and he had to leave the UK despite his son being born there. So sad and unnecessary. He was now trying to join his sister in Canada by working to get money in Ecuador. Such a small world. We chatted with him for a while before wishing him well and heading back to our room.

We were woken up at 06:30 by people loading gas canisters onto a lorry across the road, though still didn't leave the room until around 10:30. We hadn't really planned the day so decided to do the cable car, as we always enjoy them. It was a 90 minute walk away... uphill. We decided to grab some food on the way as we decided not to get breakfast at the hotel. We randomly picked Las Empanadas de Morocho de la Ullo as it was on our route and had food reviews.

We expected bog standard empanadas. What we got were empanadas made from corn, a speciality in Ecuador, and the place we'd randomly picked was THE place to have them. We said hello to the lovely lady and ordered 2 meat empanadas and she showed us how they were made, got us to take pictures of them frying and explained the salsa dishes. This was all in Spanish, but we understood most of what she was saying. The empanadas themselves were huge, crispy and delicious. We felt so lucky to stumble on the place and with drinks it came to $5, and she would not accept any tips. Such a lovely and tasty experience.

From here it was another 40 minutes to the cable car station, all uphill. There were lots of taxis offering us the journey for $1 but then you have to pay $2.50 to get through the gate so it's not worth it, good exercise though. We paid the $8.50 each for a return trip on the cable car, we do love a good cable car after all. It was quite a long ride and took us up a good 2,000m. The views of the surrounding area and of Quito were quite stunning. We spent about 2 hours up there walking around and enjoying the view.

We walked back to our room via a supermarket for supplies... and a couple of beers. I took the opportunity to use the big spa bath, which was great. For dinner we chose Dos Ducados, a well reviewed steak place. It was nice enough. A bit pricey, but the steak was tasty and the service was good. Overall we were pleased. We finished the evening with a carton of red wine back in our room, so classy.

The next day we were up early (more gas canisters clanging) and out at 09:30. We walked the 40 minutes to the Community Hostel to take advantge of the free walking tour they run everyday. We got there early, signed in and had a free coffee in the hostel communal area before the tour began at 10:30. There were 42 people which were split into 2 groups. Our guide was Obi who was very pleasant and enthusiastic about his home country. The first stop on the tour was the central market, which was actually a bit dull... it's a market. Once in the old town though the tour was much better. We learnt alot about Quito and Ecuador, both historically and politically.

The tour lasted around 3.5 hours and was well worth the $10 tip we gave at the end, though some mean people did just walk away leaving nothing. On the walk we got talking to a woman from Ireland called Rose and we shared our knowledge of Colombia with her and swapped travelling stories, we mentioned our close shave on the bus in Quito which Rose trumped as she had her phone stolen out of her hand in Guayaquil. You do need to be a little careful in Ecuador.

We had a lunch of chicken soup followed by beef, rice and corn with drinks for the grand total of $5 before walking back to our hotel. That evening we hit the local nightlife area around Plaza Foch, full of bars, restaurants and gringos. It was amazingly touty with everyone trying to get you into their place. It was rammed as well. We had already decided that we were going to a restaurant called La Carniceria, again for their well reviewed meat. On the way, we witnessed a fight break out, among gringos we think, but we didn't linger.

The meal was alright. We went for a platter for 2 with a few beers and it was very pleasant. We asked the staff if there were any Rock bars nearby and they couldn't really help us. We had read a comment online, from about 5 years ago, that just off the plaza there was a rock bar on the 2nd floor. That was all we had. We wandered round and decided to head back, just as we spotted some neon lights that said 'Pub Classic Rock'. We showed ID and went upstairs.

There was lots of seating, decent music playing, cheap beer and rock and metal decorations around the walls. We ended up staying for 3 beers each, with lots of locals saying hello to me everytime I went to fetch more beer. The staff were also very friendly. At one point one member of staff came running round and wanted to check everyones ID. He checked our driving licences and fist bumped each of us before moving on.

About 10 minutes later the fuzz came in and checked everyones ID. Obviously a network of bars keeping each other updated on where the police are headed. Our ID checked out and we continued our evening. We got back to our room just after midnight, not bad for us.

The next day we walked to the impressive basilica on the hill, admiring the architecture and impressive gargoyles before walking into the main plaza and old town again via the Museo Camilo Egas, which had some impressive works of art from the Ecuadorian artist. We had an early lunch, finally getting to try Locro de Papas, a classic Ecuadorian potato soup which was very nice. We then visited the city museum (not really worth it unless you have good Spanish reading skills) and then the Casa del Albado museum, which had loads of pre-colombian artifacts and was very impressive.

We walked back to our hotel through a park and the Artisanal Market where we surprised ourselves by actually buying something. The evening was spent at Lucha Libre Mexican restaurant where we took advantage of their 3 for 2 cocktails by having 3 Margaritas each, sharing some nachos and eating a big burrito each. It was expensive at $54 but we felt it was worth it for our final meal in Quito. We had an early start the next day but still fancied beer so decided to buy some on the way back. We spotted a small shop and picked up 4 cans of local beer. The guy tried to charge us $11.50 for them. We said no way and he dropped the price to $8 and then $6. By then the damage was done. Gringos we may be but stupid we're not. We popped to a little shop just round the corner from our hotel, surprised it was still open, and got the same beers for $4.50. What a fool!

The next morning we got up at 07:15 and were on our way from the hotel at 07:50. We had a short walk to the C1 and C2 Metrobus line which would take us all the way to the Ofelia bus terminal, from where we could get a bus to not just our final stop in Ecuador but our final stop in South America. The bus ticket was 25c each and a C2 came in straight away, but was busy. We were just debating whether to push ourselves on when the ticket lady shouted to us and pointed at a C1 waiting to pull in. We thanked her and moved down the platform where we got the pretty much empty C1 bus. The journey took 30 minutes to get to the bus terminal and from there we easily got tickets to our next destination.

Despite the less than impressive welcome to Quito, we really enjoyed ourselves. We were originally only going to stay for 2 nights but in the end we found that even 4 nights was not enough. There are some lovely buildings to see, places to visit, some great museums and some lovely people to meet. It helped that our hotel room was amazing as it felt like a place to relax at the end of each day. We did a fair amount of walking as we were cautious about using public transport in the end, maybe overcautious, but Quito is easy to walk around, if a little steep in places. Quito has only enhanced our love for Ecuador and we are already sad that our time here is nearly over.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Nice
I love food photos.