City eats

Being back in Quito opens up our culinary options.  

Oscar's lunch of salchipapas y Más cola at the fast food place near our hotel.

Ruby enjoying a surprisingly tasty wonton soup at the Happy Panda, our first Chinese restaurant experience in Ecuador.

We haven't eaten here.  Their marketing campaign reveals a cultural divide!

And I Thought We Were Adventurous

Today we met this family from France that was selling crepes in the main park in Northern Quito (sort of like their Prospect Park).  They were one year into a trip that began with them on a ship, taking their Land Rover from France across the Atlantic to Uruguay.  They have been driving, and camping, around South America for the past year, with their 2 girls, ages 6 and 3 1/2.  They plan to stay at it for the another year or so and eventually make it to New York, where they will send their truck home.  

Wow.  They were so happy for us when we told them that we were 5 days into our own big trip, which was really nice.

Here's their blog.  I hope to run into them again.  And they make excellent crepes!

Wrapping Up Our (First) Stay in Quito

Saturday evening, sitting in the lobby of La Casa Sol.  It's cold (by which I mean high 50s) and raining, as it was last night when we went out to watch the 6th of December parade in honor of the anniversary of the founding of Quito.  The parade went on despite the rain, with all the dancers and musicians, but it proved too much for us, so we went to the gringo-run Vietnamese restaurant next to our hotel for noodles.

Tomorrow, we fly to Cuenca, in the Southern Sierra.  I only got a small sense of Quito.  I suspect that it is one of those places that charms you the more time you spend here.  While we didn’t experience all that much of it, it seems to have much to offer:  A fantastic, very large and functioning historic center; a great sense of civic pride, as  we saw first hand during this fiesta week; a location at the base of some seriously high and awesome mountains; and it is clearly a cultural capital (although we didn’t see too much of this).

Yes, it is traffic-choked, largely unattractive outside of the historic center, and has a reputation for dangerous streets.  But I would be willing to give it some more time.  And in any event, it looks like we’ll have that opportunity, as Quito is literally at the heart of the country, and we’ll be coming back through here en route to other parts.

High above Quito

The air is thin at 13,000 feet.  Nevertheless, we managed a short hike up towards Pichincha Volcano, which overlooks Quito.  A cable car took us up from 10,000 feet to 13,000, and then we huffed and puffed it from there.

A close call on the cable car!

Quito and its population of 2 million people sprawls along a narrow corridor between two cordilleras. It's amazing to be up so high on a grassy, Andean mountain, yet to be so close to the city below.  

Here's the view from the cable car platform, looking north of Quito.

Neil, Ruby and Oscar walking uphill with Quito in the background.

Colaciones gave us energy to keep going.

This is the view up towards Pichincha Volcano.

Does anyone know what flower this might be?

The landscape is ever-changing as the clouds move through the sky.

Happily descending after a strenuous walk.

Snack time in Quito

We walked around el centro histórico today in search of churches and snacks. As for the former, we were awed by the baroque glory of La Compañía.  Every inch inside is covered in 23 carat gold.  According to our calculations, that bling is worth $250 million today.  We also visited Quito's oldest church, San Francisco, which is part of the largest religious complex in South America.  It overlooks an imposing plaza, pictured here behind Oscar and Ruby.  The plastic structure is a display of Quito's subway, currently under construction.

 

The snack odyssey was also successful. We had lunch and ice cream at Heladería St. Augustín, an old Quito establishment. Here are the delectable and colorful treats displayed by the entrance.  

We also found the most delicious colaciones, peanuts encased in a thick layer of soft powdered sugar.  The ones today were much better than the ones we had last night after dinner.  But it was interesting to learn from our waiter that colaciones were his allowance growing up.  Here we are buying Oscar and Ruby's allowance. 

Arrival!

The alarm went off at 3:20 AM yesterday, as we got up for what turned out to be a long travel day.  It wasn't supposed to be that long, but a two-hour delay taking off from JFK translated into a missed connection in Bogotá, then a night flight to Quito.  But it all went relatively smoothly despite the delay. A couple of unexpected bonuses:
1) O&R learned that the new Shake Shack in JFK's Terminal 4 serves a full menu of Burgers starting at 6 AM
2) We got unexpected Colombian stamps in our passports!

We arrived at Quito's spectacularly modern new airport by 9:30 and were in our hotel room at La Casa Sol by 11:00.  And we slept very well.

This is what a 5 hour delay in the Bogotá airport looks like - 

Yes, he's sound asleep