The one thing you read about arriving in Quito is give yourself a couple of days to acclimatise. The city sits 2850m above sea level, and yep do you notice it. Mainly it’s just being short of breath, but after 5 days of being here it’s no so much a problem anymore.
That there to the left is the giant statue of the Virgin Mary, La Virgen de Quito. After arriving at the hostel around 11pm Saturday night, I didn’t take in any of the landmarks until the next morning.
Sitting high atop the El Panecillo, it’s the first thing you notice stepping out into the streets. She stands overlooking the city, so I was pretty determined to find my way up there.
I ended up grabbing a taxi as I doubt I’d survive climbing that hill/mountain without a couple of heart attacks for the effort. The driver had to stop a couple of times to ask for directions (I thought any road that goes up would have sufficed).
After about half an hour and a $3 fare later, we made it. The views overlooking Quito are impressive, mainly overlooking the Old Town with the New Town further north. What it really highlights is how hilly the city is and that it sits surrounded by mountains.
I came by a shop renting bikes with the warning, in english, Quito is Not Flat. No kidding, what was more amusing is the New Town has bike lanes throughout the area that I never saw a single bike on. No one, not even the locals, are that crazy.
Quito is divided into two areas, Old and New. The Old Town is cobbled streets, narrow walk ways, shops and eateries in colonial buildings, several plazas and just great old world charm. The New Town on the otherhand is what you’d expect of a standard city, with lanes of traffic, modern(ish) buildings, parks, a variety of places to eat (ugh, including KFC and MacDonalds!) and all the bars (prominently in the district of Mariscal).
Basically New Town is where the bulk of the tourists stay, and jeez do the shops rip them off. For $1.20 you can get a 500ml bottle of the local beer from any hole-in-the-wall. I ventured into Mariscal for a cold beer (the weather has been pretty warm and no one in Old Town seems to sell cold beer). For a 300ml bottle of the local beer, that will cost you $4.80, thanks very much!
For me exploring the streets of the Old Town has been a blast. Every street has character, the stores blare out Latin music, the people are more vocal (which can make you wary at first, until you realise that’s just them being themselves) and there seems to be something happening somewhere every day, whether it’s a festival or a protest (something is happening outside the hostel right now in fact, no idea what).
Then there’s the plazas, four in total that I’ve visited. The main plaza, Plaza Grande, is where the Presidental Palace is located, Plaza Santa Domingo is just around the corner from where I’m staying, Plaza San Francisco (picture to the left) and lastly Plaza del Teatro where the theatre is located.
Speaking of the Presidential Palace, after standing in the sun for what felt like an hour and preparing myself to pass out from heat stroke, they allowed groups of people to tour the palace.
I assumed the guided tour was optional, but nope, we were ushered around from room to room with a Spanish speaking guide. I suppose being the home to the President they don’t want people just wandering around to accidentally stumble upon the President in a compromising position. The guide was pretty cool, she realised I was the only gringo with a fairly poor grasp of Spanish (and I can tell you they speak so fast here even if you were fluent you’d still struggle) and she came over a couple of times to explain things.
Catholic cities need Catholic churches. To honest they all look the same no mater what country. Tacky gold (fake or otherwise) covering everything and lots and lots of statues/paintings of sad looking people. No one is ever happy inside a Catholic church. However naturally I was obliged to visit the oldest church in Quito.
This visit turned into an interview, and it was the first of two interviews I’ve done in Quito for high school students doing their final assignment for English. In this case I was ambushed by a group of teenage girls at the entrance. One assumed the interviewer, one recorded on her mobile, and the rest watched.
The questions where just about what I though of Quito, which was a little difficult to answer consider it was my first day in the city! Answering the best I could and being naturally charming, I like to think there’s a great interview that’ll be played back to high school students somewhere in Quito at the end of the year.
The second interview was a few days later in the New Town, this time by two boys. They had a questionnaire, but only asked me a couple of the questions. The one that stumped me was what is one of Australias customs? It’s a good question that I found myself struggling with.
Okay I’ll take back what I said about Catholic churches, as there’s only one style that I can’t get enough of, and that’s the Gothic style.
The Basilica del Voto Nacional sits between the Old and New Town, up on a bit of a hill that I wish I’d waited to climb after I’d become a little more acclimatised. I had to sit outside on a step for about 10 minutes getting my breath back and finishing off a bottle of water before I had the strength to continue on!
It was a pretty warm day and I did something for the first time that seemed to be a past time of the locals: have an ice cream. I’ve seen this ice cream obsession in so many other countries too, there’s seriously ice cream everywhere. Every couple of shops, ice cream, See that lady walking by with a giant bowl? Yep, there’s probably about 10 litres of ice cream she’s carrying with cones protruding from the mound.