We finally got to Quito, after a nice and interesting journey. As always there were people entering the bus to sell something: from food, drinks and phone chargers to miracle medicines and healthy diet books. Jordi bought a tasty burger while Karolina was less lucky and she paid $0,50 for a bottle of tap water (the bottle was reused...). In Quito we decided to take a taxi and get to the town centre - there is no central bus station in Quito so the bus left us somewhere in the north. We had no room reservation as always, so we went to the neighbourhood which is full hotels, hostels and guesthouses, commonly called "Gringolandia". There were also many western-style restaurants, bars, cafes, shops and clubs, so it wasn't the best place to experience "real Ecuador". At least we found a place to sleep without a problem. In the morning we were treated with a descent breakfast which was included in the price of the room ($24 per night).
Later we took a bus and got the Old Town. It's a really well-conserved example of colonial architecture. Instead of following our guide-book we decided to get a bit lost and follow our intuition. This way we got to the Basilica del Voto Nacional (an immense neo-gothic building), Plaza Grande with the Palacio de Govierno, Quito's Cathedral and Monasterio de San Fransisco which is oldest city's church. It was a very pleasure sightseeing without rush or schedule.
Plaza Grande (also called de la Independencia)
Palacio de Gobierno
Going down-hill wasn't a problem...
From the Old Town we spotted a huge figure on a hill which seemed to be an angel. We decided to get there the next day because it started to rain. We went back to Gringolandia and had an expensive and not even tasty dinner there. The only good thing about this place was the trio concert (2 guitars and a djembe) playing Ecuadorian an Spanish music. The idea for the rest of evening was to go out but as soon as we got back to the hostel we fell asleep and... woke up the next day.
Basilica del Voto Nacional
San Fransisco
Plaza de San Francisco
In the morning we took a bus and got to theTeleferiQ which is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Quito. We are not sure whether we were very unlucky or it's so cloudy everyday. We paid $8,5 for TeleferiQ ride but when we got up we could see only clouds... It was already 4100 metres above the sea-level so we decided to drink some coca tea which is supposed to be helpful in altitude sickness. We walked around the place - there was only cafe, small church, bridge and few benches. At least we could see clearly from there peaks if mountains.
In the TeleferiQ
Before the clouds came...
We got down and took another taxi to get to Panecillo - the place we had seen from the Old Town the day before (the traffic in Quito is crazy so the taxi was the only way to get there and not loose half a day just for it). it turned out to be a Virgin Mary (not an angel), surprisingly with wings - made of thousands of pieces of aluminium. It was much better view point than TeleferiQ and we could clearly see all the city, for free:)
Much better view for free:)
Aluminium Virgin Mary with wings
We noticed there a bus with a direction: "Mitad del Mundo" (Middle of the world) and although we were planning to go there the next day, we decided to hop on. It was almost 2-hour ride. Once there, we headed directly to the main entrance. The complex consists of few museums, planetarium, shops and restaurants. Everything looks a bit surrealistic: the colours of the buildings are weird and you can feel that Mitad del Mundo is not a place where people actually live. It was created due to its location - equator - 0º00' latitude. There is a monument indicating this information, but we learnt that it's false and 'real middle of the world' lies around 300 metres further. We got hungry and went to one of few restaurants there. This time it was very important to ask for set menu which was only for $4 per person (soup, main dish and drink) while simple dish in the menu was for about $3-4.
Karo in the southern hemisphere, Jordi in the northern one
Mitad del Mundo
After that we headed back to the hotel. This time we were really motivated to go out, but as always we fell asleep as soon as we lied in bed... Fortunately we woke up around midnight and decided to go out. We were pretty hungry so we had some junk food in the nearest bar opened. After that we went to the small salsa bar with a good atmosphere. We were having lots of fun dancing although we're still not sure about right steps:) After a while a great drum band appeared. There were three huge djembes and some other percussion instruments. The band was supported by a very fit girl, dancing like crazy:) After this fascinating show, salsa music was back and we danced till three in the morning.
The next day, after small shopping at handcraft market (lots of bargaining!) we made our way to the southern bus station to catch a bus to Salasaca - a place where we wanted to do short-term volunteering in the local school.
Amazing girl playing flute in one of the parks
You can buy there freshly-made hats and scarfs:)
No comments:
Post a Comment