The big, scary capital....

Trip Start Sep 19, 2009
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Trip End May 19, 2010


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Where I stayed
La casona de mario

Flag of Ecuador  , Pichincha,
Monday, November 16, 2009

Quito is not known to be one of the safest cities in South America, with numerous muggings stories and not great odds on leaving with all valuables you once had. We were overly cautious and got taxis around a lot (always at night), as we were instructed. So to hear on the mobile that Jonny was wandering around the streets blissfully unaware of these statistics and happily texting us we were a little worried! Thankfully, he was safely back in the hostel when we returned. We had 2 days to see Quito with Jonny before we were to join our Galapagos tour. We spent one day in the Old city walking around admiring the numerous churches, a nice angel statue at the top of a hill, catching up in cafes for hours on end and walking up a steep street to a very impressive and old looking church, the basilica. Here we paid $2.50 to walk up the 150 odd steps to the roof top of the church for views of the city, only to find we had to walk along a plank at the top of the roof and then climb a thin rodded ladder to get to the outside for the best views
In the slow cable car
In the slow cable car
! If that was not enough terror, once outside we saw 2 more ladders leading to the top spire which I am sure had an even more impressive view, but due to the high winds, me being in flipflops and wearing a skirt, we decided it was not for us and looked out from where we were before a cowardly retreat…

To make up for missed views, we headed the next day to the Telerific cable car in the west of the city. Here we started our cable car journey at an altitude of 2,500m and (very slowly) over about 35 minutes climbed to 4,100m with truely awesome views of the city below. We could just make out the angel statue and the Basilica about half way up, but at the top we were almost too high to make out what we were looking at. You can walk up a further 800m from the cable car, but as it was rather chilly and the clouds were getting greyer and greyer (and I was in flipflops again), we opted for the cable car down... good decision when the heavens opened while we journeyed back down! Quito's airport is very near the city centre, and on the way down we enjoyed watching a number of planes fly very low over to city to land....

The afternoon was a bit of a washout, literally with very heavy rain, perfect excuse for Ben to watch the French cheat their way into the World cup, while I desperately tried to find an internet connection that actually functioned within 5 minutes of waiting (how can it be so hard in Quito!?) and Jonny signed his life away to another tour company for a 2 day cycling tour to the volcano Cotapaxi and the crater Quilotoa.  In the evening we had a quick briefing to get some info on our Galapagos tour for the following day, all getting excited for a bit of sun, rest and some truely awesome wildlife....
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