We took a 4 day trip down to Quito to visit the city
(looking for spices at the supermarket among other things) and see the sights.
I had been able to visit some things in Quito when I came down previously with
colleagues from work, so it was the first place we have visited that I had a
small sense of where we were going, where things were, and what to look out
for.
The craziness of a South American city was nothing new to us
after visiting Peru, so the cars, the mass transit, and the paying attention
were already in play with A and N. This was however, our first time trying to
navigate a variety of overlapping bus systems and it was a bit of an adventure
carrying duffle bags on crowded busses and making our way to our hotel on foot.
Everyone stuck it out and we made it there without incident :)
We stayed at the Nu House hotel, right off the main square
of what the Ecuadorians refer to as “gringolandia” in New town. This is the restaurant/party
square with a distinctive modern/American/European vibe. I was familiar with
where this was, hence, we started there. Our hotel was a contemporary ‘boutique’
hotel with small little rooms overlooking the square. The stairs up to our room
were ‘hovering’ concrete – basically a concrete staircase with no supports in
between, and no rails on the side, which seem to be the standard in Ecuador. It
continues to weird C and I out. The funny part about this particular set of
stairs and doorways is they were made to accommodate people up to about 5’8”,
so forgetting to duck repeatedly was a constant reminder that we are a couple
sizes too big for this hotel.
Once our luggage was settled, we headed off to our first
place on the agenda, the Teleferico. This is a cable car that starts well above
the city, and then carries you up the side of the Pichincha volcano to give you
an impressive view of the mountain valley filled with city.
Despite the ride up
giving C and N a little case of the heebs, everyone agreed that it was pretty
cool :) The kids both wanted pictures 'holding something', so N is holding the city, and A is holding clouds. Enjoy!
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