The
flight from Miami to Quito is only 4hrs. By contrast San Jose to Miami
took us 8hrs. We checked into this trendy travel hostel (L’Auberge),
cute courtyard, room with several beds and bath and breakfast for $22. The
front desk was particularly very helpful in getting our bearings and providing
us with whatever we needed for the kids.
Quito
is the capital city of Ecuador
in northwestern South America. At 2850 m/9300
ft above sea level, it is the second highest capital city in the world and is
located about 22 miles south of the equator. A monument marking the equator is
known locally as "la mitaddelmundo"
(the middle of the world). Due to its altitude and location, the climate in Quito is mild to cool,
fairly constant all year round, with a high temperature typically around 70F.
There are only two seasons in Quito,
summer (the dry season) and winter (the rainy season). The Spanish established
the Catholicism in Quito
and immediately after the San Francisco Convent was constructed, the first of
about 20 more churches and convents built during the colonial period. The
Spanish heavily evangelized the indigenous people (not quite so
brutal as it was in the rest of Andes) and
used them for construction. After nearly 300 years of Spanish colonization, the
Ecuadorians under the command of Simon Bolivar led victory marked the
independence of Quito
and the surrounding areas.
The "centrohistorico",
historical center, as it is called, was appointed a UNESCO World Heritage
Cultural Site. It has many appealing plazas (the Independence Plaza being the
most important) and manierist and baroque churches,
including the Cathedral, the convent and church of St. Francis, which is the
largest building of the Colonial era built by the Spaniards in South America,
the church of El Sagrario, convent and church of
Santo Domingo and the church of the Society of Jesus, or "La Compañía" which was built after the model of the
Church of the Gesu in Rome. There are also several
museums, many of them dedicated to colonial art and history; some of the most
renowned are the CityMuseum ("Museo de la
Ciudad"), the MetropolitanCulturalCenter
and the museum of the Convent of St. Francis. Markets are scattered throughout
the area.
For tourist purposes, Quito is conveniently
divided into the OldCity and the New
City. The area of the New City that everybody ends up in is called
La Mariscal (or Mariscal
Sucre). Nowadays, it's a mecca for international
tourists. There's a mix of lodgings (at all price ranges, from $3 a night dorms
to major international chains), restaurants, travel agencies, souvenir shops
and Spanish schools. All of which makes it a convenient area to stay in, but nothing
unique to Ecuador.
We were located near Parque El Ejido,
a large park at the southern end of the New
City and at the edge of the Old city. Inside the park
is the Casa de la Cultura, which hosts several
museums. Past the Parque El Ejido
with the Case de la Cultura, the PalacioLegislativo (legislature building), the Parque Alameda which is the site of the oldest astronomical
observatory in South America. In the OldCity, the architecture is
of the typical Spanish colonial style, with many buildings with wrought iron
balconies.
The Plaza de la Indepencia: There is a tall column/statue
in the middle, the cathedral on one side and a government building on another
side. Almost all days had a crowd of demonstrators in front of the Palacio de Gobierno. We took a
peek in through the gate at the famous mural depicting Francisco de Orellano's descent of the Amazon.
The Jesuit church
of La Compania:
The exterior is ornately carved, but the interior is even more striking with
more gold leaf than I had ever seen in a church. The claim is that over seven
tons of gold were used to gild the walls, altar and balconies. There's a mix of
influences, from the Moorish arches favored in Spanish architecture of the
period to elaborate sun symbols, strategically intended to attract converts
from the indigenous population. It is possibly one of the most beautiful
churches I had seen in Latin America.
The Plaza and Monastery of San Francisco: While it isn't as ornate as La Compania, there is still plenty to gawk at. The most famous
thing to see, though, is the original statue of La Virgen
de Quito, a large copy of which tops El Panecillo, a
rounded hill that overlooks the OldCity.
We reboarded the bus to La Mitad
del Mundo ("the middle of the world") –
latitude 0’0’0 which is the obligatory tourist excursion La Mitad
del Mundo (the middle of the world) is a small
village located about 22 miles north of Quito, on the equator, where visitors
find a monument to the equator housing a historical museum, in addition to a
planetarium, various exhibits, and shops. It was entertaining to watch people
kiss or shake hands across the line. The complex includes several restaurants
and souvenir shops and a scale model of Quito.
Otavalo: A long day north, via the capital Quito and across the
equator, to Otavalo. A day of
pottering around the small and pleasant town. The Saturday market was
massive, and famed throughout South America.
The 'otavalenos' looked very striking in their
traditional dress, with the men in their ponchos and dark felt hats with long
pony tails hanging down their backs and the women in black skirts and embroided white blouses. The market was fun to explore.
They come from the surrounding villages to the Otavalo
markets; we see beautiful weaved cloth, ponchos, pottery
and music instruments. Reena bought a few scarves.
On arrival in Cuenca, we took a taxi to the city
center, where we got a double room (with bath and breakfast included) at the
hostel at a place suggested by Luis for $21. It was Christmas eve so we had a little trouble finding places to eat. The
new cathedral was very well lit and there were services going on. Cuenca
is a city filled with churches. Local rumor says there are 52 - one for each
week of the year. There was also the Festival de Los Inocentes.
It is a mixture of Latin American catholicism,
specifically Ecuadorian or Cuencan. Families bring
small dolls of baby Jesus to churches to be blessed. The more spectacular twist
is that people, especially children, dress in costumes. There were some paper mache masks I assume were more traditional but I saw a lot
of the sort of plastic masks we got for Halloween, as well as one adult dressed
as Spiderman There's a nice walk along the river, past colonial buildings and drying
laundry on the riverbanks to some Inca ruins - just a few remnants of walls.
(The major Inca site in Ecuador
is Ingapirca, which is a couple of hours north. We
didn't make it there.) There are several museums and art galleries. The modern
art museum is reasonably good. All of the signs are entirely in Spanish. The
churches are the major attraction of Cuenca. And the most impressive is
the new cathedral.
In
eastern Ecuador
(the Oriente), tropical rain forests are home to
indigenous Quecha people and hundreds of species of
plants and animals. Rivers, such as the Rio Napo and
Rio Aguarico, begin in Ecuador, and eventually join with
the Amazon much further east. In the jungle, we can see wide variety of birds
and animals – caiman (a relative of the alligator), macaws, toucans, monkeys
(squirrel, red howler, spider), jaguar, pink river
dolphins, manatees and piranhas. We didn’t see much except monkeys, macaws and
some birds. It took us close to 6hrs from Quito
to get to Tena. We found a little hut on the banks of
Rio Napo. But right on the river and without any
lights for miles around, we could see the milky way
band very clearly. Next day, we hired a guide to take us down the river in a panga who explained us some of the flora and fauna took us
to a Quecha village which made their own chicha (a toddy type liquor/beer) and panned gold on the
river banks.
New Year
We slept in the afternoon and bought two bottles of rum and
coke and Reena and I finished it around 9pm, before
we started our walk down AveniedaAmazonas
which was quite crowded and people burning effigies of the Old Year. We bought
some fireworks and had a celebration of our own. The kids were a little tired
and we ended up sleeping just before 2006. The next day we were bumped off the
LAN flight back to Miami,
we went back to the hostel but the room wasn’t available. So we walked around
downtown and the smelly backstreets but beautiful in their own way and found a
room in another hostel. It looked a little corny when we walked in. The front
desk seemed to be amused that a family was checking into a red light hotel.
