Quito, Ecuador

No, we did not take our tiny home to Ecuador! To celebrate Gary’s upcoming 65th birthday, we booked a Galápagos Islands cruise over a year ago. The time had finally arrived! We flew from Houston to Quito, Ecuador on Thursday, April 6th on a non-stop flight that arrived after midnight. While waiting on our hotel shuttle ride, we were chatting with a young man with multiple suitcases carrying gear who was also waiting on the same shuttle bus. Turns out he was headed to the Galápagos the next day to film for the Disney channel for a month. Apparently it’s a brutal schedule of working 14-16 hour days for 28 days. He’s young, he can handle it! He said if we watched the Disney channel in a year or two we might see the production. Interesting. We finally go to the hotel at about 2 in the morning.  The next day we were met by a Celebrity Cruise representative who took us to the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Quito where we would be rendezvousing with other cruise guests for the next day’s sight seeing of Ecuador’s capitol city.

Old Town Quito is home to the second largest Good Friday procession in all of South America. It was recommended by Celebrity staff that we not venture into Old Town on Friday with 500,000 people expected in the city, so we settled for a relaxing day at the hotel…. walking the beautiful grounds, an hour long soak in a bathtub for me plus a nap, drinks in the bar lounge followed by a delicious dinner at Ráices South American restaurant at the hotel. Then listening to piano music in the hotel lobby before calling it a night. Tomorrow will be an all-day tour of Quito. 

Saturday, April 8th, we were able to meet up for breakfast at the hotel with our friends Linda & Phil who had flown in the previous evening from Massachusetts. They are joining us on this little adventure. The 4 of us have been friends for over 40 years!

Liz was our guide for the day… born and bred in the city of Quito (pronounced Kēto). She shared many interesting facts: Quito means “center of the world.” It really is the center of the world with a latitude of zero degrees. Sunrise and sunset are always at 6AM and 6PM regardless of the time of year. They have no seasons… just rainy and non-rainy season. It was the rainy season while we were visiting although thankfully the rain was not an all-day event. It did make the landscape exceedingly lush! 

Quito is the second highest Capitol city on earth at 9,350 ft (after La Paz, Bolivia at almost 12,000 ft) so temps are very comfortable (mid 60s). Quito has a population of 3 million people, and the city is a World UNESCO site with over 5,000 colonial buildings covering 750 acres. Amazing. Old Town offers many shops with very good prices so locals shop on Saturday making traffic a nightmare. 

Ecuador is about the size of Colorado and has a population of 18 million. A rich oil deposit was discovered under the Amazon rainforest in the 1970s making oil one of their largest exports. Oil prices are subsidized for the locals. We saw diesel prices of $1.75. Other exports are shrimp, tuna and bananas. Roses are the 5th largest export, and they are absolutely spectacular! Flower stalls are everywhere. You can buy roses very cheap… just $3 for a dozen locally. Tourism is #6 when it comes to the Ecuador economy. Currency is the U.S. dollar and the minimum wage is $450 a month. And that concludes today’s geography lesson! 

Our first stop on our city tour was Itchimbía, a park at the eastern end of downtown Quito located on a hill with a commanding view. Afterwards we visited several churches and convents in Old Town. Over 80% of Ecuadorians are Catholic. Several of the churches and Basilicas are done in the baroque style with curving lines, gilt and lots of gold. Almost every inch of the interior walls are covered or carved or in some way decorated. Amazing. In one church we weren’t allowed to take photos. It was truly a marvel of locally carved wood and gold leaf. The convents were places of solitude and lovely courtyards. 

In one such church/convent setting… Liz, our guide, had us try an interesting experiment. She had two people putting their ears against opposite corners of a convent wall. Gary has his ear up against one wall portraying a priest hearing confession. Across the hall was another person speaking with his mouth to the wall. Gary could actually hear him. Back in the day it was how confession was heard. The plague was rampant and everyone had to keep their distance.

After an Ecuadorian lunch, we headed to Intiñan Site Museum. Initiñan means “path of the sun.” This outdoor museum sits on the line of the equator, and the museum guide took us through a few interesting experiments. One very simple experiment was showing the flow of water at the equator. When she emptied a bucket of water down a vessel shaped like a kitchen sink, it went straight down. Just a few feet to the left or right of the equator line, the water swirled clockwise or counter clockwise. Wild! Also, supposedly, you could balance an egg easier at the equator on the head of a nail. The guide could do it but none of us. She also had us try walking in a straight line one foot in front of the other with eyes closed and hands out. Almost as though you were in a drunk driving test. I was the only one who did it fairly successfully. She guessed correctly that I practiced yoga! 

After our day of sight seeing, we headed back to the hotel to rest before heading out for dinner at La Gloria, a nearby local restaurant. The food was delicious and once again gave us a flavor of Ecuadorian cuisine. Gary & I enjoyed one final drink at the hotel bar with Linda & Phil before we headed up to our rooms. Tomorrow we board our ship!