Quito

We left behind the land of the free and set off for South America, first stop Ecuador. So, goodbye to New York and hello to Quito where the first language is Spanish. No change there, then.

Quito is the capital of Ecuador, situated in the Highlands, nestling at 2800 metres high in a valley between a volcanic mountain range. It’s the first time I’ve arrived by plane where we didn’t descend. We just flew in and landed.

The altitude takes a while to adjust to. It takes a few days for your body to manufacture extra red blood cells to compensate for the lack of oxygen. Even at rest, you need to breathe more often to begin with.

Day 1 commenced with a morning tour of the old town. This was built by the Spanish during colonial rule commencing with the conquest in 1534. More accurately, it was built by the natives with the Spanish supervising.

No surprise that there are churches everywhere. The Spanish tried to get the locals to build classical Catholic churches, and generally succeeded, but our guide pointed to several symbols and decorations that the natives managed to sneak in from their own religion, with the Spanish clueless at the time. In the seventies and eighties, this quarter was abandoned by the wealthy as security deteriorated. Now, it t is undergoing a renaissance, with the old, grand houses being restored as smart new hotels or restaurants. It was declared a world heritage centre in the seventies and is well looked after by the government. The place is well policed and we felt very safe there.

We visited a number of churches to look at the art work, the highlight if which was the Jesuit, “gold” church. This is an incredibly ornate building with every square inch decorate in gold leaf. A place clearly designed to induce awe in visitors, and to demonstrate the extreme wealth of the Jesuits. Indeed, the Jesuits became so powerful that the King of Spain banished them from South America and they all had to leave. There’s a moral to that story, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” – or maybe not.

We discovered that we had arrived in Quito during an election campaign. There is a run off between a very wealthy businessman and an ex professor to be the next president. One very right wing and the other very left wing – guess which is which.

Our guide is a little worried in case the businessman wins, and not just because he’s a fascist, but that people are not sure how he’s going to take it if he loses. So we could end up in the middle of a revolution. Well, I suppose that’s par for the course for a trip to South America.

During the election, Ecuadorian law forbids the sale and consumption of alcohol two days prior, and during the election day itself. Voting is compulsory so presumably the law is designed to ensure that the populace is not too pissed to take part. One of the pleasures of traveling is to experience new things, so we duly walked upto the hotel bar on the first day of prohibition and ordered a fruit juice.

We’ve also been trying the local food, although we have yet to come across the infamous roasted guinea pig. Our guide recommended an authentic Ecuador restaurant a short walk from our hotel which had the advantage of an English menu. Unfortunately, the translation was not always accurate, as we both went for the Beef and bean soup to start which turned out to be tripe. Actually, I thought it was quite good.


We set off the next day through the avenue of Volcanoes. 13 volcanoes of which 3 are still active. We were heading to the highest active volcano in the world, Cotopaxi, at 4500 Metres. And It’s overdue for an eruption – Is this really a good idea? Mags asked the guide how much notice there would be before an eruption, seeking some reassurance. Our guide, Mery, explained about the seismic centres that are stationed at strategic points, but didn’t actually answer Mags’ question.

Cotopaxi national park is truly beautiful, wild, scenic, and deserted. There had been a recent snow fall, which is unusual apparently, and the volcanoes peaks were covered. We were lucky that the weather was reasonably good to give us a glimpse of the volcano as it is shrouded by clouds most of the time.

There are very few animals that are prepared to tuff it out in this harsh habitat and altitude but we managed to spot Llamas, wild horses and, perhaps more surprisingly, feral cattle.

We continued upwards in our four wheel drive and stopped for lunch at a lonely restaurant anchored to a hillside with spectacular views of Cotopaxi.

After a few minutes we were joined by a group of climbers who had just completed the ascent, and descent of the volcano. This has to undertaken at night to avoid the fierce sun. 5 hours up, and 3 back down, starting at midnight. I think they deserved their lunch.

On the way back, we stopped at a Hacienda. These are the old colonial houses that were built under the feudal land system. The favored Spanish noble would be granted land for farming, and they built beautiful large houses to live in.

Many still exist and some of them are open to tourists. They clearly take a lot of maintenance and the tourist dollar must be welcome. The one we saw was in need of some major work, with damp running throughout the buildings. It is till the centre of a working farm rearing cattle and thoroughbred horses. It was filled with antique furniture, tapestries, and paintings with large rooms decorated with colourful tiles. It certainly gave us some sense of what life must have been like in 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.