QUITO, ECUADOR
Arrived at 12:05 am. Customs was a breeze and then we were met by our driver. It was smart setting up a van pickup at the airport we saved half the cab fare and pickups are tough on Saturday mornings because most people go out drinking or clubbing on Friday nights and almost all use taxis because the laws are so strict about driving under the in influence of alcohol.
Hotel Reina Isabel very nice in the new part of town and adjacent to right in the the club and bar area. There is a nice view from the room of the city and hills dotted with housing going up probably another 1000 ft of elevation
The new airport is on the East side of town at about 7500ft elevation and our hotel is an hour drive on the West side at an elevation of 9500 ft. We had to climb 1000 ft of it on a very narrow cobblestone street to get up to the newer city where our hotel is located. With the narrow streets and the aggressiveness necessary to merge into traffic just making a turn, I can see why you would not want to drive intoxicated because all the cars, trucks and buses are inches away from each other.
Woke up at 9:30 had breakfast in the hotel and started exploring the city by 11:00. I had heard that the oldest part of town was the place to go. We decided to begin in the Plaza de Independencia, also known to locals as the Plaza Grande.
We came down a steep hill and looked down where the taxi driver pointed and said "Plaza Grande". We looked down and could see a river of people filling the street below us with white bobbing balloons percolating their way down the avenue. The procession blocked our taxi from delivering us to the plaza, so, we got out and followed the procession to the Grand Plaza. The procession was actually a protest about abortion rights and the full demonstration was going on in the plaza
When we arrived the plaza it was a huge square ringed with buildings with amazing architecture that filled with locals. When the Spanish set up towns in the New World, they did so in accordance with a tried and true formula: main square, cathedral, governor’s palace, city hall. Quito is no exception. Flanking the Plaza Grande are all the chief administrative buildings from the city’s colonial past.
Its main feature is the monument to the independence heroes of August 10, 1809, date remembered as the First Cry of Independence of the Royal Audience of Quito from the Spanish monarchy.
We decided it was a bit too crowded and noisy so we set off exploring the blocks surrounding the plaza. There were quite a number of streets that were sealed off from auto traffic that were populated by local stores and restaurants. Also you could find dozens of street vendors selling everything. Some were food items ranging, from candy, local drinks, gelato, whipped cream deserts, apples, avocados, cherries, to quail eggs, and meat strips. They were also selling bracelets, trinkets, jackets, shirts, hats coats and kitchen items like a disorganized and mobile flea market. We bought bracelets that i still wear every day
Ultimately, we were able to visit one of the most arresting architectural churches I have seen. Everything about this church is over the top capped by the soaring baroque cupola. I looked up the name of the church and it is named the Compañía de Jesús 16th-century Jesuit church. We wandered another block away and we came upon the Monasterio de San Francisco. We walked the plaza looked inside the church and there was a mass going on but you could see the lavishness of the church with baroque elements and a high altar in all its exotic golden splendor. Today, however, much of the complex has been converted into a museum of religious art, a store, and a restaurant, which we later went back to for our lunch.
Compania de Jesus
From the square looking to the South there is a small hill overlooking the old city is a statue of an angel. We did not go uo the hill, (they call it a hill but it is like a small mountain to me) to see it but i looked it up and it is not an angel but The Virgin of Quito on the Panecillo hill is the most recognizable and most dominant landmark of Ecuador’s capital. Although the angelic statue has only been standing guard on the Panecillo for about 40 years. It is supposedly made of aluminum.
We wandered back through the streets and went into the Metropolitan museum and looked at the art of the Ecuadorians and the Incas who were the indigenous people. Some of it showing the beauty but a lot showing the hard lives the people led in order to survive the Amazon. It also had an exhibit on the Spanish invasion and the harshness of the rule under the Spaniards. We spend some more time in the Grand Plaza and were able to enjoy it now that the demonstration was over.
We were hungry so we headed back up to the restaurant at the Monasterio de San Francisco and it had started sprinkling. We made it into the restaurant just in time before the skies opened up and started dumping buckets of rain. We had some local fare of thinly sliced filet steak with two fried eggs, sliced avocado served over a bed of rice. We tried some local craft beers, a local stout, and I had a beer called Red Llama which was an Irish red. Throughout our lunch we heard the loud cracking thunder of the angry sky and watched inches of rain fall. While we dined a local musicain played some original songs that he played with a foot drum, guitar and mouth pipes. It reminded me of Peruvian music i have heard in the US
Because of the heavy rain we headed back to our hotel to rest up for the evening. We sat in the bar and drank some old fashions and then went out to have dinner around 8:00. We walked through the bar, club and restaurant area and settled on a Cuban restaurant for dinner and drank Sangria. We called it a night around 10:00 and walked back to the hotel because we have an early pick up tomorrow.
MINDO
We were met by our driver Guillermo for our private tour at our hotel at 7:00 am. We started on our 2 hour journey to Mindo and had to go over Pichincha an active volcano that last erupted in October of 1999 which started activity in the ring of volcanos that cross Ecuador. Looking out the window in the hotel room you can see the western side which is opposite where caldera exploded. It is over 15,000 ft high and we had to go over it to get to Mindal on a two lane road.
When we arrived at Mindo we found a quaint little village with a cobblestone main street bordered by wooden colonnades reminiscent of an old western town however the architecture is one of mid 19th century.
The standout in the middle of the main street was the beautiful church that was just letting out a Palm Sunday service.
We followed the main street colonnades to a central square that had a colorful landscaping with exotic plants from the rainforest and a sculpture of a hummingbird feeding it's baby.
The town of Mindo is known in the region for producing chocolate. We had time to visit a small cafe up a dirt side road in a tree house like setting. for breakfast we had some coffee, fried plantains and brownies made from the chocolate they produce.
After breakfast we headed up a dirt road into the Mindo Valley.
The Mindo Valley is a mountainous watershed in the western slopes of the Andes, where two of the most biologically diverse ecoregions in the world meet: the Chocoan lowlands and the Tropical Andes. We were told it is set in beautiful cloud-forest, and it is surrounded by the Mindo-Nambillo Cloud Forest; the forest is home to hundreds of species of birds, many of which are in danger of extinction. After a ten minute drive over the Mindo river where we could see river rafters washing down the choppy waters we arrived at the Canopy Tours of Mindo where we were in a group of 10 people who were going into the rainforest to take 10 zip lines that would traverse the canyons and ravines. This Canopy tour is supposed to be one of the top ten tours in the world.We were at the 10,400 foot elevation at the start of our Canopy tour according to one of our two tour guides. We hiked another 500 ft. The forest was alive with butterflies, and sounds of hundreds of species of birds. We were able even to see a Toucan.
Let the fun begin! Freedom, excitement, exhilaration, thrills, adrenaline rush, it felt the closest thing to flying without wings. The exhilarating feeling of soaring through the air took my breath away. It was more than being attached to a cable and allowing gravity to pull me to the other side. It’s about letting my inner child free, letting myself laugh and cry and feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
It’s about getting an unforgettable view and in this case it was a view of inexplicable greens of the lush canopy that blanked the rainforest along with the reds and browns of the foilage set against the rich blue of the late morning sky. As I flew down the cable I almost brush against the trees as I dove down to the ending platform. Half the fun is to watch and listen to the other members of our tour as they squeal and sometimes scream as they soar over the abyss with increasingly longer, faster and steeper lines. Two hours later we ended our tour with the last line landing where we started. Everyone in the tour group felt a special kinship with each other that comes from being on a unique and exciting adventure. We said farewell to our guides and left to go back to Mindo to have a lunch.
Ziplining can work up an appetite. We found ourselves back in the square and went to a local family run restaurant called El Cheffsito where we had a seasoned broth soup with chicken, plantains, carrots, potatos, peas and yucca heart along with a plate of chicken that was so very flavorful and cooked so it fell of the bone, rice, potatos, and a small salad, which we washed down with refreshing passion fruit juice.
The family worked the restaurant and the three daughters that looked to be ages 8 - 13 served us. We enjoyed watching them teasing, giggling and playing around, but still paying attention to our needs. We were the only ones in the tiny restaurant.
CIUDAD MITAD DEL MUNDO
Back into the car with Guillermo for an hour drive back over the volcanic mountain to visit the equator line where the Northern and Southern Hemispheres meet Ciudad Mitad del Mundo which means "The middle of the Earth". I quickly scanned the horizon to see if i could see any hobbit homes like the ones i saw in New Zealand last year, but then I remembered that was called "Middle Earth", a reasonable mistake i guess, lol
The photo on the left is the place the Ecuadorian government memorialized the Middle latitude. There are big monuments in a plaza. However, a mistake was really made because the place the government of Equador set up a Museum and monuments along the equatorial line was incorrect when they discovered by GPS that it is located 33 meters away at the Initian Museum.
INITIAN MUSEUM
The Initian Museum was one of the fun and educational parts of visiting Ecuador. There is so much to experience and witness! It was very deceiving when we first arrived because this place looks pretty underwhelming at first glance. However, this is the real deal!
On the actual Equatorial Line they present many fascinating things. They bring a bucket of water out with a drain at the bottom. On the Southern Hemisphere side the water swirls clockwise as it drains, and on the Northern Hemisphere it swirls counter-clockwise. If the bucket is placed directly on the Equatorial line it falls straight down without swirling!
You can't even take one straight step on the line without falling to one side or another. Another cool trick was balancing an egg on the pointy side of a nail placed directly on the line! Simply fascinating! They also had presentations involving Ecuador's rich and unique history and also did a bit about shrunken head's. Do not miss this place if you ever make it to Ecuador!!!