Onwards and Upwards - Quito, Ecuador (altitude 2850m)

After a few days hanging out in Bogota we jumped on a plane (the border between Colombia and Ecuador is not considered safe at the moment, so we thought it best to go by air) over to Quito, Ecuador. This was our first experience with a low cost carrier that does not reserve seats! VivaColombia saved basically half the cost of a standard flight and I must say, was pretty good! Mitch and I were the last group to enter the plane and still managed to get a row all to ourselves!

We arrived at about 6pm local time, hopped in a taxi and watched the scenery go by. The hostel we were staying in was located in the middle of the historical centre and it was a pretty amazing view from our window of the main basilica in Quito lit up at night with all the street lights up the hill in the distance. Very cool.

Upon arrival the hostel owner, Paul, asked if we were interested in a free day tour of the city in the morning. Of course we said yes!

Still jet lagged, we were up at about 5am, dressed and out the door by 7am, wandering the streets waiting for everything to open up and our tour to start at 10.30am. We eventually happened upon a bakery just putting out its freshly baked goods for the day including what has become my favourite here in Ecuador, croissants with a chocolate filling! Yum - especially when they are still hot!!

10.30am rolls around and we go to meet the walking tour group. There was probably 15 or so people and two guides, one a local lady and another an English expat who lives here with his wife now. We wandered the streets of the old city, taking in the amazing architecture and beautiful churches. Not to mention we were lucky enough to be there on a Tuesday, which is the changing of the guard day in the centre of town! The president was there and everything… pretty cool!

Quito also happens to be the place we discovered the fantastically economical, not too mention tasty, traditional set meals… breakfasts, lunches, dinners - theres always a set meal to suit! Our first set meal was recommended by one of the guides and cost us $2.85US. We sat down in the little restaurant and the waiter who spoke a smidgen of english gave us the option beef or fish? we both said beef.

Out came an incredibly filling soup with potatoes and some other veggies and beef along with an amazing pineapple juice! Perfect! We ate that up and by the end we were both pretty full! Thinking that was it, we were about to get up and pay, satisfied with the cost of lunch in the city… when the waiter brought out the rest of our meals! A plate of rice and more beef! So good! but so full!

And this was when we fell in love with set meals!

That afternoon after recovering from our food coma, we wandered back to the huge Basilica del Voto Nacional in the middle of town.

For $2US they let you climb up to the roof and then explore all the clock towers and steeples, giving the best views of the city! I must admit some of the ladders left a lot to be desired, especially the last ladder to the outside steeple… But once at the top the views were worth the almost death ladder!

One of the coolest things was crossing over the arched roof inside the church! It never occurred to me that there was a large gap between the arch inside the church and the roof on the outside! They had built a makeshift “bridge” over the arch to allow you to move from one side of the church to another set of viewing areas.

We spent quite a while exploring this beautiful Basilica before heading out for pizza dinner with some other travellers we’d met during the walking tour and at the hostel. It was some of the best pizza I’d had in a while!

After a good nights sleep, we had planned to try and make it to the summit of Pichincha Volcano at an altitude of 4784m, with 3 others from the hostel. Unfortunately our weather apps were saying that it would be thunder storming by the time we summit (100% chance, it said!) and at that altitude we didn’t want to risk it. So instead we went out for a set breakfast at a cafe nearby and decided we would all walk up another hill to see the QUITO letter signage above the city.

It was a really lovely walk and the view was pretty good too! There was a running track and a large glass pavilion filled with bean bags to hang out it. Pretty cool!

Needless to say, it was a cloudless day with no rain and no storms… standard weather forecasting