Quito

Hola and again, apologies for the delay in posts.

So Quito.  What can we say...we love it here!  The people are friendly, the food is tasty and the scenery is beautiful.  We spent two days in Quito before heading to Galapagos and we squeezed in as much as we could in the historic centre.  After Galapagos we headed back to Quito and explored the more modern northern end of the city and the surrounding areas.

The historic centre is a rabbit warren (I miss Alfie) of narrow cobbled streets packed with vendors pushing their wares and beautiful old buildings.  Our first stop was the observatory which is situated in one of Quito's many beautiful parks.

We would have spent longer here but all the signs were in Spanish so it was difficult for us to get out nerd on.

We then walked up hill (at altitude so this is a big deal) to the Basíllica del Voto Nacional.  It is a beautiful neo-gothic catholic church and can be seen from many places in the historic centre.  The main reason I liked it is because instead of the usual gargoyles there are turtles, iguanas and armadillos scattered around the place!  After that we wandered around many a nice plaza and saw many nice old buildings.

Basílica del Voto Nacional

Turtle gargoyles

 In the evening we headed to Parque Ichimbía which is on a hill to the east of the historical centre and has an amazing view of the old town.  There is a beautiful glass building on the top of the hill which is used for many cultural events.  It was really stunning up there and gave you a feel for how big the city is.

The cultural centre at Parque Ichimbía 

Historic centre at dusk

When we returned to Quito we were lucky to have Pierina (who we met in Cordoba!) show us around her home town!  She was possibly the best tour guide ever!  She took us back to the the Basílica and took us up the spires and the clock towers.  I should clarify this by saying that Marc and Pierina climbed the rickety stairs to the top of the towers while I stayed on the safer lower levels trying to not feel too ashamed as I watched two small children easily and fearlessly climb the death stairs.

Pierina and I in the Basílica

The clocks both with the wrong time

After we safely descended from the Basílica we headed to the more modern northern end of town where we ate at an amazing modern Peruvian/fusion restaurant.  We then wandered around an extremely lovely mall where we realised our packs were not sufficient to carry all the things we would like to purchase so we promptly left and made our way to a massive super market.  Now I know this sounds odd but I just really love seeing supermarkets in other countries.  I love meandering up and down the aisles marvelling at all the things they have that I have never seen before and being bitterly disappointed when I realise they don't have my brand of soy milk.

The next day we booked a day tour with our lovely taxi driver Jorge who planned out a day of sightseeing to Otavalo Markets north of Quito.  We first stopped in San Antonio which was a cute little town known for its beautiful wood carvings.

Jorge - our lovely guide for the day

On the way to San Antonio 

Lago San Pedro and Volcan Imbabura 

Main square of San Antonio

Master wood carver at work

We then headed to  Cuicocha which is a crater lake at the foot of the Cotacachi Volcano with cute little guinea pig shaped islands in the middle of the crater.

At the markets Marc and I bought Amazon appropriate clothes in the form of happy pants and hippy shirts (photographic evidence will be provided in a later post).  Our last stop for the day was the Inti Nan Museum which is built on the line of the equator.  Here we tried to walk in a straight line along the equator (and failed), balanced eggs on nails (succeeded) and watched water swirl in opposite directions on each side of the equator!

This is the mythical fish that swims up your urethra if you pee naked in the Amazon!  Can't wait to go there!!!!

So from Basílicas and fish swimming up your pee hole, we now head to Galapagos!!!!!!