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| At Basilica del Voto Nacional |
Getting to Quito
Quito was the first city we were visiting in South America. We had booked our tickets on LAN Ecuador and were set to fly from New York's JFK airport. Our flight was just a few days after hurricane Sandy and airports were still recovering. Luckily everything went smoothly and the flight left on time. We had exit row seats so the hostess came by to check on us and started speaking to us in Spanish. Neither of us understood a word of what she said and simple gave her blank stares. The moment she stopped speaking, I blurted out "No habla espanyol". She smiled and explained to us in her broken English and left. We looked at each other and just could not stop laughing and wondered how we would manage the entire trip without Spanish.
The flight to Quito was via Guayaquil so we had to do our immigration and customs there. Both processes were easy and fast. The only question the immigration officer asked us was if this was the first time we came to Ecuador. The 90 day visa was free and he printed it onto our passports. The connecting flight from Guayaquil to Quito was on time as well. Quito is situated at an elevation of 9350ft, right in the middle of the Andes so we got to see some amazing sights of the Andes range from the flight.
In Quito, we gathered our luggage and took a taxi to our hostel. Our first impression of Quito was that it was similar to any Indian city - the traffic, the pollution, the rash driving. As we drove towards the old town, we recognized there was a strong Spanish influence in the architecture of the buildings. Our hostel, L'Auberge Inn, was right in the middle of old town and new town so we had easy access to both parts of the city. We had reserved a double bed room with a shared bathroom since rooms with private bathrooms were already sold out. The room we got was quite small - just enough to fit a double bed and some space for luggage but at least the shared bathroom was clean. After some time resting, we set out walking towards the old town.
Quito's Old Town
Within a few minutes walk of the L'Auberge Inn was Parque La Alameda. The park wasn't huge, but it had a manmade lake attached which offered pedal boating. There was also an astronomical observatory, the oldest in the continent, right next to the park but it was closed when we got there. We later found out that Quito has a lot of parks and this was just one of them.
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| Parque La Alameda |
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| Observatory at Parque La Alameda |
It had barely been 10 minutes since we got out and were walking across Parque La Alameda when it started raining heavily right in the middle of the day. We took cover in some nearby buildings and for a minute or so, the rain turned into hail. When the rain died down a bit, we continued on in search of vegetarian food for lunch in the general direction of Plaza Grande. After much searching we found a pizza place and had lunch there. The hostel we were staying in had no maps of the area so we had to ask around to get to the plaza. Once there, the first thing we did was to get a map of the area from the tourist information center in the plaza. We spent some time at the plaza, a nearby church and simply walking around the streets exploring the city and it's architecture. We walked as far as Plaza San Domingo and had a view of El Panecillo. Also went to the Basilica del Voto Nacional but that had closed so we were only able to see it from the outside.
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| Plaza Grande |
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| Streets of Quito's Old Town |
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| Colourful Balcony |
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| Basilica del Voto Nacional in the background |
We had read good things about a vegetarian restaurant called Govindas but by the time we got there it had closed already so we decided to head back to the hostel for dinner. It rained again on our way back to the hostel and this time we were quite drenched. After a quick change of clothes, we went back to the hostel's restaurant and had some hot soup and pasta for dinner. The food was a little bit on the costlier side but it was tasty and quite filling.
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