The Streets of Old Quito

We made it through our first day in Ecuador!

Yesterday, as Dr. Demerath said, the breakfast was very delicious. Once we got going, we made our first stop at a hiking gear store so that we could try on boots for our glacier climb later this week. I must admit, I´m pretty excited about it. ;)

While we were all waiting outside of the store on the sidewalk, which was extremely close to the street, mind you, I made a few early observations about traffic and the street system here in Quito. My first observance dealt with the cars. In America, just about wherever you go, the vehicles that everyone drives are generally newer and the latest model. We tend to get tired with a car after 2-3 years, and seek to upgrade our daily transportation. That is not the case here. The cars are a complete mismatch of older cars that seem to belong in the junk yard, many of them producing so much carbon dioxide due to their aged or missing catalytic converters that it makes it harder to breathe. The nicer cars are the taxi cabs, which are commonly tiny cars like a Ford Focus or a Hyundai Accent. It felt strange to see my car that I drive at home painted yellow with a taxi cab light on top.

After we were finished at the hiking gear store, we squeezed into three taxi cabs and made our way to the Teleferiqo, the cable car up the mountain. The air was hard to breathe, but the view was amazing. The city of Quito was spread out beneath us as everyone tried to snap a picture before we disappeared into the clouds. At the top, there was a small bakery and a few other shops. This whole tourist attraction had many stores and outlets, but it was very sad to see that it did not do so well, and most places were not occupied. Some returned down the mountain fairly quickly because the altitude was not working so well with them. I will admit that it was very hard to breathe, but it has made it easier to breathe down in the city.

The taxi cab ride was almost as scary as the cable car ride! The people here are not as worried about or respectful of pedestrians. If someone is crossing the street, they just give a little "beep beep" of the horn and don´t even slow down. It`s pretty scary when you´re that pedestrian. We did some walking to the Magic Bean for lunch, and then walked to the Trole (trolly). This was an interesting experience because you just had to hurry up and RUN onto the trole and try to grab a seat before it got going and knocked you down! We got off at the Plaza Grande and walked a good distance to the cities capitol and their president`s home. It was very interesting to see the gorgeous catholic churches, because there was one on just about every corner. The capitol was more like a courtyard with little shopping centers all around. There were tons of people in the courtyard, shining shoes, reading the paper, or just spending a nice evening outside. The little shops were fun, and the grocery store was priced very low.

After we had dinner at a nice restaurant (about $8 a meal) we called some taxis in the rain and made our way back to the Hostal Alcada. Then we all had some much needed sleep!