Beautiful city to stay in for a while

Everyone at the equator
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On the way to Quito we passed lots of rose farms. According to Tina, Ecuador roses are very expensive in Europe. These varieties would not grow anywhere else, they needed to be grown at around 2000 meters. Although they provides jobs and security for local people, the safety record is poor and employees health is often affected by the chemicals.

We arrived in Quito in the early afternoon. First impressions were of a modern clean city sprawled in the hills. Very colourful. The new town is Gringo Land. Nothing there except hotels, restaurants and shops. Convenient but soulless. The hotel Alston was very nice, with some character added to a modern building, including a lovely wooden staircase. We had a bath in our room. A man from the hotel worked very hard to find us a plug that would fit. 3rd one worked but couldn´t get the water hot enough. Oh well.

One foot north of the equator, and one south
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Group dinner. We were meeting Byron so Aimar suggested he come along. Byron arrived with a friend, Tanya, who works in PR at the American Embassy. It was lovely talking to the both. And we still got to say goodbye to people who were departing after this leg.

We found out during the evening that 2 guys from the Toucan truck had been mugged in the area by knifepoint. Apparently the old town had been cleaned up but all the bad guys now hung out at the new town. We were happy to be moving to the old town.

View of Quito from El Panecillo
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Byron was lovely. He took a day off to pick us up and take us to his place, and to show us around the old town. His house is near the bus station and very handy to town. Recently painted, he has 5 bedrooms, a huge living area and a dog called Cookie.

The old town is beautiful, full of old colonial buildings and busy streets. After seeing a couple of museums we visited the gold church, Compañia. It is absolutely spectacular with lots of gold on the ceilings, walls and everywhere. It was blinding really.

Byron, Agnese and Pieter at El Panecillo
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We took a taxi up El Panecillo, to the virgin of Quito. Fantastic views from up there. They recently installed a figure behind the virgin to commemorate independence. A man holding a flag, best seen at night.  Very pretty colours when lit up. We went to a posh restaurant on the hill called Pim or Pims. A little pricey but great views, good service and good food. We tried traditional dishes with Sangria. It was a lovely afternoon.

The next couple of days we decide to stick around the old town and do some more museums and wander around. A number of them were closed but the ones we visited are listed under the recommendations.

The virgin of Quito
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Ecuadorians do not always do dinner, their big meal is generally lunch. At Byron´s, we enjoyed coffee and bread in the evenings. We bought cakes for one supper. And once we went to a restaurant upstairs in the courtyard off Independence square where we had empeñadas and bolones and a delightful hot drink served in a shot glass. Sweet and fruity, I wish I could remember the name of it.

Went to a movie. First one in more than 3 months. Unfortunately, the theatres website was screwed up. We went to see 300, but it was was not playing english like the website said so we ended up seeing Spiderman 3 which was a little rubbish. But it was nice to be in a theatre again. Byron came with with girlfriend, Angela, from Columbia. She is lovely and very shy.

The old town from the water museum
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We went away for the weekend with Byron and Angela but we will write about that in the next entry.

Monday, a lot of the museums are closed, so we went to the botanical gardens. Small but beautifully kept, they had mainly ecuadorian species, lots of labels and descriptions (in spanish only). They had 2 greenhouses full of different varieties of orchids. That was definitely a highlight.

We went to a mall as well that day, Quicentro, very big and modern, we had Taco Bell for lunch. So far all our taxi rides had been OK. Some had tried to fix high prices for rides but we told them where to go. From the mall we got a taxi who turned on the meter but were convinced the meter was tampered with, it was going way too fast. The driver was crazy, going way too fast and revving a lot. The car eventually died (fuel problem) and we welcomed the opportunity to get out. It for that reason that next day we took the trolley bus to the new town to go shopping and arrange travel from Caracas. Generally crowded, you can go anywhere on the line for 25 cents. You put your money into a machine to gain access to the covered stop. No tickets.