Old Quito

After breakfast of toast, jam and coffee we left the hostel and walked the short distance to the trolley bus. We took a short ride into the centre of old Quito getting off at Plaza Santo Domingo. This plaza is dominated by one of the many churches which are dotted all over the colonial centre of the town, we then made a short detour to look a 'La Ronda' the oldest street in Quito. It's quite narrow and is bordered on both sides by old whitewashed buildings, although it seemed quite interesting we elected not to walk down it as it is also the most common place to be mugged in the city. Instead we walked up to the Plaza Grande which is the main square. It's quite impressive bordered by the Presidents palace, the parliament building and Quito's cathedral on three sides. I have to say though that compared to most of the churches we have seen in south america the cathedral here is very bland. In the centre of the square in a tall statue of Simon Bolivar, the national hero. We sat for a while to admire the sites and use the parks free wifi as we don't have any at the hostel. By this time we were feeling a bit hungry so we decided to go in one of the little coffee shops which are tucked into the walls surrounding the plaza and ordered a coffee with humita each. We have been meaning to try a humita for a while, it turns out to be a sort of dough made of corn and a lot of butter, quite nice and very filling. After lunch we walked up to the Compania which is the most heavily decorated church in Quito and far more impressive than the cathedral we had just seen, if only on one side the others being plain white wash. Next we had a look at he convent de San Francisco and another convent located close by, both of which are as far as we know still in use. Apparently the nuns sell baked goods and anise flavoured liqeurs which they make, however we were unable to find where this is supposed to occur. From here we could get a good view of the statue of the virgin which is located on a small hill just south of Old Quito, both of us were impressed that the artist for this one didn't copy the traditional pose and chose to carve the statue in a different way to the 20 or so we have already seen on our travels. We then looked at a few more churches which to be honest are getting to be very boring at this point since every town seems to have about 15 and then took a short break from sight seeing to look around a small shopping centre for a long sleeved top for Mae. As usual of course what Mae wants is not currently in fashion and therefore it is impossible to find anywhere. Our final destination in Colonial Quito was the Basilica which is by far the most impressive building in the entire city, it is decorated in a gothic style and is quite new dating from 1926. The stonework is amazing however and it is made even more spectacular as it is set on a hill making it visible from everywhere in the city. It is surrounded by a beautiful courtyard which we spent half an hour or so walking round to look at the building from all sides, it is also one of the few building in Quito which is equally impressive no matter where you look at it from. We then started to make our way back to the hostel via two parks which mark the separation between old and new Quito. The first is park Alameda which is home to the oldest European observatory in South America a very odd building which is beautiful for the first two floors but is then finished off with corrugated iron, very odd. The park also contains a boating lake where you can hire pedalos or row boats and navigate you way round the sort of track, under bridges and through fountains. We bough a strange mixture of fried banana, toasted corn, beans and salsa to eat while we sat and watched a boat full of teenage boys wind there way down the lake in a very haphazard manner, Mae remarked that clearly none of them would be making the Oxford crew! The second and larger park is Ejido which is huge and was today full of people mostly playing football, there was also a comedian in the central area who had drawn quite a crowd and a small crafts market took up the far end of the park, once again we had a look for a long sleeved top but we are starting to thing they don't actually exist, not in any colour but white that is. After stopping by the hostel to pick up the computer we went out to try and find some dinner. After looking around for ages to find somewhere that is open, it's hard to believe that a capital city would close down on sunday afternoon, we eventually bought a sort of kebab which for some strange reason contained chips, it was quite nice but we were both still hungry after and had to go to a Chinese as well for a set meal. This managed to put us over budget so we spent the next hour or so sitting in a plaza near the hostel so we could get free internet and sorting out a couple of bits. Once we were done with the internet we decided it was too cold and came back to the hostel to catch up on blogs before bed.