24 Hours in Quito, Ecuador

Our destination was Quito’s historic center, or Centro Historico, located several miles south of our hotel. Instead of traversing the intervening miles by bus, we decided to walk so that we would be up close and personal with the work-a-day lives of those that call Quito home.

Besides, given that this was our first day in Ecuador, we hadn’t yet learned the ins and outs of the city’s public transportation system. And no one so far, our shuttle driver who late last night delivered us from the airport nor the couple who were working the front desk of our hotel, knew any English. Not that we expected them to know our language. It was we that were the foreigners, the strangers, who must know their language or adapt accordingly. For now, we got by, and a mastery of a Google Translate app and its semi-reliable way to communicate and ask questions on how to get around the cities and countryside would come later. 

Quito's hillside barrios. 

So, onward we walked. As the more modern section of Quito gave way to the historic area, the sidewalks and streets narrowed. Only inches separated us from the hulking trucks and buses spewing their black, sooty diesel fumes. 

Street merchants were everywhere. So too were those who dangerously stood in the middle of traffic trying to catch the attention of a frustrated motorist stuck in the constant traffic jams. Items for sale ranged from fruits and juices to vegetables and flowers to, oddly, toothpaste and gum. Shoeshine men were frequently seen, their fingers bent and permanently stained from years of shining shoes. 

Inside the central Mercado, even more variety was for sale. All was reasonably priced. A breakfast or lunch meal of the merchants’ eggs, rice, or chicken could be had for $1.00 to $4.00, including a juice or coffee. Soup was less than a dollar. A couple of dozen roses could be had for only $2. An ice cream cone with three scoops was 75 cents. 

We drank coffee on a rooftop terrace overlooking the city. The multi- colored buildings of the numerous barrios could be seen clinging to the nearby hillsides. Nearby was the Iglesias de San Francisco, a church whose magnificent interior we would later visit. In the plaza adjacent to the churches, more of the soup merchants and flowers sellers were working the pedestrians that strolled by.

Inglesias de
San Francisco

School children who were on their field trips often descended on the same sites we were visiting. They sported their neatly pressed blue school uniforms and, as middle school-aged kids are wont to do, chatted away incessantly. Their energy was likely used up later when we saw them in their stone-walled encircled playground marching in a drill team-like precision during their afternoon exercises.  

While the sun set, we sat at a cafe drinking cold beverages while watching the world go by, anxiously waiting for tomorrow. It is then that we will be flying to the Galapagos Islands. 

Sadly, this was not the place where we sat to have our cold drinks. It was closed at the time.