Travels Revisited: Ecuador 2019

I’m back again- this time from my first time in South America! That’s right- I am south of the equator in a cool country actually named “equator.” Ecuador! I’m here for research actually, on the Galápagos Islands! August 16th- Friday I arrived in Quito, Ecuador late at night. The flight was only about 5 hours, so not too bad. I definitely should have realized that Quito was in the Andes range and was about 9,000 feet above sea level, and that it was an hour behind the US. August 17th-Saturday We had a day in Quito before we needed to leave for the Galapagos so we got to do a little walking tour and experience some of Ecuadorian food and culture. Lunch was at a famous Ecuadorian restaurant downtown, I tried fried sweet and salty plantains, lentils and rice, and chicken in passion fruit sauce. I definitely appreciate the bottled water at restaurants here more than I did in Europe because the tap water here is not really safe for foreigners.

Then we walked around downtown, through all the squares & we saw the Presidents residence and the really important government and old colonial buildings and churches. We walked through a pretty impressive one built in 1595 with a wooden carved ceiling. One of the main streets has 7 churches on it because they used to build a church for each neighborhood and everyone lived in the downtown area. A very hilly downtown and surrounded by mountains and little houses on the mountainsides.

We had a craft brew at this place with a view of the Andes and we got to talking about the Cotopaxi volcano that the brand was created after- apparently it’s in Ecuador and we’re going to try to go see it! We had dinner at a cool Japanese restaurant located in a hotel. I really enjoyed downtown Quito, the atmosphere was different than any other city I’ve been to. People were selling to you on the street but it wasn’t aggressive and nothing felt rushed, everything felt lively and happy. The weather is pretty nice for being on the equator- the elevation helps I guess. It felt like a special kind of city.