Independence Plaza
I took a bus from Riobamba to Quito as I hoped to have some nice views of volcanoes, as the road winds up part of Ecuador called the Valley of the Volcanoes.
Unfortunately, the rainy season weather meant that what I saw were hills sloping upwards to disappear into cloudbanks. A guy sat next to me for the first part of the bus ride, we chatted a bit and I found out that he lives in Riobamba and was going to a nearby town for work: he works for a petroleum company.
That evening I arrived in Quito in the dark and took the trolley from the city's bus station to the Mariscal Sucre area. The bus station was totally unlike the ones I have seen in other Ecuadorean cities - it was a three or four level complex packed with shops, restaurants, and ticket windows (all of them on the bottom level). The almost random placement of stairways connecting various levels reminded me of an Escher painting .
I walked from the trolley and wandered to Villa Antiqua, but they said they were full. Along the way I could see the volcanic ash being whipped up by traffic being reflected in the beams of headlights.
Around the corner I inquired at Hotel Los Alpes, and they had a room for four nights. The hotel has a lot of character and has some really pretty rooms on the ground floor.
An older gentleman in a burgundy blazer accompanied me up to my room on the
second floor of three in the hotel. He checked all the lamps in the room
and found that one of the two bedside lamps was not working. So he fetched
a light bulb from down the hall and tried it. After it didn't work he
removed it and stuck his finger in the lamp socket and proclaimed that
there was no current. He then screwed the bulb in again and as he did so
there was a sharp crackly and a brief burst of sparks from the socket. He
assured me that the lamp would be replaced the next morning.
about Friday, November 15th
I had breakfast at Los Alpes and then had a walk around. It turns out that Los Alpes is one block from the U.S. embassy, which has high stone walls with a high fence on top. There is a nondescript white building of 1950's or 1960's design with a few large satellite dishes on top. I didn't see any U.S. personnel from outside, but there are mechanically removable roadblocks and lots of Ecuadorean police around it: pretty disappointing. If I ever get to visit Rick and Jen maybe I'll get an embassy tour...
I trolley'd down to the old town of Quito and wandered around: the main cathedral on Independence Plaza and the Ecuadorean white house.
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A courtyard in the university turned library |
My guide John posing with the flag of Ecuador |
A rooftop view from the library over old town Quito |
Another pretty courtyard |