Quito – the capital of Ecuador

(Quito, Equador, 30th of September to the 3rd of October 2017)

In Quito we booked a hostel in the old town. A lot of people book rooms in the Mariscal area in the new part of town but as we  wanted to go on a walking tour including all the sights in the old town we decided to book a room there as well. Our hostel “Rosita” was a nice surprise. The owner and the staff are really nice and it is extremely clean but the place is decorated with dolls, signs and pictures on absolutely every spot both outside and inside the rooms.

As soon as we arrived we were offered to take part in an organized tour by taxi the following day together with some other people.

It was a tour including Otavalo, where there is a big folklore market, the Qutilopa lake and some waterfalls and lakes and a visit to the equator line. We liked the idea as we had planned to see these places anyway and it seemed relaxed and fun to let someone else take care of the logistics of getting around..

At 7 o´clock the next morning we were picked up by Diego, which turned out to be the same guy that drove us from the airport the evening before. We got to know Carlos and Gabriella, a couple from the south of Ecuador and luckily they both spoke English, which made it easy to communicate, especially as they also could translate what Diego and other people said.

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We had a really good time together with our little group. It was a nice mix of activities and we really enjoyed the visit to the market and the equator line.

But it was a long day and we did not get back to our hotel until 6 pm.

The area around our hotel was very quiet and it was not that easy to find an open restaurant. The first night we had some pasta in a tiny pizza place together with other ”gringos” and the second night we were lucky to find a really good mexican restaurant.

As our hostel did not serve breakfast we went to find a nice place to have breakfast. Christel had read about some nice places by the main square in Quito and we had a really good breakfast in one of them. The square was filled by people at 7 am on this Monday morning and we thought they were protesting as we also saw a lot of police men surrounding them. Later on we found out that all the people in the square actually waited for the change of the guards at the presidential palace, a procedure taking place every Monday morning and with the president of Ecuador and some honored guests participating.