It was still dark when we arrived in Quito this morning. We cleared immigration without any problem, and after claiming our bags we went through customs. Our guide was waiting for us to take us to the hotel.
I had never thought much about going to Equador, this fall John decided that he wanted to go to some places he had always dreamed about this winter. Even though the Galapagos Islands are not particularly close to Brazil, John wanted to do both of them and we worked with a travel agent we knew in Chile to help arrange this. Still, with my mother’s illness, we were not certain until almost the last minute that we would even be able to go.
We are staying only one night in Quito before flying to Baltra where we will meet our boat. We asked Felipe to find us a hotel in the historic center of town, and he did quite well by picking La Casona de la Ronda. It is a new hotel in a large eighteenth century and the rooms all open to a lovely central courtyard.
We had only slept three or four hours on the flight, so our guide suggested that we get a little more sleep before he returned to take us on a tour of the old town and its many churches and museums. We were only too happy to go along with that suggestion.
Our guide is named Leonardo, though he likes to go by Leo. He has been a been a guide for about eighteen years and speaks faultless English. He pointed out to us that the area where we are staying — La Ronda — had almost been completely abandoned until about ten years ago. Now this part of the old city, and pedestrian alley that give it its name, is considered perhaps the more interesting part of the city and it is the area where all the Quiteños like to go on Friday and Saturday night.
Our first scheduled stop on our walking trip was the enormous monastery of San Francisco. Along the way we passed the much more modest convent of the Poor Clares.
John, ever attuned to anything theatrical, noticed a small store on this square selling masks.
Leo explained the reason for this.
On New Year’s Eve, the custom in Ecuador is to make effigies, usually stuff them with fireworks, and set them ablaze right on the stroke of midnight. As this is a symbolic destruction of all that was bad about the old year, it is traditional to put faces of demons or the visages of current politicians on the effigies. It sounds much more fun than Burning Man to me. After all, you don’t have to go to Nevada!
The San Francisco monastery is the oldest is Quito and it covers several city blocks.
The interior of the church is sumptuous.
We walked through some of the cloisters. It is still, at least in part, an active Franciscan community. John posed with an effigy of a friar
and then bought a little trinket from a real one.
In the square outside, there were people selling everything. There was even this man selling thuribles.
I was tempted, but honestly couldn’t think of a place to put it in the house. Besides, anything that sets off the smoke alarm makes Edie very unhappy.
As ornate as San Francisco is, the Jesuit church tops it. Leo thinks there is more gold in this church than in any other in South America. He is probably right.
Notice the intricate Islamic inspired designs on the columns and arches of the nave. I found that more fascinating than all that gold leaf.
From here, Leo led us toward the Plaza Mayor, the main square of the old city. The Law of the Indies was the first urban planning in since Roman times. It decreed that all of the Spanish cities in the New World would be laid out in a grid. At the center would be a square or plaza. On the west side of the square would be the cathedral or main parish church; government offices would fill in the area around the plaza. The central square is still a vibrant urban space.
Leo explained to us that the cathedral is not a particularly interesting building because the archbishops keep renovating it, and each one seems to have worse taste in ecclesiastical decor than his predecessor. Instead, he took us to the Presidential Palace. We could only peak in. But he did take our picture with the ceremonial guards.
After this, we went to lunch at one of the nearby hotels. This was clearly a stop on the tourist trail because there was also a large tour group there. Probably the reason that guides take us all there is that they do an elaborate dessert. The waiters dress up in the traditional outfit of the “penitentes” and dry ice smoke completes the scene!
It’s actually only a bowl of ice cream and some cookies, but presentation is everything.
At this point it was about two in the afternoon and Leo had to leave us to because both his teenage children had basketball games today. John and I were about to just wander around when the sky opened up and it poured for over thirty minutes. We stayed dry and a little bored walking through the shops that now occupy the old archbishop’s palace. When it cleared up, we walked across the square and into the cathedral.
Leo was right: it’s pretty ugly inside. They were setting up for a concern and that allowed us to get away with taking some pictures pretty flagrantly.
Maybe the most interesting thing in there is the tomb of Antonio José de Sucre, one of the leaders of South American independence.
Ecuador now uses the dollar as its currency, but for many decades the “sucre” was the legal tender of the nation.
