A weekend in Quito (sort of)

I just got back today from Quito. I went with a handful of other exchange students and the program director to the northern (ish), mountainous region of Ecuador. My conclusions about this place, it is cold and really high.

We left Guayaquil early Friday morning and took a plane to Quito. By bus it takes 8 hours; mountains are apparently difficult to cross by land. Go figure. In the plane, on the other hand, we were in the air for about 15 minutes. Maybe 25. They showed a TV show during the flight that was a language-less candid camera. It made the time go a lot faster.

As soon as we landed, we were off on a tour of the city. It wasn´t until we arrived at the park in front of the presidential palace that I realized the altitude change was getting to me. Quito is 2800 m above sealevel, whereas I´m pretty sure Guayaquil is below sea level. It wasn´t anything serious, I just felt a little tired and like my knees were made of rice pudding. About the same time I was feeling this, my camera ran out of battery. I had over-estimated the battery life and neglected to pack the charger. So after we toured the presidential palace and a couple of churches, the rest of my trip is documented with disposable camera pictures. We´ll see how those turn out.

The presidential palace is crazily unsecure compared to the white house. The building is a hop, skip, and a jump away from a public park. There are no huge gates or lawns surrounding it. Our tour guide showed the guards a card, and they let us go right in. Granted, we didn´t go in very far, just enough to see the inside of the building and some of the people wandering around inside. A lot of the buildings in that area of the country are built in what is called "colonial style." The building is sectioned off into little open areas (courtyards or sitting areas) and surrounding these are areas are rooms.




When I say security wasn´t very tight, I mean from a distance, compared to our presidential mansion, it didn´t seem as secure. But there are men with guns at just about every entrance to the building. And they aren´t neat handguns tucked neatly into a belt. They´re usually feriocious-looking things, longer than my arm that are kept in plain sight. I think it´s more to make a statement than for actual use.

We went into a couple of churches after that. They were huge structures that took hundreds of years to build. One of them, built by the Jesuits, was decked out in artwork from Ecuador in addition to gold-leaf on just about every surface it could be stuck to. It was a little over-whelming.

After our tour of Quito, we headed for Otavalo, easily the most dangerous place in Ecuador. Four or five days a week, the streets of the Otavalo are filled with indigenous vendors from around the area. I say it´s dangerous, because it only takes a few hours to spend a hundred dollars on goods and leave yourself no money to eat for the rest of the weekend, which is just about what I did. In the center of the city there´s is fine silver jewelry, alpaca blankets and scarves, local art, souvenirs, soccer jerseys, tapestries, just about anything you might want. As you move toward the edges of the stalls, the souvenirs turn into food and clothing targeted at a more local market. As we were walking around, it was a strange mix of tourists and local people all shopping together.

Also, while I was in Otavalo, I ran into not one, but TWO separate people that I knew well enough from Cornell to recognize them on a busy street. It was very surreal.

After the shopping madness, we visited a couple of artisans who wove the clothes at the market and handmade instruments (mostly panflutes). The rest of the time was spent eating the local food (which is a post unto itself) and playing Cuarenta, the local card game of choice.

I wish I had more visual-aids with this post, but alas, all my pictures of Otavalo are undeveloped on my disposable camera. We´ll see how they turned out come August.

Missing you all!

Looking out over the city of Quito.