CLAUDI'S TRAVEL BLOG: EXPLORING QUITO - 10. September

Saturday morning it was time to check out Quito. I walked to the centro historico (Old Town). The first thing I noticed, was how many people were on the streets and the parks. It seemed like everyone in Quito took there family and went to the parks or just strolled through the streets. Quito's Old Town has a lot of beautiful old buildings, plazas and churches. Traffic in the narrow, steep streets was crazy. Most streets are so narrow that they are one-way streets. Around noon it was quite hot and I'm still getting to used to being at an elevation of 2800m. So I walked from one nice old church to the next, taking a rest while marveling at the interior of the church. Around 5 pm it started raining heavy and I took the bus back to the house. The bus system in Quito is pretty good. There are three express buses which have there own lanes and stop only at specific stations. Kind of a cheap version of a subway. In addition to that there are a lot of other buses going almost anywhere. It definitely is easy to get around in Quito. I was also surprised how many taxis there are in Quito. And they are yellow, too. Most surprisingly - they are metered and you luckily don't have to bargain with the taxista and he can't rip you off.

Sunday I did pretty much the same as Saturday – just walking around town. The difference on Sunday was that the streets in the Old Town and on the main street in the New Town (Mariscal, aka Gringolandia) were closed for cars. Only bikes and pedestrians allowed – very enjoyable. And there were even more people in the city than the day before. I also had my first encounter with a pickpocket. Fortunately, he wasn't good enough to steal anything. Since I wanted to take my camera with me, I decide to take the small backpack instead of the shoulder bag. That wasn't very clever. I walked on a busy street and noticed that a guy was very close behind me. I slowed down and let him pass. I didn't pay much attention to him and suddenly someone walked close behind me again. I turned around and the same guy was there. I noticed that the front pocket of my backpack was open. Luckily I'm smart enough to not put any valuables in the front pocket.
Lessons learned 1: don't walk around with a backpack in busy places. Definitely should have known that before.

Monday morning I took Quito's tram, the TeleferiQo, up to one of the mountains around the city. The city is located in a valley surrounded by high mountains. Quito is the second highest capital in the world at elevation 2800 m, only slightly lower than the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain. The TeleferiQo took me up to over 4000 m. From there the view over the city was amazing. Unfortunately Volcano Cotopaxi (Ecuador's most famous volcano) was covered by clouds and I only had a quick glance at it. Walking around at that altitude was quite exhausting. I walked around for a while, enjoyed the view and took tons of pictures. On the way back I shared an unofficial taxi (definitely not recommended by lonely planet or any other guide book) back to the city with two other Germans and made my way to the language school.

Most of the rest of the week I spent the mornings in cafes with free wifi and organizing a trip to the Galapagos and the afternoons learning Spanish. Four hours of lessons are quite tiring. Especially if you are the only student. My teacher is very nice and I understand most of what she is saying. But normally it doesn't happen often that I'm talking to someone for four hours straight. Not even with good friends.

Thursday night the guest family took me for a night tour through Quito's old town. It was very nice. There were concerts at some squares and some streets were busy with people hanging out, meeting their friends and drinking Canelazo, Quito's local Cocktail. Although this is South America, Quito's local cocktail is Canelazo, a hot drink. But a hot drink does make sense – nights get pretty cold (10 deg C)

View over Quito from our terrace