travels.of.tara

April 11, 2023

It has been an exciting two days in Quito! I’m currently enjoying my hotel room, repacking and getting ready for a 6:30am ride to the airport for my flight to the Galapagos. I’m pretty exhausted, but also very excited for the next 7 days. It’s an hour earlier than home here and it’ll be another hour earlier on the islands.

Yesterday went nicely according to plan. After a much-needed good night’s sleep, I had a slow morning with reading and breakfast (sugary pancakes and lots of fresh fruit) on the hostel roof, which had a stunning view of the historic Old Town of Quito. I met my free walking tour there in the hostel, about 10 people. As I could tell from my bedroom window, the streets outside were super busy, with markets and lots of people and taxis around. Still, our tour guide Caro told us it wasn’t a very safe area and to watch your phones. We were told this several times over the next two days.

The tour started in the Central Market, where a nice fruit lady let us try some things like something that looked like a banana with sour seeds inside, and sweeter passion fruits. I bought a passionfruit and mango for $1. The market had food stalls, flowers, and more. There was lots of fish and cuy, or guinea pig, that is one of the meats of choice here. Finding veggie options was a little tricky, but there are a lot of potatoes and it seems to be doable. The tour took us to a fancy hotel where we had a little private chocolate tasting of yummy dark chocolate. I bought a fancy bar for $5. We saw a beautiful municipal building and public library. I really enjoyed the squares like Grande Plaza, where the Presidential Palace is and some other churches and government buildings. People like to protest there, especially because the Presidential palace has a second floor balcony facing the square.

Quito’s Old Town has lots of narrow streets, some with cobblestones, and lots of pedestrians and aggressive drivers. Jay walking seems ok here but not especially safe. We saw a popular party street called La Ronda, but it was dead during the day. There were lots of plazas and churches, including one with gold leaf that is apparently famous. The San Francisco church plaza was very nice, and I actually recognized it from a recent game of GeoGuessr!

I tipped the guide a nice $15, then split off with about 6 of us who had all signed up for the afternoon tour to Mital del Mundo (middle of the world), which was leaving from the hostel in about 45 minutes (same company so it was designed that way). We got lunch at a spot the guide recommended. A guy from Spain helped me order veggie food and it was very difficult – they had nothing! They kept trying to give me fish. I paid a little over $1 and got a half a tomato with some tasty green sauce on it and a decent cucumber/pepper/onion salad. I worried a little about eating certain veggies that are washed with the unsafe tap water here, but it was worth it to eat something, and it was tasty.

We were running a few minutes late to the hostel, and when we arrived we were given two minutes to drop off our things and then were ushered into a mini bus, which apparently is the late bus with just us new friends, 7 people total from Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Chicago, and Houston. Others earlier that day were from Israel, London, and Switzerland. Most are backpacking and doing months-long trips; and many quit their jobs to do it. I actually feel a little out of place on a two-week “vacation,” as one person calls it, vs. travelling. But it was really amazing to swap travel stories. It was nice that it was mostly solo travelers. The Netherlands couple recently went to Antarctica!

We made a quick photo stop at the middle of the world monument, which was fun though rushed. The group stayed mostly together and walked the ceremonial equator line. Some folks got their passports stamped there. Then we drove two minutes to the museum Intiñan, which included the actual equator line (there’s an argument that it is 10km wide, but this is the true center). This spot was very fun. Our guide taught us about the indigenous people of the Andes area, including a jarring story about a ritual to skin the head of your enemies and shrink them into trophies. This was done until it was outlawed…in 1960. Yup. We stood on the true equator line and did some fun experiments and games, like showing how our arms are weaker on the line; how water swirls in different directions in different hemispheres, and balancing an egg on a nail – which if you did you get a little certificate stamped as a souvenir, which most of us got!

The word Quito translates somehow to middle of the world. And while the equator goes through several countries, Ecuadorians like to say that because of the extreme elevation, that makes Quito the true middle of the world. We learned about sundials and the lack of real seasons in Ecuador, with sunrise and sunset always at around 6am and 6pm year round.

There was some traffic on the way back and it finally rained. I was prepared for much more rain in Quito but it was pretty good for me, just a little in the afternoons. Apparently days before it had rained and stormed a ton. Back at the hostel I rested a bit, then went back up to the roof for the hostel-provided dinner of chicken pesto and veggies that was very good, and had a giant bottle of beer (brand “Pilsener”) and chatted with my German friend from earlier in the day, plus some other random travelers also from Germany and Utah (a chatty barista who had just spent two years on a work-sanctioned trip to a coffee farm outside of Quito). It was game night in the hostel and a bunch of us played Fishbowl and had a lot of fun. My team won a beer. It was chill! I took a late shower and went to bed for an early morning. Sadly, my wet hair made me cold and I didn’t sleep great.

On Tuesday I woke up around 7, had breakfast and checked out/stored my suitcase, and after maybe having my German roommate join me but deciding not to, I Ubered to TeleferiCo, the Quito cable cars up into the mountains. My Uber driver said a lot to me in Spanish that I did not understand. Including, I think, trying to get me to pay him directly on my return trip, but then not giving me proper directions. Oh well. It was a bumpy ride on bad, narrow streets – like most of the roads I’ve been on in Quito so far – and he drove quite a ways up the mountain before the drop off at the TeleferiCo ticket entrance. I paid my $9, waited in a short line, and made my way up. It was said to take about 18 minutes, but was definitely less on the way up. I could see beautiful views of the long sprawling city below, which only got better as we arrived at the top, my little 5-person car of global people including a couple from China then Canada but one of them living in Ecuador, and a father from Ecuador and daughter from Switzerland.

I was a little confused about where to go at the top, but followed some people through some shops and up some stairs and figured out that you needed to start hiking up a little. As I walked, I felt very lightheaded, and my heart was pounding quite a lot. I was at about 13,000 feet and hiking higher, and it was very, very difficult for me. I went very slowly and had to stop a lot to rest, even though it was not difficult hiking. The big landmark was probably just a 5 minute hike up (which took me like 15 minutes), which was an Instagramable swing over the city. How fun! A nice man took my picture and videos. I continued up to some more viewpoints in different directions. I came across some horses, and a woman told me I could ride them for very cheap, but I said no, I don’t know how to ride horses (and I thought learning to say montar a caballo was a useless Spanish phrase!). Ha. I made it to the start of the actual hike up the mountain there, which they say takes about 3 hours on average. But as much as I thought I would do a little and quickly turn around, I knew right away that there was no way. So I turned around and slowly made my way back down, looking at viewpoints and enjoying the nature before hopping back down the cable car, spending maybe 2 hours at the site in total. I wasn’t sure about the cab or Uber situation, so when a nice looking guy in a crowd of dudes waiting together asked if I needed a cab, I said sure! He told me the price, more than the Uber but what was posted on a sign for where I was going ($7 for a 20 minute drive). Then he walks me over and it is a very unlicensed minivan, but whatever, I didn’t get bad vibes and it ended up being fine.

After a quick check in back at the hostel, I wandered out on my own to find lunch. I was dressed like a hiker with a backpack, which didn’t feel great in that area, but it was fine. I went to the Central Market again and managed to order the veggie soup I wanted to try, locro. It includes boiled potatoes and avocado on top. Yummy! And just $2.50. I walked around the Old Town on my own a little, enjoying the architecture and vibrancy a lot but not feeling 100% comfortable. So I made it back to the hostel, got my bag and changed/freshened up, and Ubered the 10 minute drive to the Hotel Cartuja to meet my tour group at 2pm.

The small hotel manager checked me in and helped me to my room, a single hotel room (my tour puts solo travelers together to share so this was a nice surprise), and a few minutes later I was downstairs meeting my group!

With apprehension about whether we would get along over the next week, I started meeting my group members. We are 7 people, 3 younger solo women and two older couples, and I’ll introduce them later. We had a main guide, Johanna, and a local rep, Carlos, and they gave us all the details and logistics for our tour. It was weird to not even know the flight times or have a boarding pass for the next day yet, but this ended up being one of my favorite things about the whole tour. We will be meeting a different guide in the Galapagos because the company, Intrepid, requires local guides and really emphasizes local experiences, i.e. no chain hotels. The Galapagos also requires all guides to be local.

Johanna and Carlos took us on (yet another) walking tour of the Old Town, which we got to in two Ubers. Only 4 of us joined, but it was nice to see some different areas and learn more. We did another chocolate tasting somewhere else and went into a few ornate Catholic churches. The 3 solo women chose to eat dinner right then in a yummy café in the San Francisco plaza. We all prioritized affordability which was nice, and got to know each other as the sun set and the temperature dropped. We Ubered back and I called it an early night, repacking into a tour-provided bright red duffel bag so I can leave things in Quito in my suitcase. Before bed for my early morning, here’s my tour group:

-Tara, mid 30s solo traveler from NYC

-Casey, late 20s solo traveler and nurse from Edmonton, Canada

-Fiona, late 20s solo traveler from Switzerland and has lived in parts of NY and CA, traveling for 4 months with a job to go back to in cybersecurity

-Chris(tina) and Andy, late 60s retired doctors from Philadelphia and now Cape May, NJ

-Wendy and Steve, maybe 60s from Perth, Australia, traveling together around South America in part for a son’s wedding in Chile