Quito - UNESCO

After leaving Cuenca in southern Ecuador, we flew to Quito in the north of Ecuador. Quito is Ecuador’s capital, and the oldest of all the South American capital cities. It was founded by the Spanish in 1534, and was built over the ruins of an ancient Incan city. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and we were keen to see it.

Marg in Plaza Grande, Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

Quito (officially San Francisco de Quito), has UNESCO status because of its well-preserved old town, which is considered to be the best in the America’s. It is also one of the largest old towns, and has a huge square called Plaza Grande at its heart, which we discovered to be quite beautiful.

But we were excited even before landing in Quito, as we'd had a wonderful view of Cotopaxi volcano from the plane as we were flying in. Just 55 km south of the city, Cotopaxi is one of eight volcanoes along Ecuador's ‘Avenue of Volcanoes’ that make up part of the spine of the Andes Mountains leading up to Quito.

Cotopaxi volcano seen from plane flying into Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

Cotopaxi is the second highest mountain in Ecuador at 5,897 m (19,347 ft), and one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. It gave Quito’s 2.5 million people a big scare with an eruption in August 2015.  Meantime, it just sits there. But we thought its perfect cone popping through the clouds, looked beautiful rather than dangerous.

From the airport, we grabbed a taxi to our accommodation, Solera House Adventure Hostel. But we'd arrived before the official check-in time, so left our bags there and wandered down to the Plaza Grande to see some of Quito's colonial buildings.

Metropolitan Cathedral on Plaza Grande, Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

The buildings totally surround the Plaza, and they include the Quito Metropolitan Cathedral, the Presidential Palace, the Municipal Building and the Archbishop's Palace. All are very large and imposing buildings.

After a wander around, we had some lunch in a little hole-in-the-wall café under the Cathedral and enjoyed the local ambiance.

Some of the ornate buildings in Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

Then we wandered around for a few more hours seeing more beautiful and ornate buildings, and headed back to our hostel to get sorted and to unpack.

But when we got there, we learned that instead of the deluxe room with a garden view that we'd booked, we had a very basic room on a very noisy street. After we complained, they promised the original room the next day so we stayed in the noisy room for a night, getting very little sleep. The next morning, we moved to the one we had originally booked.

Leigh in La Ronda, Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

Happier, we headed out and had an interesting time exploring some of the little streets around the old town. One attractive area was the La Ronda which is Quito's oldest street. It was very narrow and had lots of quaint houses, shops and restaurants, mostly done up and nicely painted.

While there, we tried canelazo, a hot drink made with cane alcohol, fruits and cinnamon, that is a traditional drink of the Andean highland areas.

Some of the many impressive churches in Quito UNESCO), Ecuador

A key feature of Quito is its plethora of 15th and 16th century churches, with many having a blend of European and Moorish architectural styles. A few that we really liked included the Church of San Agustin with its ornate entrance, the Compañia de Jesús Jesuit church which has a large façade carved out of volcanic stone, and the Santo Domingo Church and Convent which spreads out across a huge courtyard.

Also interesting was the Basilica de San Francisco (under repair when we were there). It is one of the biggest religious compounds in South America, with the church, a monastery, and seven courtyards stretching behind the façade. It's located on a huge open cobbled plaza of the same name.

Basilica of the National Vow, Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

But there was one church that in size and architecture, took our breath away. We saw it from near the centre of Quito because its majestic neo-Gothic spires towered over everything else. It was the Basilica of the National Vow, the largest neo-Gothic basilica in the Americas. The church is recorded as being unfinished - it is believed that once finished, it would be the end of the world!

After walking for hours around Quito's labyrinthine of narrow streets, and because Quito is a huge city, we decided to do the hop-on-hop-off bus tour to see some of the more distant sights. So we booked our seats and were off. It was a double-decker bus and we sat at the top so we had fabulous views.

Narrow streets in old town Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

It was fascinating seeing how the driver managed to squeeze such a large bus through some very narrow streets, and around some very tight corners in the historic centre, before getting to the outer areas into the newer part of Quito.

Although we passed through gritty areas of the old city when driving in from the airport, we found the newer part of the city to be modern, attractive and sophisticated with lovely shops, clean and wide tree-lined boulevards, and plenty of parks. A city of great contrasts.

Virgin of Quito statue on Mirador del Panecillo, Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

Our tour took us up to the Mirador del Panecillo on a hill overlooking Quito. It has a huge statue at the top called “The Virgin of Quito” that can be seen from almost everywhere in the city, and has become a landmark.

It was erected in 1977 as a replica of a small 18th century sculpture, and is made of 7,000 pieces of aluminium. It is 41 meters (135 feet) tall including the base, making it the highest statue in Ecuador, one of the highest in South America, and the tallest aluminium statue on the world.

Views from El Panecillo, Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

The hill that the Virgin stands on, has an altitude of about 3,016 metres above sea level and provides spectacular views over the city.

We saw many other sights that mostly included parks, gardens and shops. At the end of our tour, we felt we had seen all that we wanted to see of wonderful Quito. 

However, that night when we were walking to get our evening meal, we did not feel safe. It was a weird feeling and we couldn't explain it, as we've never felt unsafe in all of our extensive travels around the world. So, we decided to leave Quito the next day, 24-hours earlier than planned.

European-like Quito (UNESCO), Ecuador

This meant that we would also be leaving Ecuador. We'd enjoyed Ecuador and we found ourselves comparing Ecuadorian cities to European cities as there are a lot of similarities. It seemed more sophisticated than Peru and certainly Bolivia. However, it was much more expensive than Peru, Chile and Bolivia, especially as the currency is the American dollar, and we didn't get a lot for our New Zealand dollar.

The Ecuadorian people we met were very friendly and we saw some wonderful sights, especially in Galapagos, Guayaquil, and Cuenca. But now it was time to move on to our next stop, which is north to Ipiales in Colombia.

This is part of a blog series about our travels through the north-eastern countries of South America. The first blog in this series is called “In and around Santiago”.