Oct 31^st – Halloween

View from the hotel terrace

I’m writing this from the roof top terrace of Hotel Casa Gangotena, overlooking Plaza de San Francisco. What a fantastic site it is. Right next door is the Church of San Francisco with the Church of La Compania off to the right and the Church of San Domingo just in the distance.  I’m going to take a break as afternoon tea is now being served.

We woke this morning at various times and I, myself, at about 6am, - all of us having gone to bed at 10pm. We all still feeling slightly woolly headed from the jet lag and initially had a slight headache from from the altitude, but other than that, okay. Tamsin and I took advantage of the early start to go onto the roof terrace and take some photos in the clear, but cold, sunlight of El Panecillo, with the winged Madonna (can someone explain that to me?) atop. At about 7:30 activity was just starting to happen in the plaza below - it transpired that it was fiesta time in the plaza below and was a police party?!! We returned to our room to shower and plan for the day.

The winged Madonna

Breakfast in the restaurant was an interesting mix of European Continental breakfast and local cuisine. For example small sausages and fried parsnip mash, or fruit salad comprising “golden berries",  papaya as well as normal fayre.

At the top - volcanic peaks in the distance

As the day was still clear we decided to start by going up the cable car to the peak overlooking the city at 4100m. The hotel taxi driver took us to the bottom of the lift and we agreed that he would stay and wait for us as we could see no other taxis around. The trip took about 20 minutes each way plus wandering time at the top. As we slowly rose up the city started to spread out below us. Tamsin was clicking away (do digital cameras actually click?) taking photos of the flora as we ascended. I’m sure she will add some comments on that later. At the top we enjoyed spectacular views of not only of the city below, but also the surrounding mountains and (dormant) volcanoes. We took our time walking around as at that altitude you are bit breathless. I looked it up later and found that hypoxia (lack of oxygen in the bloodstream at altitude) can start as low as 8000 ft (about 2500 m) so, being at just under 13,500 ft it was just as well we hadn’t planned to run back down!!

Vulture on church roof

The vibrant coloured historic centre of Quito

We returned to the hotel and decide to enjoy a drink on the roof terrace and plan our next move. Some of our planning has to include the weather because, as the saying goes, if you don’t like the weather round here then wait 10 minutes. As we enjoyed our drinks we watched black clouds roll in, and then out again all while sitting in the warm sun.  We also spotted 2 huge birds on top of the church next to us and photos revealed them to be some sort of vulture.

We headed out with a vague idea of touring the local area and at the same time finding somewhere to eat later.   All the traffic here is very slow moving mainly because there is so much of it but there are also road blocks and works everywhere and lots of traffic police. Each one seems to have a whistle with a different sound. The streets are noisy and bustling with some very sad sights of beggars and the less fortunate. We wound our way back towards the Grande Plaza and found a few potential places for the evening. As we were all tired we headed back and decided to return to our favourite place in the hotel – the roof terrace. Which is where I came in above ;^)

Whilst reading our books, we also enjoyed the light constantly changing on the surrounding brightly coloured buildings which one moment would be in shade and then completely vibrant when the sun came out bringing the colours to life.

Flowers in the covered courtyard

At 4pm, we went down to the enclosed courtyard for afternoon tea which is part of the deal at this hotel.  The flower arrangements, huge vases of the biggest roses I've ever seen and amazing orchids (mainly oncidiums and odontoglossums - guess who's writing this bit?!!) really add to the ambience of the hotel.  The afternoon tea was delicious.  A 2 tiered affair with savoury snacks on the bottom and a delectable selection of cakes and scones on the top layer - we made a valiant effort to clear the plate and left behind just one scone and an apple cake.

We're now in our room relaxing before heading out for a lightish dinner tonight.  We're going to head back to the Grande Plaza as TripAdvisor highly recommends a restaurant serving traditional cuisine.