I woke up later than the rest of the Plaza family, but was still treated to a wonderful family breakfast courtesy of their lovely housekeeper Mercedes. After a bit of food, I got in touch with David who insisted on escorting me down to the Old City, where I had vague plans of meeting up with Robby at his hostel.
So, David and I drove through the city and had a bit of a hard time actually finding the place. Eventually, my magic iPhone somehow came to the rescue. Even without a data connection, the cached map of Quito I had was enough to get us there. Is there anything this thing can’t do?
David dropped me off at The Secret Garden hostel, which is an absolute gem. You walk up 5 floors of stairs (kind of a daunting task here at altitude – Quito is almost 3000 meters high) and end up at a rooftop terrace with a fantastic view (this would become a theme of the day) of Old Town Quito and the surrounding mountains. I met up with Robby and two other travelers (Texan-by-way-of-Belarus Michael and British Colombian [that’s a Canadian, not a Brit from Bogota] Sheena) and we set off on a walking tour of old town.
The first stop was La Basilica del Voto, a huge cathedral which dominates the skyline of old town. It’s less than 100 years old, but it impressed me as much as any cathedral I’ve ever seen. The stained glass work was outstanding. The best part of the visit is that you are able to climb up the towers and into the belfry. From the top of the tower, you get an absolutely amazing 360 view of Quito, including a fantastic view of La Virgen (the giant monument to the Virgin Mary) framed by the two clock towers of the cathedral.
After we had our fill of rickety ladders and cramped towers, we walked east towards an interesting looking building we saw from the cathedral. After a steep climb, we ended up at Parque Itchimbia, a beautiful protected area perched on a hill. From there we got – you guessed it – an incredible view of Quito, including the poorer, somewhat forgotten neighborhoods to the east and south.
After a gigantic, cheap, tasty Chinese food lunch, we headed back to the hostel. Word began spreading of a Pub Quiz night, and we started to form a team. Eventually our team managed to wrangle a taxi van and we headed to Finn McCool, the Irish pub/gringo haven.
The trivia questions were good, the beers were cheap and best of all, we won the whole thing! Our team, Britneys Down The Gregory (50 points to the first person to translate that cockney rhyming slang), stumbled home victorious.