Jen and Rebecca Get Really High

R: Jen and I had a fun-filled, exhausting day in Quito. Quito is known for its high elevation in the Andes Mountains (¨high,¨ get it?) as well as all its churches and we made sure we experienced both today. As our hotel is in Old Town, we decided to focus our tourism attention on Old Town today and were able to see about three sites of interest to us within three blocks of the hotel. We started out at la Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus. (I love that we have an ñ key!) This church has an ornate gold interior that, as one guide book put it, could raise Liberace from the grave. It was very pretty and very shiny.

J: Sadly, none of the churches would allow us to take photos inside the sanctuaries, so we can´t show you any of the golden walls or flashing Christmas lights on the altar. You´ll just have to trust us. The church had a small museum attached displaying a variety of scientific instruments that you all know we had to tour. And then I discovered something amazing- all of the signs in the museums were in Spanish which severely limited Rebecca´s ability to read them. She could only look at the objects and pictures (normally she reads every word printed - which takes considerably longer). We made it thru in record time! After the museum, we proceeded on the
Monastery of San Francisco. It also had an adjoining musuem of religious artifacts and artwork. Once again, we set a new museum speed record. However, we both got distracted by a collection of nativity scenes on display for the Christmas season. Granted, part of the distraction may have been due to the many settings on our cameras and our experimenting with our photography skills.

R: The Franciscan Museum had a nice courtyard (again good for photography) and I also made a new monk friend. See below:




R (cont.): Next, a quick stop at the Casa de Sucre before lunch. This is the home of one of the military leaders who helped Ecuador gain its independence. Too bad we couldn´t read all the placards to learn exactly what this dude did. Onwards to lunch. We picked out a lovely restaurant from the guidebook located near the Monastery, but it didn´t seem to exist anymore. We headed to the other guidebook-recommended restaurant instead, only later in the afternoon I realized that we´d eaten at an entirely different restaurant. It´s okay. The food at this one was good too, though we exposed ourselves as complete tourist morons by not ordering at the counter as we should have, causing much confusion for the poor waiter later. It turns out we don´t really understand much Spanish. Next we headed to the Basilica del Voto Nacional, or as Jen started to call it, the ¨scary church.¨ I told her all about how you can climb to the top of the clock towers, a jounrey which also included walking across a precarious wooden plank path. Since Jen has a bit of a fear of heights, she was a little apprehensive about this. I, however, insisted we go! Here´s Jen crossing the plank path which turned out to be the least scary part given all the skinny metal steep stairs that came next!

J: I was not nearly as excited to climb to the top of the belfry as Rebecca, but I made it most of the way. The photo below is where I chickened out and sent Rebecca on ahead:

J (cont´d): But, I´m glad I made it as high (hee hee...get it...high) as I did because the views were awesome. We could see almost all of Quito from the top, plus, if it hadn´t been cloudy and we knew exactly which direction to look, I´m guessing we could have seen Cotopaxi as well. The Basilica is different from most other churches (at least on the outside) because instead of gargoyles, it had animals carved into its walls (see the bird below):

R: The weather had been sunny and hotter than expected up til we got to the Basilica--yes I know we´re at the equator, but we´re also high in the mountains! And weather.com had me believing it would be 60 and rainy. But in the afternoon, the clouds rolled in and in a very beautiful way. But yet it never rained. Yay! After climbing back down all the Basilica steps, we took an over-priced taxi ride to the Parque Itchimbia for more over-the-city views. (Guide book said the ride shouldn´t be more than $2 and we were charged $7. But when Jen handed him a $20, he only gave us $10 back. Ack! Stupid language barrier again!) After wandering in the park, we headed to a recommended restaurant across the street (Cafe Mosaico)where we got to see the sunset behind the clouds.

R (cont´d): We had a more reasonably-priced taxi ride back to our hotel where we got our bags organized for leaving again tomorrow - we have to leave the hotel at 6:00 am, ugh! And we´re exhausted. But to add to the day´s excitement, Jen got the memory card of my brand new camera stuck in her computer. Good thing I take crafting supplies with me everywhere I go. We managed to get two sewing needles in the drive the pry the thing out. And all the pictures were intact! I think we were both too tired to realize the folly of putting the small memory card in. Oh well. It all ended well. And speaking of endings, we need to get to bed. After our long travel day yesterday, the 6:00 am unintentional wakeup call this morning and another early day tomorrow, we are exhausted! Next stop, Galapagos Islands!