A Quito, a quitoquitoquito!

We planned a Quito stop near the end of our trip, so we had lots of opportunity to ask other travelers about it while we were in other places. Most of them gave a noncommittal ¨meh,¨ and acted as if there wasn´t much to like about it. But we disagree, Quito is great! We arrived in the city from the Black Sheep Inn last week and spent a few days in the city. It's beautiful, with buildings climbing up the mountainsides. There's a part called the Old Town, which is full of lovely plazas and well-preserved buildings. The New Town is a lot like other cities, especially Latin American ones, with lots of high rise buildings, crazy buses, big parks, and international restaurants. Here´s the Plaza Grande, the main plaza in the Old Town. Around it are the cathedral, the cultural center, the municipal building, and the president´s house:


We found a nice hostel (Casa Bambu) fairly easily. We've strolled a ton and seen a nice mix of cultural things. We saw an Andy Warhol exhibit in the Centro Cultural Metropolitano, and the amazing Museo Guayasamín, the former home of Ecuador´s most famous artist. Here´s one of his most famous paintings, called ¨Maternidad.¨

It seems Sr. Guayasamín also had a great eye for colonial art, so we were able to not only see his paintings, but get to know a lot from his collection of items from the Quito and Cuzco schools of art, which were basically religious art-producing workshops in the colonial period, done by (now anonymous) indigenous and mestizo artists and used to instruct Latin Americans about Catholicism. The Quito school is known for hyper-realistic statues, using incredibly detailed paint techniques to realistically imitate flesh tone and gory crucifixes, and the faces of statues have startlingly realistic expressions.

And, because any trip I take seems to inevitably become a culinary tour, we´ve eaten a ton. Quito has all kinds of cuisine, so we've had our share of Italian and Thai and stuff like that, as well as some fantastic Ecuadorian food. I am now in love with something called morocho, which is kind of like hot rice milk, you know the kind that´s sort of sweet? Except it´s made with corn. Sounds like a strange combo, but it´s soooo yum. Beyond that, we´ve had every possible kind of empanada and humita (sort of like a tamale but softer and cheese-filled) there is. And I cannot fail to mention our favorite restaurante Quiteña: Frutería Monserrate! It´s a restaurant housed in a huge tall building with skylights and many floors. You can get mainly Ecuadorian fare here (and it´s where morocho first entered my life), but it´s really known for it´s huge bowls of fruit with whipped cream and raspberry sauce. We´ve been there three times already!

We've also been able to witness Ecuadorian politics firsthand, as the election for a new assembly (the body that will re-write the constitution) just took place on Sunday. The campaigns were everywhere, and right when we got to Quito we were swept up in several different frenetic parades and rallies, an interesting way to depart from the tourist experience.

So, Quito´s been good to us. We were here for a few days, then left for Otavalo (see previous post), and came back again. Tomorrow we leave for home, hard to believe!