quito v. 2

let's work backwards...

i just got back from this nepalese restaurant that now takes the coveted spot of best damn food i've had while in ecuador. i got the veggie lunch plate - came with some rice, a piece of bread (what do you call those flat breads? - they're very yummy) a veggie curry with huge chunks of ginger, and a pineapple juice. i was in heaven.

it's sunday - palm sunday to boot - so the city is mostly shut down, although this morning a journeyed into the historical centre to try and take in some of the sites and sounds. overall quito is a little like cuenca, a little like loja, and very little like guayaquil. it's not as characteristically colonial as cuenca and too big to really make over as a tourist image of what it must have looked once upon a time. it's very lived in, with narrow cobblestone streets and faded facades of buildings painting the landscape in shades of pink and yellow. it looks like they fixed everything up about 20 years ago or so and it's about time for a touch up, a coat of paint or two.

what they have been spending money on is the wonderful and awe inspiring series of buses and rapid transit trolleys. wow. they run in parallel lines across the city which is mostly aligned in a north south strip anyway, lining the valley bottom. designated bus lines are everywhere and the stations, gleaming glass and steel that would look at home in toronto or london (england). the trolleys are interesting, seeing the overhead lines and hearing the familiar faint buzz as they fly by.

so i took one of the buses, called ecovia (the ecological way!) into the historical centre and then proceeded to hike up the steep embankment to the churches and museums that awaited. this was after a good 12 hour sleep - making up for the 2 hours i had the night before, and an unpleasant introduction to my german roommates who failed to utter a word to me, even after i said hello, and then proceeded to ignore me and speak german whenever we passed in the hall or they happened to make eye contact in our room. i was happy to get out of cafecito (although the smell of fresh coffee that permeated the hostel was wonderful and it did look all happy and colourful, awash in oranges and taupes).

and i began my journey. i realized pretty early on that i had forgotten my guide book in the new hotel (a step up, with more comfortable mattress, cable tv, private bath and apparently (so they say although i haven't seen it yet) a small basketball court. but, with a good sense of direction i set out and walked about looking for the turrets of churches to help guide me to potential things to see. one of the first points of interest i stumbled upon was the museum of the city. set inside an old hospital i almost missed it because it's sign wasn't much more than a small banner stuck beside the door on a small sidestreet. i'm glad i did go in however as it is perhaps the best museum i've seen outside canada, and definitely the best bang for the buck and only 2 bucks admission.

the exhibits are nothing too special but the way they are arranged is impressive. to get from salon to salon you walk through a hanging wall of shiny streamers, guided by neon birds and music. you pass through some rooms with little more light than the occasional flash of artificial lightning and the diasporas, so often awkward and childlike in the museums i've been in, were engaging and beautiful. to cap it off the musuem is built about two patio areas with gardens and balconies to look down from the second level. overall a definite a+ but i would tell them to increase the signage and perhaps have more temporary exhibitions (four rooms - one exhibit).

i continued from there walking about and taking in the many processions and ceremonies that were being held to mark palm sunday. many carted about palm crosses or baskets and a myriad of people sold such things outside all of the many churches in the city centre.

the biggest church, the cathedral, stands head and shoulders above quito, visible from any corner of the city because of its height and sculptured towers. for another two bucks (being a foreigner bumps the price up quite a bit) i was able to take the stairs up the top of the clock towers and look out at the city. i thought the stairs and ladders would go on forever - even annoucing at one point to a tour guide i saw on the way - 'i finally made it' to which she replied - 'only two more ladders' (remember, quito is the second highest capital in the world and the thin air makes climbing a few stairs laborious). the view is very impressive, despite the overcast day, and the vertigo inspiring height did not deter me from snapping a few pics.

on the way back i passed through a couple of the biggest public parks in ecuador and even saw people playing on the grass (a definite no-no in guayaquil). i then went through the bank of ecuador's museum of ecuador which, in my mind, is somewhat overhyped although the ceramic exhibit is definitely worth the price of admission.

i will backtrack however and mention the museum just outside the middle of the world. it's incredible - a small but cleverly positioned smattering of exhibits toward the incans who worshiped the sun and gave prominence to the solstice and equinox (basically today). there are a few houses made to look as they did years ago that are pretty neat but the coolest were the demonstrations that they gave on the equator itself. for starters (and the coolest thing i saw) they poured water from a bucket into a basin that was straddling the equator. they then pulled the plug and allowed the water to drain, which it did, straight down. to better show this they threw in a few leaves which similarly went, straight down. they then did the same thing off to either side of the equator and demonstrated how the water drains in circles when away from the equator (corialis effect in the north). that was super cool. they also showed us how you're weaker at the equator because the pull of gravity is less (you're farther away from the earth's core) and your body is therefore not pushing back against gravity as much.

ok - enough chit chat - gonna go back to the hotel, check out this basketball thing, and they try out this other museum that's a bit of a trek away.