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| View From The Spire |
The hotel is right off of the Piaza de San Francisco. Naturally we started there. A fun story: a man by the name of Cantuna was commissioned to build the Monasterio de San Fransico and had a set amount of time to finish it or he would be thrown in prison. The time was drawing near for the church to be finished and Cantuna realized there was no way it was going to be done. He made a deal with the devil; if the devil could complete the church in time then he could have Cantuna's soul. The day came to present the church to the commissioners. The church was complete except for one block... Technically, the church was not complete. The commissioners were not concerned, so, he was not thrown into jail, and the devil did not get Cantuna's soul, The church was amazingly gorgeous.
Plaza de la Independencia. Our awesome tour guide told us that all of the main squares in Ecuador would be set up like this one. A church on one side, a monestary across the square from it, the presidential palace (or the local leaders home), and the city hall across from that. There is a mondo statue in the center representing Ecuadors independence from Spain. We had the oppertunity to tour the Presidential Palace. It was grand, flashy, and beautiful.
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| La Basilica! |
Took a nice long walk up to La Basilica, This is the largest Gothic basilica in Latin America and took over 100 years to build. Truly jaw dropping. There is an option to climb the spire and the two towers. Of course we did that. the towers were an easy climb and had fantastic views. The spire on the other hand was a little stressful. I am quite confident that all three of us needed to change our pants after that climb. Literally, it was a 400ft climb straight up an down. Totally worth it!
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| The Climb |
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| A Tower Of The Basilica Seen From The Adjacent Tower |
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| Jaunito Climbing |
Our next towering adventure was to Cerro Pancillo (the cupcake mountin) which over looks Old Town. Incan sun ceremonies used to take place at this hill top.The statue of "The Virgin of the Americas is situated up there now. She was made to be the protector of Quito, but has been refered to as facing the rich and having her back to the poor (rich Quito is situated to the north/front of the statue and poor Quito is situated on the south/back of the statue). Only being able to climb to the base of the globe that she stands on, we were still able to get a higher vantage point even from the Basilica!
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| Looking Up At The Virgin Of The Americas |
I cannot remember if I have shared this yet or not, but Quito is a very lllllloooooonnnnngggggg city. Karry said that it takes approximately 3.5 hours to drive from the far north to the far south. However, it takes less than a half hour to drive from the far east to the far west. As you can imagine the pictures do not do justice to the view.
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| A Picture That Does Not Do The View Justice |
After our tour guide was nearly hit by a bus we headed to La Ronda. That is about how nochalant he was about being grazed by the bus, while I was freaking out. Any ways, La Ronda is a very romanticly ornate colonial district of Quito. It is know for being a spot there men would serenade women to their balconeys in hopes to make them fall in love.
I left my toiletries bag at Katty's house. That really, really made me mad at myself. I'm still not sure how I managed to do that. I have one prescription in particular that I need to prevent the week of the dragon (enough said). It was crazy to me that I could walk right into a pharmacy, show them the name of the medication I needed, and they gave it to me. No questions asked, no hair pulling, no prescription from a doctor. Blew my mind and made my day.
Juanito was the best tour guide that we could have ever hoped for! Thank you so much for letting us drag you around town on one of your very few days off. You are THE BEST!!!
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