Quito, Ecuador - First Impressions

Shock to the System
In just one short flight we went from warm Colombia to cold Quito.  I exaggerate - it drops down to the upper 40's at night then quickly jumps up to 70 after a few hours of sun.  First time this whole trip that I am not in shorts and a tee shirt.  Quito is 9.000 feet above sea level - I felt it immediately.  My ears filled up within an hour and I cannot hear a damned thing.  We are in the old town, looking south onto a small hill nicknamed "el panecillo" which means "the bun" as in a bun you eat.

Quito sits in a high valley between two Andes mountain ranges.  Like Medellin, no matter which way you look, you see mountains.

This is a closer look at the map of the city.  We are looking south onto the bun.

Like every other place we've been, we rented an AirBnb.  We got ourselves a room in a small two bedroom apartment but since the landlord is away, we have the whole place to ourselves.  We're on the top floor of a large building that occupies an entire block.  You feel every one of those steps up to the fourth floor.  The views from the veranda are wonderful.

What is so strange about Quito is you get the sudden feeling you are no longer in South America, but rather in a European city like Rome.  There are no trees, there is dog shit all over the place, bad graffiti - as I walked around this morning I felt like I was in Paris.  Stranger still, the people here are clearly more indigenous than in Colombia - you can see it in their faces.  Some of the older ladies look Asian in appearance.  I also don't feel short here.

Like Cali and Medellin, the place is steep.  There is no such thing as a nice walk around the block unless you are willing to hoof it up and down the steep cobblestone streets.

At 7am we were out the door.  I got my Ecuadorean SIM card and phone number for $5 then we had an amazing breakfast at a cafe.  Later we visited the central market.  At one of the fruit stalls, I bought two bananas, an apple, a half pound of grapes and a pineapple which they skinned and sliced for me.  All in - just $1.50.

What throws me even more is they don't have their own currency.  They use the US dollar.  They have all these old 50 cent and dollar coins that we no longer use in the US.