We arrive in Quito one day late due to a missed flight. Scheduling a flight into and out of Lima on the same day is a mistake our travel agent made twice. After the second time we make our own flight reservations. We have the “experience” of standing by in Lima for an Air Panama flight to Guayaquil, and after arriving there are able to get a Tame turbo prop flight to Quito.
We found the residencia Luticia in Frommer’s “So. America on $5 & $10 a Day”. It is a fancy old mansion with lovely carved wood, chandeliers, and paintings. Our room is large, and rundown, there is no heat, and at 10,000 ft. elevation it is cold at night, so we go to supper in the dining room in our top coats and try to sit close to the small fireplace. We have a delicious French meal of pepper stuffed with pureed meat with a thin sauce on top, Ecuadorian potato soup, veal cutlet, well seasoned carrots, and baked apple.
Our taxi tour takes us to vantage points to look over the city, to new residential sections, to embassies, to a golf club, and a racetrack. All very beautiful!.
We find “old” Quito to be dirty, smelly, and crowded with tenacious vendors and shopkeepers trying to lure you inside. We look in a couple shops but find nothing worth buying. There are many structures well worth seeing; the beautiful old cathedral and other churches date from the 1500’s and have dazzling gold altars and lovely pictures. The Museo National de Arte is in a delightful old mansion of a Duke, full of paintings, objects of art, and furniture from the 16th to 18th centuries.
We like to see the local Universities when we travel. Quito University is nearby and we see it has many modern buildings, and well kept grounds. En route we find a nice gift shop in a home and buy several items.
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