Quito: 19th - 22nd April 2026
19th April – Sunday
I felt sad this morning packing up my rucksack and getting ready to leave the yacht and Galapagos Islands. It has been such an amazing experience. Being around animals that have no fear of human beings has been amazing, so has learning about the differences between the same species on each island – truly fascinating and eye opening. Another thing that made this morning sad was the dead sea lion. Originally there were three of them sleeping in the pangas and then when we went out on the deck after breakfast one was floating belly up head down in the sea and the other two kept trying to nudge it into an upright position. It was heartbreaking to watch the other two swimming around dead one and it just goes to show that these animals have feelings just like or at least similar to ours. One thing I also noticed was the amount of water pollution, there were bits of plastic floating around and one of the sea lions was playing with an old football. This is the first pollution I have seen all week and it added to my sadness.
Our very last trip was to the interpretation centre, after our last panga landing we got a bus there, which took all of 4 minutes. But first we got to witness hundreds of sea lions lounging around on every possible surface imaginable. San Cristobal is the home to the largest population of sea lions and Raul explained that this is because it is the first island they came to, they dispersed to the other islands from here. I am also very happy as last night I told Raul that the only animal I have not see is a Galapagos snake and guess what I saw this morning on the walkway into the interpretation centre – a snake. OMG, I was so happy, someone / something out there is answering my wishes! The centre was so interesting, it explained how the islands developed and their movement over million of years. Of course Raul had explained all of this to us already and on several occasions, but it was good to have it all reaffirmed. I don’t think I will ever forget it now! We also learnt how humans came to inhabit the islands and how they were first used to house criminals, very similar to Australia. And once again we were informed about Darwin and the role the islands played in the development of his theories.
After the visit we said goodbye to Ross and Kate, who are continuing the cruise for another week, and Brigget and Nicolas who are staying on this island. Raul walked me, Lesley, Pazu and Roco into town where we had 20 minutes to ourselves to purchase coffee and ice-creams. From there we said farewell to Raul and took a short bus ride to the airport. It was all very sad for us, but Raul does this regularly so probably not so sad for him. The flight to Quito was as expected, with a stop in Guayaquil to refuel. Lesley and Roco had G Adventures transport waiting for them, so Pazu and I jumped in a taxi into town and to my hotel. Pazu is staying a 12 minute walk from me. My hotel is lovely, and my room very cosy, but the layout is strange and the ground floor is shared with a fast food burger joint but you cannot enter it from the hotel. This evening we all met up for dinner at a place called Miskay and Roco was delighted because he finally got to eat cuy, which is guinea pig. I had a little taste, it was actually very nice but I found the skin very fatty and greasy. I do not think it is something that I will ever eat again, but at least I can say I tried it. After dinner we said our farewells but I do not think they are our final farewells as Roco leaves tomorrow evening and Lesley and Pazu the day after tomorrow, so we still have time to meet up and say our farewells again.
20th May – Monday
I am loving Quito historical centre. It is beautiful, and according to Google ‘one of the best preserved, largest historical centres in the Americas’. It has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1978 and has a fusion of Spanish colonial, Baroque and indigenous Andean influences. There is also a modern centre that houses a couple of sky scrapers but I will not get the chance to go there. I am not heart broken at this, however, a couple of them that I has seen on the internet do look very interesting.
After my breakfast I decided not to join the others on the TeleferQo (cable car), which, being one of the highest in the world, rises to approximately 4,000 meters above sea level. I was feeling just a little light headed and I also had a headache, which is another sign of altitude sickness; I didn’t want to risk going that high today. Instead I had a walk to the Plaza Grande and admired the architecture there. Including the Quito Metropolitan Cathedral and other grand colonial governmental buildings. In the middle of the plaza was a statue, but I am not sure who it is of. The plaza was full of people just milling around and hundreds of shoe shine guys. It is an excellent place for people watching. From there I took a walk up the hill to the Basilica del Voto Nacional, it is a striking Basilica that can be seen for miles around. I was quite out of breath by the time I got there and had a sit outside and admired the clock towers and spire before I ventured in. I noticed people at the top of the spire and so decided that was my aim of the morning. First I paid to go inside the actual church bit. It was nothing spectacular, although it did have a couple of nice stain glass windows. It was only $2 to get in, so no complaints. The towers were another $4 to access, which, considering my time in there was a good price to pay. Before I went in I took loads of pictures of a pope in a car, obviously he had visited Quito at some point.
Climbing the spires was hard work, I had to stop several times to catch my breath, I am so glad I have given up vaping, it would have been much harder otherwise. On one floor there was a spectacular view of inside the church and a beautiful round stain glass window. There were also two options to continue climbing – I took the tower 2 option. On the 10th floor there was a couple of shops and a restaurant, on the 12th floor you could see the mechanics of the clock and part of the clock and then on floor 16 there was a gallery showcasing photographs of how the Basilica had been restored. From here the going got even tougher as now there was a spiral staircase to navigate. The view from the top was amazing and well worth the effort, I rested for a while before heading back down to find the staircase to the actual spirals. I had to go through the shop on the 12 floor and then along a bridge type section that was under the eves of part of the church, before climbing a few more stairs where I found quite a few people contemplating the final climb up to the very top of the steeple. It looked hard and dangerous and I stood there contemplating it with everyone else. I almost chickened out but at the very last minute decided to follow a woman up the ladder like stairs – she
looked older than me and if she can do it then so can I. I held on tight and climbed each step very slowly, it really was like going up a ladder, but the view was so worth it. I even got someone to take a pic of me at the top. The climb down was backwards and not as scary as going up and then the main stairs going down were an easy affair.
I was back at my hotel when I got a message from the others, they were having lunch at Marios Ceviches, so I jumped into an Uber and met up with them. Rocco had to leave after 15 minutes as he had a plane to catch and Leslie left 10 minutes after hm as she was concerned he would not leave her room key at reception. That left me and Pazu. I had already ordered prawns in garlic sauce and not only were they so delicious there was about 20 of them. I didn’t eat the rice (I am honouring my diet) but I did have a large beer. After my meal the waiter came with a liquor shot, he had actually been lovely so I left him a $2 tip, after that he just kept coming with the shots, I had 4 in total!
After a fabulous chat with the manager, who is from Bolivia but now lives and works in Quito, Pazu and I walked and talked and before we know it we had climbed to the top of a strange mount that we came across and then we walked our way to the Basilica. Feeling thirsty we went into the grounds where there is a cafe and had a drink before departing company. It was such a lovely afternoon, I love walking and talking, and Pazu has a lot to talk about! I think they will all be meeting up for dinner tonight but I have already informed them that I wont be coming out to play. I am exhausted and in need of a good nights sleep.
21st April – Tuesday
Today has been quite chilled. I went for a lovely walk late in the morning. I planned my route using a paper map I got from reception. I first went to La Merced, which is a church, there are approximately 185 churches in Quito, with 30 of them being major churches. So basically, especially here in the historical centre, every corner you turn there is a church. From La Merced I walked to San Francisco, which is a plaza with a rather large church and a convent. I was later to learn that San Francisco was the first settlement area of Quito. I learnt this at the Museo de la Ciudad, which was an awesome museum. It laid out the history of Quito from the age of the indigenous inhabitants to when it was first ‘discovered’ (invaded), the role of the Spanish and the English and how it gained its independence, as well as the more recent turmoil and shift it has been through to bring it into the 21st century. The indigenous people (incas) have not had it easy, that is for sure, but then they haven’t in any of the Latin American countries. It really does make me feel sad at how native people have to fight to get their voices heard and to get basic rights / needs met such as free medical care. In fact, just the fact that they have had their countries raided and their cultures stripped bare and replaced with Christianity makes me feel sick. I really do not understand or like this white supremacy business – we are all one people on one planet, the colour of skin, the gods we decide to follow, our culture, our food, our everything should not divide us and certainly does not make one more superior than the other. White people have plundered and raided our world and now we are all facing the consequences of their actions, even the innocent. Anyway back to the museum, not only was it highly informative / educational it was a treat to walk around, the displays were amazing with lots of life like scenes / models and plenty of interactive activities. Everything was in Spanish, so I took my time and used G translate and did a lot of reading, and it was so worth the time and effort.
The museum is actually housed in an old hospital that was run by nuns, so it was church like. A small part of the display was about this and the medicines and instruments used to help cure the deceases that were rife many moons ago. I also came across some beautiful stitched collages depicting street scenes of Quito and some displays regarding the flora and fauna of the area. Like I said, it was an awesome museum.
After the museum I walked down La Ronda which is like the Covent Garden of the historical town, it is half museum, half shops, half restaurant and half bar. It is a trendy road with umbrellas and streamers hanging high across the length of the road. There was also a strong police presence. In fact the whole of the historical centre has a strong police presence, there must be as many, if not more, police as there are churches! I had a delicious meal at one of the restaurants, I ordered pork and it came with un-popped popcorn………
This afternoon I did some more planning, and booked my hostel in Cusco. This planning and
booking stuff takes a lot longer than you’d expect and sometimes I like to sleep on my ideas as they always improve with thought and time. I have decided to take the Peru Hop bus from Cusco to Lima which will enable me to see some more of Peru. I will do Lake Titicaca once I am back in Cusco, and on my way to Bolivia, because now that I have spent some time researching, I realised it is actually on-route to Bolivia, and it will make a good on-route break. I still have a bit of planning and booking to do and especially need to book my flight back to the UK, but that will all have to wait for a few more days. The main thing is I am now organised and know exactly what is I am doing for the next two months, I am just lacking the finer details.
22nd April – Wednesday
Today was action packed and I got in all the sites that I wanted to. I was picked up at 9am and was the last to be collected. On the tour were 3 couples, one from Peru, another from Australia and the other from New Zealand and 3 of them were doctors, so I was in safe hands!
I was disappointed with the first stop which was El Panecillo. The angel is stunning and so striking and can be seen from across the historic centre. The drive up took a lot longer than I expected and the view of the whole of Quito, new and old, is spectacular from up there. However, we did not get to go in the angel and climb the steps, in fact the angel felt like an add on to the walk we had and looking at the views. I really wanted to know more about the angel but was let down, I even had to make the guide wait for me in the car with the others while I went and took some photos of it. I am happy to say the rest of the tour was far less disappointing.
From the angel we went to the Basilica. I knew this was on the agenda and thought I’d get the chance to sit and have coffee while everyone else went to the top, but the tour didn’t involve a climb to the top, we just went in the church, had a little walk around the grounds and then everyone spent ages in the gift shop. So I am very happy that I went the day before yesterday and did the climb to the top. After the Basilica we went to the cable car, it is supposed to be one of the highest in the world and I must admit it was a long ride and on the door of the cabin I was in it said the peak is 4,000 meters above sea level. I am so glad I did not go the other day as even today, with being acclimatised, I found the walk to the swing quite difficult and had to stop a few times to catch my breath. It is such a shame that it was so cloudy as we did not get to see the amazing views. However, it was quite spectacular to watch the clouds sweeping in and closing in around us. Unfortunately there was some thunder so when we went to go back down we were not allowed and the cable car was at a standstill. We waited for a good 50 minutes before they started it up again, and in that time I bought myself a beer and some nachos, so much for my diet!
From the cable car we did a long drive to Pululahua which is a settlement inside the mouth of a dormant volcano, which was last active 800 years ago. It is protected land so no one can live on it but there is a rule in Ecuador that if someone has lived on a land for 10 or more years you cannot evict them from that land, the settlers were there before it became protected land and our guide informed us that most of the few people that live there are all related to each other. Inside the crater reminded me of UK farm land, it was so green and vibrant and in neatly laid out squares. When we first arrived it was shrouded in clouds but we blew hard and the clouds moved on so we ended up with a good view. Again it was quite spectacular.
After that we went to the middle of the world. We had a different guide for this and she took us around the museum area which had models of traditional amazonian houses and lots of amazonian stuff animals and she explained that the amazon makes up about 45% of Ecuador. It was awesome to see pictures of the indigenous amazon people and to be reminded about the way they live. The whole of middle of the world was done up very nicely, obviously for us tourists, with beautiful plants, walkways and statues that are typical from each of the Latin American countries, including a Moai from Easter island. When we arrived at latitude 0 we did a few experiments, for example on the actual equator line water goes down a plug hole straight, but on either side it swirls down to the right or left depending on which side of the equator you are on. We also did the egg challenge, I was the only member of our group who managed to do it and I got a certificate to prove it – lol. There are actually two middle of the worlds, this is the new one that was determined in 2002, the old one, which was determined many decades ago is 800 meters away! We went to that one too, it is where the famous middle of the world monument is. Inside the moment is a museum, a different section on each of the 5 floors, all about Ecuador (including the Galapagos Islands), it’s people and why it is the centre of the world. It was very interesting.
By the time we had finished our itinerary it was rush hour so the drive back took forever but it was very interesting as we drove through the centre of Quito which is very glitzy with high rise building, swanky bars and restaurants and expensive luxury hotels. Extremely different from the ruff and tumble of the down town area that I am staying in where no one walks around at night. After we had dropped everyone off, the guide and I went for food, it was fast food but ‘decent’ fast food. I had grilled chicken, beans, rice and salad, I left a lot of the beans and rice as they are not good for loosing weight. The guide kept telling me that I should move to Quito and teach English, he said I had a good character and they would love me here. Ha ha, I am not sure it is on my list of places that I would like to live but I must admit I really do like it here. It was a lot of character and the I love the fact the most of the people look like they have indigenous roots and are not western, like they are in Argentina and to some extant Chile. Being here has made me realise how much I loved central America and north Brazil, I know Peru and Bolivia are going to be similar. I am so looking forward to exploring them. I leave for Peru on the morning!
