Quito, Ecuador

Quito, Ecuador slideshow

Unfortunately my visit to Quito was a quick one since I wanted to spend more time in Colombia. Although it just market my transition between Peru and Bolivia, I was able to stroll on the street of of the old town and enjoy the scene of upscale Mariscal streets full of night clubs and restaurants.

A Unesco World Heritage Site since 1978, the Old Town retains the working class and indigenous character. Quito was a major Inca city that was destroyed by its leader shortly before the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores. Thus, the present day capital was founded a top the Inca ruins in 1534 and the large number of churches and monasteries made a new statement of who was in charge of the place.

I was very impressed with the public transportation in Quito. Troles and Metrobuses were fast and inexpensive means of green transportation, a breath of fresh air in South America where lack of standards allow buses to spit out mass amounts of dark fume in the crowded cities.

Quito is located where the hemispheric line marks the Mitad del Mundo, middle of the world. Well, there is the official site, where most people, including me, take their pictures. But according the GPS measures, the place is about 240 yards off the mark, where an alternative museum, Museo Solar Inti Nan, is located. I visited both sites to cover it. At the alternative museum we had an interesting tour with experiments such as water draining counterclockwise north of the Equator and clockwise three yards away, south of the Equator, a phenomenon called the Coriolos Force.

From Quito I took a five hours bus ride to Esmeraldas where I got on a plant to Cali, Colombia. I almost could not board the plane because I didn't have a round trip ticket, a strange requirement for foreigners, since I was going to continue my travels from there. But everything worked out in the end.