Quito, Ecuador

To get to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, we cheated and took a nice and easy flight from Santa Marta.

We had four nights here to re-acclimatise to the high altitude and have a relaxed time exploring the city. We stayed just outside the old town but also ventured north to the more modern city centre.

Weather:

We were so relieved to be out of the heat and into a familiar 20°C with rain.

Where we stayed:

We stayed at The Secret Garden Quito, which has variously been named the best hostel in Ecuador and all of South America. It had a roof terrace where all food and drink is 50% off for guests as well as an in-house ‘travel agency’ which organised day tours and trips.

It had a fun, social vibe and felt like it was half outdoors with the central staircase open-air and filled with plants. All fun and games until you’re brushing your teeth in the rain… Fortunately, they had classic Ecuadorean ponchos (with hoods) hung up around the place that you could put on as soon as you got cold. Overall we can very much see why it has been so highly rated! Our room was comfy and came with plenty of hooks – fast becoming an essential feature of a good room.

Best thing we ate:

With the discount on food in the hostel, we did mostly eat there, but the best thing we ate came from a restaurant a couple of doors down called Convergencia alimento de todos los tiempos – not the catchiest! We had a big salad and a pizza each, so not the most Ecuadorean, but brownie points for the good gluten free pizza base made of yuca and corn.

Coolest thing we did:

The coolest thing we did actually in Quito was the free walking tour on our first day. It set off from the hostel at 9.30am and went for a good few hours. We got a great sense of the history of the old town, as well as getting to taste Ecuadorean chocolate, eat humitas (yet another form of corn and cheese) and try the local spirit. Chris enjoyed being volunteered as an example of what the indigenous people expected a god to look like (only due to his being a lot taller than the indigenous population, but his ego hasn’t accepted that yet).

The tour included more dancing than expected, with some classic salsa and, more amusingly, when several tour groups came together in a souvenir shop to put on traditional masks and stomp around a bit. It goes without saying they got us to do this after giving us a shot of alcohol.

Bonus:

Quito is a great jumping off point for lots of cool nature and with the hostel offering easy day trips, we decided to make the most of it. We booked onto the Quilotoa Lake tour, which involved going to a local food market, a traditional indigenous home and finally the Quilotoa Lake, a huge crater lake formed by the collapse of a volcano.

We thought this day trip would be an easier option than the three day trek around the rim of the crater. While it was definitely quicker, it was still pretty difficult due to how steep the walk down and back up was. Still, the views were amazing in both directions, so we could just pretend we were admiring those rather than gasping for breath every 10 steps.

Once we reached the lake, we kayaked around it and warmed ourselves up with a hot drink after. It obviously started raining as we began our ascent, but we stoically resisted getting a horse ride.

The real bonus here is that we made it home safe after the bus got a teensy bit stuck in a mudslide on the way home. These are (luckily?) quite common in the highlands so there was a truck thing there ready to give us a tow and get us moving again.