Up, up, up, at the Belly Button of the World

October 12th we started to celebrate Ching Jen's birthday with travel
on 4 flights, through 3 countries, in 2 hemispheres, and ending at 1
secret garden. We flew from Ushuaia, Argentina through Buenos Aires
and then Cordoba.  The next flight was from Cordoba to Panama City,
Panama and then backtracking on our connecting flight to Quito,
Ecuador.  We arrived in Quito a bit delayed, which foiled our plan to
go straight from the airport to the equator.  Instead we went to our
hostel, the Secret Garden, a really wonderful hostel on an eastern
hill above the old town.  The hostel itself is a labyrinth of
buildings, to get to our room from the street you have to go enter, go
up 4 flights of stairs, cross through an apartment, and then go down 3
flights of stairs.  The reception is at the very top, on the 5th floor
where there is a terrace and a restaurant with absolutely stunning
views of Quito.  All of this I should say is at the elevation of 9350
feet.

Quito is a sprawling city built in a valley on the side of a still
active ash volcano.  The city is very, very narrow, only about a 10 or
15 minute drive east to west and then about an 45 minute to an hour
long drive north to south.  It is an incredibly scenic city with many
look out points and attractions that provide panoramas of the city,
valley and mountains.  There are four main parts to Quito, the Old
Town and the New Town at the center and then the southern and northern
districts stretching from the center.  The Old Town is by far the more
interesting and safer place to stay.  It is the largest preserved
historic colonial area in the world with a realistic mix of
preservation, restoration, and revitalization.

We had only 36 hours in Quito so once we checked in we headed out to
see as much as we could.  Our first stop was a little bit across the
old town to the Basilica del Voto Nacional, a HUGE gothic spired
church with a beautiful stained glass interior complete with a 20 foot
diameter rose window and local animal gargoyles.  The church is
located on a hill at the northern end of the old town and from the
plaza outside we already had pretty amazing views of the city.
However, the roof and bell towers of the church are open to the
public, even in its run down, graffiti, almost ruinous state.  We
ascended, first by elevator to the roof of the nave and then by iron
ladder up 4 stories within the stone structure.  It was awesome
although a bit spooky because of the brooding architecture, the ladder
climbing, and the fact that we were already out of breath just to walk
around at this altitude.

From the basilica we walked up and down the roller coaster streets of
the Old Town toward La Merced, another church with an interior ceiling
painted carnation pink and artwork depicting erupting volcanoes and
fire-y landscapes of Quito.  Sunset mass was just beginning so we just
peeked and walked around for a little while.  Outside the streets were
flattening out a bit.  They were also getting more and more crowded as
people were getting off work and doing their shopping.  The sidewalks
in the Old Town are very very narrow and the vehicle traffic is fairly
heavy mixed with buses and light rail.  Unfortunately the next stop on
our walking tour of the Old City, the Church of San Francisco was
closed for restoration, but we did poke our heads into the side
chapel, which was a blaze in gilded flourishes.  Outside, the plaza is
a small oasis of sloping cobblestones amongst colonial arcades and
three storey buildings.  The topography is so hilly in Quito that
anywhere the Spanish or developers since the 1500's wanted to build a
large building, they had to move earth to get enough area.  Therefore,
the Church of San Francisco like many other buildings and churches has
a stair leading up to it and an entire street level arcade beneath it.
 These spaces are now occupied by businesses and restaurants.  Across
town we saw a different strategy at Santo Domingo where the church was
actually sunken below the plaza.  The sun was beginning to set and we
wanted to make it up to another viewing spot so we worked our way back
through the streets of the Old Town to San Blas, the hill near our
hostel and then up a very steep flight of stairs.  I guess flight of
stairs doesn't clearly describe it.  It was a 20-storey building on
incline up hill.   At the top though the view left us breathless.  We
grabbed a seat at the edge of the balcony of Cafe Mosaico, a greekish
restaurant cantilevered out from the hillside.  It was a wonderful
birthday dinner with the lights of Quito twinkling below us.

The next day, our last full day of the trip, we woke up and had a full
breakfast on the terrace of the hostel.  The morning sun had already
burnt off most of the fog and the haze of pollution had not yet rolled
in to cloud the view of the distant hills.  We left the hotel and
walked on foot to the Central Market.  This was the most modern and
sterile market we saw of the whole trip.  The previous market had been
destroyed in an earthquake so this one was constructed in the 1950's
with the intention that there would be a few fruit, vegetable, and
seafood vendors mixed with a larger number of butchers, and then a
majority of tiled stalls for restaurants.  It was a bit of a
disappointment not to see the hub-bub of other South American markets.

After the market we walked to a bus line that took us 12km outside of
town to the equator.  It is funny to think that the equator, an
invisible line that circumvents the entire Earth is represented in a
single point at a single site here in Ecuador.  We don't know what
other equator sites are like elsewhere in the world, but here in Quito
it is a touristy complex of artisan shops and restaurants and a
3-storey stone monument with an orange line going through it.  We had
our fun jumping back and forth between north and south.  Next door to
the Middle of the World complex is another museum where scientists
determined the actual equator to be.  It is 240 meters away from the
line in the previous site.  Here there are science experiments to
demonstrate the various phenomena.  We watched water spiral clockwise
in the southern hemisphere and then spiral counter clockwise 6 feet
away in the northern hemisphere.  On the line itself the water didn't
spiral at all.  We also balanced an egg longways on the top of a nail,
observed sun dials and our own shadows for changes.  It was
instructive, but again pretty touristy and also ironic to think that
tourists from all over the world, like ourselves, travel here to the
equator, a place that exists in the same way around the entire world.
While standing on the line one can look up at the street of houses
built right down the equator.  It would be just as cool to visit the
neighbors house and walk from their living room to the kitchen
crossing the equator.

After the equator sites we took the bus into Quito's New Town to the
Teleferiqo, an aerial lift that travels 2500 meters up the side of the
Volcano to a lookout point 4100 meters in altitude.  The total trip in
the gondola took about 30 minutes.  Our ears were definitely popping.
The view of course was incredible.  There were airplanes flying below
us.  Clouds were blowing through beneath our feet.  The land was
essentially a spring like tundra providing ideal conditions for
mountain biking and running.  We walked around a bit checking out the
panoramic views.  Before heading down we split a humita, a steamed
ground corn snack cooked in a leaf.  From the base of the teleferiqo
we took a taxi across town to Bellavista, a hillside neighborhood
overlooking the airport.  We went to the Chapel of Man, a non-profit
museum and foundation, established by the Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo
Guayasamin, dedicated to raising awareness about human rights abuses.
Guaysamin is a world famous artist whose portraits are known for
deeply emotional expressions and backstories.  The work is sobering
and uplifting at the same time with subjects as diverse as indigenous
people in South America to victims of the Vietnam War, Bay of Pigs and
images of domestic violence.  Sounds heavy, but there were many works
celebrating tender and heartfelt moments.  After our visit, we enjoyed
an ice cream with a view of the modern part of Quito and airplanes
landing amidst the skyscrapers.

We headed downtown to the Old City as the sky was darkening and a
storm was fast approaching.  We made it to the Plaza Grande, the main
square, to see the Cathedral and Government Palace in time before the
rain.  For dinner we went to a local restaurant and had a shrimp dish
and a chicken dish served like an open burrito.  Then we returned to
the hostel for a drink and relaxation on the terrace.  At 3:30am the
next morning we met our cab for transport to the airport.  Our flight
flew from Quito to Houston and then onward to Denver.  Overall it was
a sad feeling to be heading "home."  75 days of travel and it felt
like we were just getting going.