kee-to

  Daria and I returned to Quito on Sunday so that I could be around on Monday to defend my Thesis Plan, which had been scheduled for 3pm.  We spent most of Monday morning recuperating lost sleep and putzing around, but we enjoyed one of my favorite new breakfasts- milk heated with pureed pumpkin served with some pumpkin spice mix over oatmeal- yum! 

Looking down into Guápulo, the valley Cumbayá is in the distance

We took a walk over to Guápulo, a small area that lies on the outskirts of Quito.  There’s a lovely lookout area, and although it was raining, it was still cool to point out surrounding valleys, etc.  We walked a bit further to my favorite bread place where we picked up a soft pretzel (Rach- YUM- to make while I’m in SF?) and then walked back home for lunch.

While I was at my thesis defense meeting, Daria took a taxi over to the Museo Guayasamin, which (I think) she enjoyed, even though the more impressive Capilla del Hombre was closed.  In the evening we invited some of my lady friends over for dinner, and we all enjoyed a yummy, South American inspired meal.

Tuesday was a full day, and since I didn’t have to be at the University, we decided to aprovechar- take advantage of- the time.  We walked to the Parque Carolina, which is, as anyone who has ever visited Quito with me knows, one of my favorite places. It’s an enormous park where they do morning aerobics classes on weekends.  There are really so many parts of the park- futbol fields, basketball courts, open areas, play equipment for kids, tons of food vendors, a track, the Botanical Garden, an area where they put on puppet shows for kids, a man made river/lake area where you can rent paddle boats, an enormous, world-famous skate park, and more open spaces.  Daria and I checked out the Botanical Gardens and Daria got some nice photos of orquids to show her mom.  

La Ternura- Tenderness- one of Guayasamin's most reconized pieces

From the Parque Carolina, we headed up to the Capilla del Hombre- Chapel of Man- created by Guayasamin, one of Ecuador’s most treasured painters.  The Capilla del Hombre is perhaps one of my other favorite places to show off (unfortunately, it was closed when I went to show it to Mom and Rach).  There are enormous, beautiful and very moving paintings and sculptures all through the area, many in dedication to indigenous struggles, resistance movements under dictatorships, and the mestizo  or mixed white/indigenous experience. While the Capilla in itself is amazing, the free tour really adds a lot of value- the guides explain the works and various bits of symbolism, history, and meaning behind each piece. 

A view of the Virgin in Quito from the Centro Histórico. Photo credit: Daria

After a perhaps too-leisurely lunch, the second half of our afternoon marked the beginning of our three-minutes too late experience.  We walked down to the Banco Central’s free museum that has cool diorama-like indications of what indigenous life was like as well as an entire exhibition dedicated to displaying ancient gold artifacts.  Unfortunately, we arrived 3 minutes too late, and they were shooing everyone out of the museum.  We continued to walk through the Parque El Ejido so that Daria could get some last minute souvenirs, but unfortunately the vendors weren’t there on Tuesday. 

Daria in front of La Basílica

We walked through the park to the Centro Histórico, where we successfully saw the Basílica, one of many churches in the Centro Histórico, the only one with a decidedly gothic feel to it.  We walked around the Centro Histórico, only to arrive 3 minutes too late at the Compañía de Jesús, a church entirely gold-plated on the interior.  Although they had begun Mass, we convinced the guy to let us at least peek in and check it out for a minute.  Daria definitely got a good feel of the Centro Histórico’s unique feel because we walked around a lot and saw several of the landmark churches without specifically seeking them out. 

View of the Centro from Café Mosaico. Photo credit: Daria

Cool bottles hanging in Café Mosaico. Photo credit: Daria

From there we took a taxi to perhaps my last must-see Quito destination- Café Mosaico (Mom and RachCafé Mosaico has an incredible, unblocked view of the entire historic center and lots of the rest of Quito as well, and when the Centro Histórico is lit up at night, it’s a really amazing view.  We enjoyed maracuyazos- a combination of the canelazo drink, which is usually flavored with cinnamon and sugar cane alcohol, but ours were flavored with maracuyá- passion fruit juice.  Delightful. We also split an order of veg lasagna and maybe two orders of tzatziki.  We wanted to stop at the Supermaxi to get some last minute cooking supplies for Daria to take back, but our cab driver told us they were open until 8:30, and when we got there at 8:03, they told us that they were closing and that we couldn’t go in.  This made sense to us, as we had just barely missed many important landmarks during the day, so it would have been silly for karma to have been on our side this time. 

It was an entirely delightful trip!  Hopefully Daria works up a good campaign back home to get other people to come down and visit!  We tried all sorts of yummy local foods, including but not limited to:

Food:

Pan de yuca (yuca bread)

Menestra de porotos (bean stew)

Empanadas de verde (green plantain empanadas with cheese)

Palmitos (hearts of palm)

Plantains with cheese inside

Chifles (green plantain or banana chips)

Helado de paila (an artisan ice cream)

Habas (fava beans, usually toasted)

Chochos y chulpi (lupine beans and toasted corn)

Aji de tomate de arbol (tree tomato spicy sauce)

Yuca chips

Patacones (flattened fried green plantains)

Juices:

Passionfruit

Tree tomato

Tree tomato/guayaba

Papaya

Coconut

Avena (an oatmeal based juice-like drink)


I'm probably missing some...but look how yummy your next trip to Ecuador will be! Come visit!