Sunday 11th January 2026: Quito Old Town

The city of Quito, or to give its full name, San Fransisco de Quito,  is the second highest capital in the world.  More or less, sitting on the Equator, the city has twelve hour days and twelve hour nights.  There are few seasonal changes and it is called " the city of the eternal spring."  It was founded by Francisco Pizarro on 6th December, 1534.

We're staying in the old town in a former colonial building now housing holiday lets.  

Our digs are a stone's throw from Plaza San Domingo, a square surrounded by brightly painted colonial buildings in varying states of repair.

A nod to the modern are the new trolleybuses which roll through the town, ringing their bells.

It was the first Sunday after the Epiphany, or Twelth Day of Christmas.  The streets were thronging with people doing shopping, eating icecreams and generally enjoying the sunny weather.

On every corner, there were fine buildings to be seen.  The old city of Quito, along with the Galapagos Islands, was in the first tranche of places to be given UNESCO World Heritage Status in 1972.  To get and keep the UNESCO inscription, protections have to be put in place to conserve and preserve the cultural or natural asset.

We've visited many World Heritage sites on our travels, particularly in South America.  We once had the idea that we should try and do as many as we can...until we discovered that, to date, there are 1248.

As ever, the UK was late to the table in applying for sites to be listed, the first UK tranche in 1986 included Stonehenge and the Giant's Causeway.

The city is full of peddlers, offering you their wares.  The dodgiest one was the chap above who offered us cannabis products.  We, of course, declined.

The Governmnent Palace.

Plaza Grande r the Plaza de la Independencia

We saw several ice cream sellers  (see above) that walk about with a tray piled with white and pink icecream and coloured cornets.  If it were warmer, it would be a puddle in no time.

The Ecuadorian flag is yellow, red and gold stripes and is similar to those of Columbia and Venezuela, just with a different emblem on it.

As well as trolley buses there are very long bendibuses.

Plaza San Domingo

There seemed to be hundreds of churches with street sellers outside.

As in other parts of South America, there are small single room shops but most won't let you in.  In the picture above, a table blocks the way and you have to peer from the street and then ask the shopkeeper for what you want.  Others have metal grilles with spaces to pass the goods through.  It reminded Joan of her local shop when she lived in Hulme, when everything was behind a perspex barrier.

Typical street.

As we've taken so many photos of this beautiful city and because of the clunky way Blogger allows you to move photos around the blog, most photos are out of sequence.  The photo above and the two below are taken in the courtyard of our lodgings.

 

Colonial street.

One of the finest buildings was the Teatro Bolivar, built in 1933.

There were lots of cyclists.

Another icecream vendor.

From almost everywhere, including our lodgings, you can see the Virgin of El Panecillo, also known as the Virgin of Quito - a prominent statue that stands at a height of 135 feet (41 meters), including its base, making it the highest statue in Ecuador and one of the tallest in South America. It is located on El Panecillo hill, which rises 200 metres above the city.  It is the tallest aluminium statue in the world.

We saw a lot of people wearing crowns, such as the little boy above in the football shirt.  We think this must be linked to the Coming of the Kings.

Some of the streets were cobbled.

The tallest building, which can be seen from many viewpoints, was not the city cathedral but the Basilico del Voto Nacional.  Until recently it was the tallest church in South America.  Based on Notre Dame in Paris, it was built over forty years and first opened formally in 1924.  However, like the Gaudi cathedral in Barcelona, it is unfinished.  Local folklore says that when the Basilica is finished, Ecuador will cease to be a sovereign state.

Gargoyles

The church even had a bar so we hsd a cheeky beer.

In the grounds of the church was the Popemobile used by John Paul II when he visited Ecuador in 1985.

Plaza Grande - the Cathedral.

"The discovery of the Amazon is the glory of Quito."

Street seller.

A rare glimpse of Volcan Pichincha which hovers over Quito. A  stratovolcano, it has two main peaks:

Guagua Pichincha, the higher peak, stands at 4,784 meters, while Ruku Pichincha reaches 4,698 meters.  Its last period of significant activity was in 1660, but since 1981 it has sent out gas clouds and has fumaroles near its peak.

Inside Teatro Bolivar

Street art

Political graffiti about "The Disappeared."  Prior to Covid, Ecuador was one of the safest countries in South America.  But from 2023, there has been increasing amounts of crime and violence linked to drugs.  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office still has an advisory out for the coastal parts of Ecuador.  President Daniel Noboa’s response has been the implementation of “Plan Fenix,” which relies heavily on deploying the armed forces to restore order through successive states of emergency and by declaring an “internal armed conflict.” This approach grants the military an expanded role in public security operations.  As part of this there has been cases of "disappearances" - the most notable being the abduction of 4 children from Guayacil on 8th December 2024, whose tortured bodies were later found dumped.  16 members of the military were tried and found guilty of their abduction, and of leaving the children in a dangerous condition but not of their deaths. Another 43 people are recorded as missing by Amnesty International.

Even today curfews are in place in parts of Ecuador.

One of the stranger things we found in the basilica was the selling of Diablo Huma costumes and statues.

The Aya-Huma, commonly known as Diabluma or Diablo-Huma is a festive character of Ecuadorian culture and he is the main a character in the festivities of San Pedro that are celebrated in the provinces of Pichincha and Imbabura.   An interesting marriage of ancient myths and Christianity.

Late afternoon cloud on Pichincha.

One of the biggest challenges of traveling is that Kevin is vegetarian and Joan, vegan. Finding food is always a challenge.  We use Google searches and the Happy Cow site to identify restaurants but this can be a bit hit and miss.  We managed to locate two restaurants doing vegan food on the same street.  The first had its door open but had a big closed sign.  The second, La Purisma, had a single vegan dish on the menu but  it wasn't available.

So we went back to the closed restaurant and went in.  It wasn't closed at all so asking pays!  It was a small place with 16 indoor covers, but it was busy with people coming and going.  Though tiny, it was cluttered with all types of paraphernalia, including a Raleigh Chopper.  (Bit random)

Outside the restaurant. Rain. 

The food was lovely, with all dishes offered as veggie or vegan.   Main courses cost 18 US Dollars, which is higher than we expected but this is a capital city.

Stuffed artichoke.

It was nearing 6 o'clock, growing darker and was raining so we headed back home