Quito, Ecuado
The sprawl of Quito, way to the north and far to the south of a valley, was unexpected. It is so long that there are two main bus stations that bookend the city. After only two hours on the bus from Otavalo, I arrived at the North Bus Terminal but needed to find a way south to the Historical Center of the city where my hostel was situated. Heavy rain made a taxi quite tempting, but I didn't want to spend $10 on one. Plus, I had read some suspect things about fake taxies that made the bus seem safer. In my steadily improving Spanish I asked for the bus heading downtown and $0.25 cents later I was standing on the C-1 bus.
It took about an hour, proving just how long Quito is, but I arrived at the well known Secret Garden Hostel fine and dandy. Though the small hill to the hostel, with my two backpacks and the altitude, left me completely out of breath, I settled in and spent the rest of the evening on the epic roof top of the hostel. With an insane view of the city before me, I laid low with my laptop until dinner time. Secret Garden serves dinner each night and those who participate share the meal together on the roof. So along with some new hostel homies, I enjoyed a perfectly average veggie burger and then, still recovering from my recent illness, retreated to my bed.
Day One: A walk Around Town
With a twelve hour snooze under my belt, I woke up early and set out into the historical town to find some fruit for breakfast. It was a Sunday so nothing was open early. To kill time I walked up to the Basilica and bought a $2 ticket to climb up its towers. Once inside the Basilica you can walk across a bridge in the attic space of the main hall, up several steep steps and onto a look out platform in a spire.
The view here not only includes the city and the parallel towers of the church, but on a clear morning like the one I had, you can see the peaks of three snow-covered volcanos. Completely captivated, I spent a good while figuring out the names of all the peaks. I can't be certain, but I believe it was Cayambe to the north, Antisana to the east and the one and only Cotopaxi to the south. I didn’t know it at the time but this would be the beginning of a new found obsession with Ecuadorian volcanoes.
On my walk back to the hostel I found a couple little papayas and enjoyed them for breakfast back up on the hostel roof. The rest of my day was chill. I walked around Quito's historic center, popping into the occasional church, museum and shop. I discovered the traditional food market just around the corner from the hostel and picked up some snacks. A few stalls tended by sweet old ladies had huge bins of peanut butter, so I ran up to the hostel, grabbed my mason jar and had it filled to the brim with fresh peanut butter.
It rocked. After a lovely day in the city I hung out on the roof with a beer and met a fellow University of Michigan grad who told me about a hike he had done the day before. It was a simple 20 minute cable car ride away and then roughly two hours to the peak. I recruited the German man sitting next to me and had my second day in Quito sorted.
I have since decided that I may try my hand at the summit of Cotopaxi, the second highest volcano in Ecuador. I saw it for the first time from the cable car and cannot get that perfectly coned volcano out of my head. More so, as my 24th birthday approaches I have been thinking there is no better way to enter into another year of life than a summit attempt.
The idea is extremely intimidating and maybe I like the idea of mountain climbing more than the reality, but I would like to try. It is worth a try even if I don't make it to the top.