Galivanting thru the Galapagos & the Amazon
Day 1 - Quito, Ecuador - Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Started the day with breakfast from the hotel & then a meeting with our Tour Guide & all the members. Forced ourselves up at 8:30am. Since we didn't get to sleep until about 3:45am - that was a chore! Breakfast was good - different selection - hard scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, a spicy chicken hash (kinda like a stir fry), herbed small potatos & bread pudding! The bread pudding was delicious, but never had it for breakfast before! There was a selection of different kind of bread rolls too & an assortment of fruit - pineapple, cantaloupe, another melon, & mango. All were very tasty.
Met our group in an upstairs meeting room. Only one other couple - JR & PJ from Spokane - they've only been married a year. Then her baby sister, Sandra from Hawaii, & 4 other single women - 1 from Connecticut, another from Hawaii, 1 from Sacramento area, 1 from Orange County, 1 from Florida. Supposed to be another couple, but they canceled out, so just the 10 of us.
Our guide is Delfin (pronounced DELfeen & means dolphin). He was born in the rainforest of the Amazon & has been a tour guide for 19 years & with OAT for 10 years. I think we will really enjoy him, just like all the other guides we have had with OAT.
We headed out by bus about 11am & drove south about a half hour from the Modern section of Quito (the city is long & narrow - about 30 miles long) to the Colonial section. Quito at 9000' elevation, is the 2nd highest capital city in the world (next after La Paz in Bolivia at 12,000'). It was founded by Sebsatian de Benaleazar on December 6, 1534 (my birthday!! Cool!).
BASÍLICA DEL VOTO NACIONAL
First stop was just for 5 minutes to view the outside of the Basilica del Voto Nacional. It's main claim to fame is the Gothic gargoyles that are actually Galapagos & Amazonian creatures. Note the turtles & dolphins. The cathedral has never been officially completed because of a local legend that says that if it's ever "completed", the world will come to an end! Yipes!
From there, we returned to the bus for a short drive to walk around the Colonial Plazas of Quito. Quito was established as a World Heritage Center in 1978 and enjoyed a clean up & renewal of the historic buildings due to this. The Independence Plaza is completed on the 4 sides by the
Carondelet Palace (like our White House), the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Archbishop's Palace, the Municipal Palace (City Hall) and the Plaza Grande Hotel.The Archbishops Palace is now a huge shopping area filled with quint restaurants & stores, rented out by the Catholic Church for funds. It's lovely inside.
OAT never misses a chance to get us a little behind the scenes. Our local guide (Leana) noticed a couple of young female police officers. She asked if they would speak to us. These 2 are finishing their 4 years of college to become National Police (they will graduate in June) and will then be a regular part of the force & the only ones in Ecuador allowed to carry firearms. Women were only recently allowed to become Police Officers. They happily posed with us and even had our guide take a picture for them with all of us!
We continued our walk & stopped to look at the exterior of the Church of the Society of Jesus. It's rather non descript outside, but Leana decided to take us inside.
We weren't allowed to take pictures, but I googled it & found these in Wikipedia. Yes indeedy, this is all 24K gold inlay!!!! Unbelievable. There is a huge organ also, but couldn't find a picture of it. Apparently there is a "sister" organ in Oregon state & the organist comes here to play this one once a year. This cathedral took more than 150 years to complete & has been damaged several times by fire or earthquakes, but money was provided to keep it in repair. It was really magnificent.
At this point, Leana & Delphin took us into a small local bar where we experienced the highlight of the day! OAT loves what they call Learning & Discovery, especially when associated with controversial subjects. They bought us all drinks of our choice, then invited Christina, a local "sexual worker" to discuss her job with us. Prostitution is a grey area in Ecuador - neither strictly legal, nor illegal! Christina is 39 and has been working as a prostitute since she ran away from an abusive home in Columbia at the age of 19. Her husband was also her pimp & was also abusive. She left him many years ago & has raised her 2 children alone for many years. Her son is now in college & studying robotics. Her daughter wants to be a tour guide! She was very open & honest with us & allowed us to ask her anything from how she got her clients (some long term "friends" and some just from the street corners) to when she would be able to stop (when kids out of college) to how much she made (about $400 a night). She was often emotional in her life descriptions & we all fell in love with her. The government does provide free health care & the hotel rooms all have an "emergency call button" if clients become abusive.
We continued our walk (note the huge amounts of pigeons!) and were all hyper about everything we had learned.
The last stop of the day was for our meal. The restaurant was called Restaurant la Negra Mala. The black woman! It was in the Casa del Murcielagash (House of the Bat). Very interesting!
Vicki (the owner) & her son David served the home cooked meal of pork, potato patty, avocado, plantain, & hominy. It was all very very good and gave us a taste of what the Northern Ecuador families normally eat. During the meal, David told us of his life & dreams (he's going to college in Greensboro, SC to become a Civil Engineer) & the history of the building (built by his grandfather for his grandmother (they both died this past year - he of just age related medical problems (he was 95) and she of Covid)). They introduced us to a couple of local fruits - something I've already lost the name of & a tree tomato. They made a fruit drink of them and then served the tree tomato as a desert at the end. It had been boiled in water spiced with sugar & cinnamon & was delicious!! After we finished eating, Vicki shared the opposite side of the Controversial topic about the Sexual workers. She, as a religious Mother & business owner does not like or approve of the "so called" legalization. She became quite upset while discussing it. Her son was also disapproving of the practice & hope that they will be relocated out of the touristy Colonial area.
So ended our first full day. It was drizzling, so rather than do anything else, we retired to our lovely suite & I wrote my travelogues while George watched a little TV! To bed rather early tonight - on tour at 8am tomorrow morning!
