Foam

When I first came to Ecuador, I saw street vendors carrying a tray heaped with a load of what looked like ice cream - half white, half pink, with ice cream cones upside down on top, and more cones in a bag at their side. They are ubiquitous in Ecuador. Like other tourists I wondered how they could possibly stop it from melting, although I figured that it's not that hot here, and the pile on the tray was always so big that it wouldn't melt very fast.

Later I learnt that it was Espemilla (Spanish for foam), made from guava (or another fruit), egg whites and sugar. I have been wanting to try it, but wasn't going to buy it from a wandering street vendor. So today I found a shop that specialises in it, and had fruit salad, Espemilla and ice cream, with a genuine Ecuadorian hot chocolate. It was good. 

I went on the hop on, hop off tour bus and saw the business district, had a close encounter with the winged virgin, saw how the basilica really dominates the old town and saw the old town from a different perspective (from on top of a double decker bus). It did go down some streets in the old town that I hadn't visited. During the drive I developed a strong admiration for the way the driver managed to turn the very narrow corners from one one way street to another. There were many times that two people on the bus could stretch out their arms and touch the balconies on both sides of the street.

The Spaniards laid out Quito in a rectangular grid, and there are many places where this really doesn't work. The road to the Basilica is incredibly steep (the photo is from yesterday when I was climbing the hill, and lik most photos looking down, it really doesn't do justice to the slope), and there were several other streets where the bus stalled going up the hill because the street was so steep. There are a number of streets that suddenly change to steps. Going downhill from the basilica in a double decker bus is an interesting experience. 

Overall it was worth doing the trip, even though it took a while, and I had already seen most of the sights.

After the trip, I found a place to have a late lunch, and ordered onion soup. I did see some onion in it, but it was full of fish and shrimps and potato. The Espemilla was desert or afternoon tea.