Old Quito

I didn't do much today, as I was tired from the Galapagos, moved hotels and seemed to spend much of the day going to places that were permanently shut. It also rained a lot today.

Quito is a long thin city set amongst mountains with a volcano above it. The new airport is about an hour from the centre of the city, separated from everywhere else by a fault which is quite deep, and on the edge of a very steep mountain. This meant it took them five years to build the road, but only three to build the airport.

The old city is a UNESCO World Heritage site, which dates back to the conquistadors, full of narrow streets, colonial houses, and magnificent churches. There are quite a lot of plazas, with major buildings grouped around them. The church of San Francisco is built on the Inca ruins, but this was only discovered a short time ago when they were fixing up the plaza. The last Inca burnt the city to the ground when he realised they were losing. Our guide Henry joked about streets being named "una via" and this could be the most common street sign in old Quito. It's certainly very common throughout Ecuador.

My hotel for the rest of the time is in the old city, and is one of the old colonial buildings, just like the buildings in the streets around it. It has a central covered courtyard and very high ceilings. The breakfast room is on the fourth floor and has a magnificent view of the statue of the virgin (I must check, it is probably the "winged" Virgin Mary) on the top of the hill that is visible from much of the old city.