Our Last Adventure

This weekend was absolutely incredible! We definitely played the roles of tourists!  We saw so many beautiful things that if I were to describe each of them, it would take an hour or more to read the blog.  Lucky for you, I have a few pictures instead :) 

Friday Dr. Cristian let us have the day off so we could explore the capital of Ecuador, Quito.  We started our weekend at the artisan market and finished up our souvenir shopping.  Unfortunately this left me with a lot of things to carry.  After seeing every single booth at the artisan market we walked a few blocks to the beautiful El Ejido park.  We walked around for awhile and then caught a cab to the hostal.  We enjoyed an absolutely beautiful view at dinner at Vista Hermosa.  We sat on the roof and had a view of the Virgin of Quito, the Basilica and several other beautiful churches and buildings of Quito.  Although I was freezing, it was definitely worth the incredible night sky.

The Basilica is the church with two clock towers in the center of Stella's picture, and the Virgin of Quito is the little bitty grey thing on the top of the mountain behind me below, also in the center of the picture.

Saturday we were major tourists and viewed the beautiful, incredibly large city of Quito via a double decker tour bus.  There were a total of 12 "stops", but there was not enough time to get off and actually visit each site like we wanted to, so we only chose a few.  The first stop was the Panecillo, the location of the Virgin of Quito.  The view from here was also spectacular.  We didn't think the view was going to get much better...until we went to our last stop.

 

 

 

The next destination for us was the Botanical Garden.  It was actually a little disappointing, until we got to the rose garden and the orchid greenhouses.  The roses were absolutely beautiful!  Just as spectacular, if not more spectacular, than the Arboretum in Lexington.  Did you know that roses in Ecuador grow straight up?

I think this one is in the Amazonian garden, but I'm not 100% sure.

The beautiful roses

Some of the funny shaped orchids.

One of the two Orchid Gardens

Pretty Orchids

A giant plant that is similar to Aloe

Extremely tall cacti

 

We stopped at the Basilica next and went up into the clock towers and across the top of the church (on the inside, above the rafters) to the steeple where we climbed some "extremely safe" stairs to the top of the steeple.  It was a little nerve racking to say the least, but it was beautiful!!  The inside of the church is full of vibrant stain glass windows of every color of the rainbow. 

The Basilica

Some of the stained glass windows

The view of the steeple from the clock tower

Inside the clock tower

The wooden plank we walked across to get to the steeple from the clock towers

View from the steeple looking back towards the clock towers.  The Virgin of Quito is in between the two towers on the mountain.

Some more beautiful stained glass

The next church we toured was actually a museum of the Cathedral.  It was also very beautiful with many elegant alters and beautiful artwork.  There was incredible artwork in every church we went in.  This church was unique in some of the things that were donated to the church from various places.  For example, they had bones of some of the Christian babies that were persecuted by the Romans as well as the body of an 8 year old that never decomposed because it was covered in a wax during the persecution.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this place because they were not allowed.

 

The final stop was a trip on the Teleferico, or cable car.  It went up to an elevation of 4000+ meters and gave us a view of what we estimate to be 80-90% of Quito.  It was breathtaking (because of the view and because it was really cold!).  After we took several pictures of the view, we had a cup of mocha coffee before returning back down Pichincha (the name of the volcanoes/mountains that we were on).  On the way up, there was still sunlight so we were able to get beautiful pictures of the mountains and city; on the way back down it was dusk so we took some great pictures of the nightlife of Quito.

Going up!

The backwards view.  The white building is where we got on the cable car.

The forwards view.  This isn't quite half-way up the mountain.

The view of just a portion of Quito.

Another view of Quito from the other side of the mountain.

Warming up with our mochas!!  Look at our view!

Cloud covered mountains...my favorite!

Going back down.

 

The nightlife.

 





After we ate supper in La Ronda, we stopped to watch a theatrical dance performance of many different tribes.  It was a very interesting production with a lot of colors, stomping and music.  Again, pictures were not allowed, so you will have to come see it for yourself, except for these few that were snapped before we knew any better ;)

 

Sunday we went to Mitad del Mundo a.k.a. The Middle of the World, or belly button of the Earth as my brother called it (it's an iny in case you were wondering).  There is a beautiful statue/museum at the center of the Earth that has a lot of information about the cultures that surround the area of 0,0.  After calling our family from the center we walked around the shops and enjoyed the scenery.  As you can imagine, tons of pictures were taken from all four sides of the center! 
 

Walking the equatorial line.

The top of the statue/museum.

The view from the top.

We've got the whole world in our hands!

The statue/museum

We also went back to Quito and toured the most spectacular church of all, especially on the inside, the Company of Jesus Christ.  The church was covered in Baroque architecture, gold, incredible paintings, and amazing detail.  This is a must see for anyone in Ecuador.  There are no pictures allowed once you pass the front table so these few don't do this incredible church justice.

Just inside the front doors.

Some of the beautiful atars.

More of the incredible church covered in gold.

Sorry for the white out faces, but this was a last second chance at a picture inside.

This was the only room we were allowed to take pictures in.  The bells behind us are not the originals of the church, but are still very old.  The originals were melted down and used in a war (I believe it was their independence war, but I am not sure).

I know this was incredibly long, but I hope you have enjoyed the pictures.  There are so many more stories and pictures that go with each location we visited, but there isn't a blog big enough to support the wonderful weekend we had full of unforgettable memories!