Day´s out from Quito
Nov 4th
Today I went for a walk today in Quito and was planning to look at all the old architecture and stuff but was overwhelmed by the huge volcano hanging above the city so I started to walk towards that instead. As I got higher in still in the suburbs of Quito I noticed this was where the cable-car that I had read about was. So I bought a ticket and went up. Quito is at an elevation of 2800 meter, which is high enough to feel the first day you arrive. The top of this cable car was 4100 meters and there were signs up the top telling you not to run or smoke or anything like this.
Nov 5th
Today I went on an orginised tour to Mindo. This is a town a bit lower than Quito in the cloud forest. The landscape on the way was amazing changing from city to semi-desert to forest in a matter of 2 hours drive all the time with amazing peaks and valleys. When we arrived we walked through the forest to a waterfall that we had to jump off, scary. We then went white water rafting in a river that hadn´t had too much rain so that wasn´t too scary.
On the way back we stopped at the equator where there is a fairly tacky but fun museum.
Nov 6th
Today I went to hot springs a Papallacta again about 2 hours from Quito but this time we went using the public bus. This was a bit higher than Quito and the landscape looked a bit like Donegal. We sat around in the hot water relaxing for most of the day. On the way back a load of buses wouldn´t stop because they were full, eventually one stopped for us but we had to stand for most of the journey, not as relaxing.
Culture shock.
One of things you notice walking through Quito is the number of armed security guards. Every bank has a guy in para-military style uniform with a machine gun and a bullet proof vest. Even all the ordinary shops in the center has a security guy who is armed, hmmm.
Today I went for a walk today in Quito and was planning to look at all the old architecture and stuff but was overwhelmed by the huge volcano hanging above the city so I started to walk towards that instead. As I got higher in still in the suburbs of Quito I noticed this was where the cable-car that I had read about was. So I bought a ticket and went up. Quito is at an elevation of 2800 meter, which is high enough to feel the first day you arrive. The top of this cable car was 4100 meters and there were signs up the top telling you not to run or smoke or anything like this.
Nov 5th
Today I went on an orginised tour to Mindo. This is a town a bit lower than Quito in the cloud forest. The landscape on the way was amazing changing from city to semi-desert to forest in a matter of 2 hours drive all the time with amazing peaks and valleys. When we arrived we walked through the forest to a waterfall that we had to jump off, scary. We then went white water rafting in a river that hadn´t had too much rain so that wasn´t too scary.
On the way back we stopped at the equator where there is a fairly tacky but fun museum.
Nov 6th
Today I went to hot springs a Papallacta again about 2 hours from Quito but this time we went using the public bus. This was a bit higher than Quito and the landscape looked a bit like Donegal. We sat around in the hot water relaxing for most of the day. On the way back a load of buses wouldn´t stop because they were full, eventually one stopped for us but we had to stand for most of the journey, not as relaxing.
Culture shock.
One of things you notice walking through Quito is the number of armed security guards. Every bank has a guy in para-military style uniform with a machine gun and a bullet proof vest. Even all the ordinary shops in the center has a security guy who is armed, hmmm.
posted by conor at 7:38 AM
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