The volcano Cayambe looming in the distance
The three of us booked a kind of party-type hostel for two nights, which had a rooftop balcony that overlooked the whole city. We dropped off our stuff and had a walk around the downtown area and the main square, snacking on some sort of white bean dish, topped with onions and tomatoes, chicharones, cheese and dried corn, really good stuff! This would be my 2nd time in Quito, the first time visiting my sister who studied abroad there over 10 years ago now! I didn’t remember the city all that well, but I did definitely remember the famous church, Basilica del Voto, where you can climb these somewhat intimidating iron ladders to access the churches towers, something that probably wouldn’t fly back home in the US. The guys I was with were a bit more weary of these than I was, so I got to rub it in their noses a bit for wussing out!
shoe polishers in the main square
no shortage of churches in Quito!
We made it back in time for happy hour at the hostel to watch the sunset over the hills. They do a community dinner, which was chicken burritos, not very Ecuadorian, but very tasty! It’s the type of place that also does half off shots for an hour and beer pong tournaments, that kinda stuff. We met some girls (Canadian, Swiss, and French) who would join us hiking the next day, six different nationalities represented!
The hike we would do was called Ruca Pinchincha, 4,700m high, but you get to cheat a bit by taking the cable car up to 4,000m. From there its another 2-3 hours to the top. You also get some great views over the city and we could see one volcano in the distance, Cayambe. The girls were happy to only hike halfway up, but us men were not stopping until the top! It gets a little difficult at the end when you have to do some scrambling, but all in all a very nice hike! There were about eight of us who summited all around the same time.
weird birds waiting at the summit
clouds lift for a few seconds!
Success! Although starting to get a bit chilly up there
After the hike we treated ourselves to dinner at Bandito brewing, to get some fancy beers and burgers, and then we called it an early night. The two guys would head to Mindo for a night a or two and meet me again in Banos, which is where I was headed.