Ecuador - Quito

At 2850m, Quito is the world’s second highest capital city after La Paz, but we don’t seem to be as breathless here as we were in Cusco. Maybe we’re finally acclimatised.

Home for the next couple of days is a 2-bed, 2-story apartment at Apart Hotel Antinea (www.hotelantinea.com) which seems very reasonable at $63 per night. It’s not quite so cheap when we’re told that there’s 12% tax plus 15% service to be added to this basic price. Unfortunately, it’s not only the hotel that adds this but also the restaurants so that the price on the menu bears no resemblance to the actual price on the bill at the end of the meal.

Fortunately there’s a nearby square that reminds me of St Christopher’s Place surrounded by bars and restaurants and here we stumble across a tapas bar that has all you can eat and drink for $15. The tapas is good and keeps coming and the wine is the same.

Since September 2000, the currency of Ecuador is the US Dollar. This followed some serious devaluation of the sucre, Ecuadors former currency, in 1999/2000 when the effects of El Niňo and the sagging oil market sent the economy into a tailspin causing the currency to devalue from 7000 per US Dollar to about 25,000. Hence there’s an awful lot of people here who have never recovered from this body blow and are still struggling.

The old town here is another UNESCO World Heritage Site, but we can’t see why. Maybe we’re just getting blasé or maybe we’ve been spoilt, but there’s really nothing particularly charming about this place. Yes, it has a lovely central Plaza with the ubiquitous pretty church and some nice old colonial buildings, but it’s really nothing to write home about.

We take a taxi ride up Cerro Panecillo, the highest hill in the area with a huge statue of La Virgin de Quito atop. She’s chained for some reason but it’s not clear if these are the chains to the virginal chastity belt or not. A good view across town and, if the crowds gathered to one corner are anything to go by, also a good place to fly a kite. There’s a number of power lines nearby full of kites wrapped around them and, just as I’m wondering why anyone would fly a kite here when it’s so obviously going to get wrapped around the wires, the first one plops itself down and wraps itself over and over as a startled child looks on in bewilderment as if to say “how they hell did that happen?” As I’m giggling to myself at the stupidity, the second kite does the same thing and within a few seconds a third one follows suit. I wetting myself as I watch each kite flyer in turn look at their kite and then try frantically to release it, only making things worse. Maybe they should have engaged their brains before flying kites next to telegraph wires full of dead kites.

Ruby’s delighted to have found a book in our hotels’ book exchange that lists lots of games which came be played in the car. Closer inspection reveals the book to be 35 years old with a cover price of 20p. Where has it been lurking all these years?

We round off our time in Quito with £2.50 martinis in the Square. I’m liking this place