Quito

I started the day with what I’ll call an educational stroll through town. I say educational because I learned that traffic signals in Quito are more like polite suggestions or aspirations rather than tools to let drivers and pedestrians have a shared understanding of what will happen in a street at any given time.

But I made it to my Quito Walking Tour and was the only person who had signed up, so I spent 3 ½ hours leisurely strolling through old town Quito and speaking Spanish with my new friend Malena, a charming young woman from Quito who hopefully now thinks American senior citizens aren’t all as bad as she’d thought they were.

Quito is enormous, larger than Philadelphia and stretches in a narrow north-south line in a valley
between a volcano and some mountains so it seems larger than it is. In the cab ride here last night the lights seemed to go on forever.

The dominant religion is Catholicism of course because Spain conquered Ecuador and improved everyone’s lives here by stealing everything of value and imposing its religion on the natives. So, as in Spain, on top of one of the highest hills in Quito is a massive church. It is very beautiful, and the stained-glass windows and gargoyles reflect the flora and fauna of South America rather than scenes of war and torture, which I’ve seen more commonly in old churches (not that I know anything about old churches). But two things of note here. I took the picture above of Quito from the highest tower of that church, which meant starting at 9,000 feet above sea level and then climbing 12 floors up and then two more floors of ladders. You’re welcome.

Second, that one church has multiple huge clocks. None of the clocks agree on the time and all of them show the wrong time. This is either careless or profound.

I have so much more to share but I think I’m hitting everyone’s attention span limit so:

Sure, I could spend $20 for an intestinal cleaning, but isn’t it cheaper and easier to just drink some of
the tap water here? (bada boom)

So many interesting street foods, none of which I will ever get within 20 feet of. This guy has a tub of chilled egg whites. When he gets a customer, he shoots some of the egg whites into a cup through compressed air to make them foamy, then squirts them with cherry syrup. Cold treat on a hot day. 

I ate a couple of these this morning. They’re called granadillas; they combine an amazing
rich, sweet flavor with a disgustingly slimy consistency. Every bite is both highly satisfying and slightly repulsive at the same time. Like many things in life.