I would have to leave later today in order to get to Riobamba, the jumping-off point for a remarkable train trip that departs that city just three times a week. That left only a portion of the day to squeeze in a few last sights in Quito, Ecuador. The day began bright and full of promise and so, after a last breakfast at Villa Nancy, I left the hostal early, caught the Ecovia bus just outside its gate on Av. 6 de Diciembre, and was in the Old City before 8 a.m.
I have mentioned that the Old City is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so designated because of its cultural (architectural) values dating from the 16th century and its Spanish colonial influence. The UNESCO website's ( whc.unesco.org ) description states that Quito "...has the best-preserved, least altered historic centre in Latin America. The monasteries of San Francisco and Santo Domingo, and the Church and Jesuit College of La Compañía, with their rich interiors, are pure examples of the 'Baroque school of Quito', which is a fusion of Spanish, Italian, Moorish, Flemish and indigenous art."
The Old City streets are cobblestoned for the most part, as are many of the sidewalks, contributing to the site's charm. It was the churches that seemed most remarkable to me, grand in both scale and beauty, and it was on them that I focused what little time I had this morning.
Street scenes, Quito's Old City
My route took me first to the Iglesia de San Agustin (Calle Chile y Guayaquil). This imposing, bright white church, begun in 1580 and completed in 1627, had the advantages of being both open to the public and allowing (non-flash) photography inside. A sparsely-attended mass was being conducted. I entered the church discreetly, admired its ornate main altar as well as some of the side ones, and tried to take some photographs as surreptitiously as possible before continuing on my walk.
Iglesia de San Agustin
It was only a block to the Plaza de la Independencia ( GPS: 00 13.219S / 78 30.721W ), an attractive landscaped park with many benches surrounding the tower and statue that dominate it. Also known as Plaza Grande, it seemed an inviting oasis this morning. Later in the morning, on my walk back, it would present quite a different scene, but now I could admire La Catedral, the 16th century cathedral that faced the plaza.
Plaza de la Independencia and (background) La Catedral
La Catedral (Calle Espejo between G. Moreno and Venezuela) was built between 1545 and 1572. Large and brilliant white like Iglesia de San Agustin just two block away, the cathedral was not open and so I could only admire its exterior.
Walking a block further south, I came to the Jesuit (Society of Jesus) Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus (Calle G. Moreno y Sucre) that was built between 1605 and 1765. Outside, I absorbed the church's architectural features which included an entryway with unique twisted columns and ornate carved facade. Later, on my return, I entered the church and was overwhelmed by the 23-carat gold lamina that covered virtually every square inch of the sizeable interior. Less ostentatious, yet no less memorable, was the inlaid wood floor and the narrow spiral staircase leading from the back of the church to the small choir loft. My notes summed up La Compania in one word: "Resplendent."
Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus
My destination was the Convento y Museo de San Francisco (Calle Cuenca 477). If the other churches of the Old City were notable for one reason or another, the Convento de San Francisco, begun in 1553, could be notable simply due to its monumental scale. It seemed to be a city block in length. Facing Plaza de San Francisco, the complex of buildings that make up Convento de San Francisco is enhanced by its setting across the vast open plaza.
Plaza and Iglesia de San Francisco
It was late enough at the time I was there, about 9 a.m., that I could enter the site and join a guided tour. What an interesting experience that turned out to be. I soon found myself being led, alone, through the museum portion of San Francisco. My guia, Paulina, spoke only Spanish, and so my tour of the great Franciscan art collection became a Spanish tutorial that required my undivided attention.
At the conclusion of the museum tour, Paulina asked if I'd like to see the church, and of course I did. There were extensive renovations being undertaken. We entered the large choir with its perimeter of carved wooden seats and, above them, carved depictions of notable members of the Franciscan order, many of them martyrs. Dual silver-piped organs were installed at the front of the choir. I could easily envision the loft filled with brown-robed friars raising their voices in praise of their Lord. My guide could not take me downstairs and into the main portion of the church, but we could view it--and the renovations that were in progress--from the front of the choir.
Paulina left me in the cloister. With more time I might have remained there longer, enjoying the landscaped and architectural beauty as well as the cloister's peaceful isolation.
Cloister (left) and second level walkway, Convento de San Francisco
I began to retrace my steps back to a mass transit stop. My route took me back past the Plaza de la Independencia. The Palacio de Gobierno is situated on Calle G. Moreno directly across from the plaza, making the park a favored spot for political or labor demonstrations. I encountered armed national police lining the street, separating demonstrators in the park from the government building across the street. The demonstrators' grievances seemed to be with mining pay or practices. Banners and flags were carried by people dressed in ordinary urban clothes; large numbers of indigenous people dressed in colorful native garb moved in a sort of dance line to the sound of music and drums. I never saw any physical conflict nor anything that seemed like it might lead to any such escalation. I stopped, watched, listened, took photos, then continued on my way out of the Old City.
Demonstration, Plaza de la Independencia, Quito, Ecuador
The day was fine, the best since I landed in Quito three days ago. One of the things that you must do when in Quito is to ride the Teleferiqo (www.teleferiqo.com) high above the city. I had waited through several cloudy days, and today I was rewarded.
The Teleferiqo ascends one of the hills, Pichincha, that border Quito to its west. Passengers ride in modern gondolas that afford great views of the city and the mountains that nearly encircle it. The ride, 15 minutes in length, is almost silent as you climb to an elevation of just under 13,000 feet, about 4,000 feet above Quito. The ride costs $4 round-trip; it's $7 if you choose to take the express line and avoid the queue, which may be well worthwhile on weekends or holidays. On this day, though, I was loaded onto a gondola as quickly as I could walk from the ticket window to the boarding area.
Teleferiqo and city below
Teleferiqo involves a great deal more than simply some towers, cable and gondolas. There are modern glass-and-steel structures at both the bottom and top of the ride, the former serving as a location for ticket sales and queueing, the latter selling refreshments and providing seating and telescopes oriented to the east. There are a few shops and eateries at the top near the gondola exit, and many at the bottom downhill from the gondola entrance. In fact, there is a sizeable amusement park among the complex of businesses at the bottom of Teleferiqo.
There was a wide path, perhaps a quarter-mile in length, that rose a couple of hundred feet in elevation from the gondola exit to the viewpoint in the distance. It was slow going for me at this altitude, but of course I had to go out to the end of the trail and the destination called Cruz Loma (GPS: 00 10.947S / 78 32.302W; elev. 13,191 feet). The city of Quito was laid out before me, pinched into a wide valley and stretched far to my left and right. It was difficult to believe that Quito placed a distant second in population to Ecuador's largest city, Guayaquil, having nearly one million fewer inhabitants (1.4 million and 2.3 million, respectively, according to my guidebook).
Trail to Cruz Loma
I had done as much as I could do since arriving in Quito on Saturday afternoon. Time-wise, I could see that I was pushing both my luck and my check-out time, and so I returned to the Teleferiqo gondolas and headed back down the mountainside. I found a ride back to the neighborhood of my hostal--Villa Nancy--for just $1. (The taxi from Av. Colon to Teleferiqo had cost $5.) You can arrange to ride these mini-vans (called kombis) in both directions to/from the hotel district that is generally within a one-mile radius of Avs. Colon and Amazonas; look for the white kombis emblazoned with 'Completo Turistica.'
I was let out near my lodging, collected my bag, hailed a taxi, and soon I was on my way to Quito's inter-city bus terminal to board an autobus to Riobamba. I had made one final mistake: I did not determine the cost of the ride prior to getting in the taxi. Instead, I agreed to the use of a meter to determine the fare. It didn't take long before I knew that I had made a mistake. The meter turned faster than a progressive slot machine. When it reached more than $8 and we were nowhere near our destination, I told the driver that I didn't believe the fare was correct. The tension inside the taxi was not alleviated when I made it obvious that I was entering the driver's permit number in my notebook. He became rather animated, telling me how construction and traffic delays were the cause of the escalating fare. He took to glaring at me in his rearview mirror, a look I would have found more menacing had I not been in a licensed taxi. It seemed to me that the rate the meter was turning had slowed down significantly. That may have been accurate or not, and there could have been other factors affecting the meter for all I know. Anyway, the meter read $10.13 at the end of the ride from Villa Nancy to Terminal Terreste, probably double what it would have cost had I negotiated a flat rate prior to getting in the taxi. Lesson learned.
Terminal Terrestre is considered one of the least safe places in a city seemingly full of unsafe places...that's the advice in guidebooks and from other travelers. It's chaotic for sure. I estimate that there were 200 buses at the station when I arrived there this afternoon. The number of different bus lines with their own offices inside the terminal had to be around fifty.
The travelers' task is to find a company they are comfortable with and which serves their destination. Angel, a helpful employee at Villa Nancy, recommended a company called Chimborrazo. I found their office without much trouble, purchased a ticket for $3.60, and was quickly loaded onto a bus to Riobamba which lay 99 miles south of Quito. We were scheduled to leave Terminal Terrestre at 2:40 p.m.: that didn't mean 2:39, and it didn't mean 2:41. The bus crawled out of the terminal precisely on time, picking up as many additional passengers in the first mile as we had loaded at the terminal itself.
Aggressive vendors took their turns at the front of the bus, each touting the virtues of their product--drinks, snacks, lottery tickets, Mother's Day cards, cologne. I played dumb--not a stretch, really--and for the most part I was not hassled when the vendors walked down the aisle following their spiels. I didn't know how far the vendors would ride on the bus, or if they would have to pay for the privilege of boarding and selling, and I still don't know. I do know that such mobile sales pitches were standard on all my bus trips of any length in Ecuador.
We climbed out of Quito and were soon in verdant agricultural land, in a valley with impressive volcanoes on both sides that reached 15,000-to-18,000 feet in elevation. Their bases were visible, but not, for the most part, their cones. And so I never got to see the enirety of the perfectly shaped Cotopaxi. This was sort of the Mount Rainier effect: you know that it's there and you know that it's beautiful, but you could spend days, or even weeks, and never get a full view of the peak.
Tall trees, including pines, became more prevalent as we progressed south on Highway 35. Dairy cattle, mostly Holsteins, were plentiful. At 4:30 p.m. we passed the town of Latacunga and vendors selling watermelons (sandias) from roadside stands.
The cloud cover dissipated with time and distance. When we reached Ambuato at 5:20 the sky was almost clear of clouds. Volcanoes became prominent and could be seen in their entirety. A small one to our left (east) seemed to be belching smoke.
A small volcano belching smoke
Also on our left were the serrated teeth of snow-capped extinct volcanoes in Sanjay National Park, at once both forbidding and inviting. One peak, El Altar, is considered to be perhaps the most technically demanding climb in Ecuador. As the sun continued to set, the peaks took on the pronounced aspect of alpenglow.
The highway was now mostly in shadow. We had caught glimpses of the inactive volcano Chimborazo in the distance almost since leaving Quito. Now, three hours into the trip to Riobamba, the peak--at approximately 20,500 feet it is the highest in Ecuador--seemed quite close and reminded me of Mount Rainier in appearance. My attempts to photograph its grandeur, and the grandeur of El Altar earlier, through the bus windows were largely unsuccessful.
Out the bus window, above a ridge line, Chimborazo!
I retrieved my bag at the bus terminal in Riobamba and caught a taxi to El Tren Dorado (Carabobo 22-35 y 10 de Agosto). Arrangements for my lodging there had been made by Angel at Villa Nancy in Quito. El Tren Dorado was located less than 100 yards from the train station, and the train was why I was in Riobamba (GPS: 01 40.031S / 78 38.079W).
Merde! I was told while checking-in that (1) the train only went as far as Palmira because of slides on its most scenic section called La Nariz del Diabllo, and (2) tickets were sold out for tomorrow's ride in any case. A shifty looking man in the background apprised the situation and, through the desk manager, told me to show up at the station 10 minutes prior to departure and he might be able to provide me with a ticket. That was my only hope, and that was for a truncated journey.
Oh, well, if you were me you could always find some solace in food. I found mine near my lodging at a nice restaurant called Sierra Nevada (Primera Constituyente y Rocafuerte). For $4.50 I ordered the Camarones en coco: "shrimp breaded in shredded coconut, acccompanied by a house special tropical sauce served with steamed potatoes with fresh herbs or french fries and fresh steamed vegetables." This, along with a cold beer, did a lot to sooth my disappointment, and a dessert of homemade flan with carmel sauce didn't hurt any, either.
Remember, it was a Tuesday night, and it was around 9 p.m. when I left Sierra Nevada to return to my lodging. It seemed incongruous then, and even more so now as I write this, but I could hear a band playing in the distance. I could see it a couple of blocks away, down the quiet side street, coming towards me. It was a marching band, heavy on the drums, numbering around 40 in all.
The members were all men, some with instruments, some simply marching ahead of the musicians. At first I decided to just go on back to my hotel, but this was too surreal. I leaned against a building on a corner, watched and listened while the marching band went past, wondering if there was any particular reason they were performing. No other group preceded or followed them. There were few onlookers beyond other curious folks like myself. I decided that the band members were simply playing for their own enjoyment. And mine.
After the band passed by, I caught up on the Internet before returning to my rather spare room and falling into bed after another long, interesting day.
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October, 2007