Guest blog by Aunt Jane!

Quito, not quite

You know how it is when you visit a new place and you say to yourself, this place is rather like this one or that one?  I’m not so widely traveled that I have a hundred examples, but I’m pretty sure Quito is unique! My first morning here, I looked out Mara’s living room window onto a whole new world. Either beautiful or threatening depending on the weather, the dormant volcano, Pinchincha, looms large in the background with, before it, shiny modern high rises, freeways and MacDonald’s billboards, along with boxy, cement-gray, utilitarian apartment houses, laundry hanging on lines, tiny patios filled with exotic plants, vacant lots, and a bazillion yellow taxicabs. Cars are small, homes are small, streets are narrow. Quito houses more than two million people (and about half that many stray dogs) in a basin among mountain peaks that could comfortably manage maybe half that many.  It’s an intriguing, vibrant mix of fancy and plain, ancient and modern, rural and urban, indigenous persons, life long residents and ex-pats.

The amazing natural environment surrounding Quito notwithstanding, the city itself is not pretty, but has large areas preserved for public parks, designed with fitness, fun, and family activities in mind. The parks are well used, filled with families and groups, walking, picnicking, playing sports or participating in yoga or zumba classes. A striking feature of Quito is its family life, especially clearly demonstrated on weekends in the parks.

Quito is the oldest, highest continuously inhabited capitol city in the world. Old Town is a warren of Spanish Colonial buildings, most of them beautifully restored and maintained. Traffic is tight and scary in Old Town with many traffic police (traffic is all they’re good for, I’m told) trying to keep things moving. Walking is the way to go here, and walking is when the richness comes out. The Spanish Colonial buildings are homes, offices, and government buildings, including the governor’s palace, with ornate details and wonderful windows and doors. Walking among them, you encounter all kinds of street vendors, from young men hocking selfie sticks and burner cell phones to women of all ages in western dress or traditional indigenous attire, everywhere, selling fruit, vegetables, handicrafts, cooked meat on sticks (oh, no, no, no), bottles of water and scarves, everywhere scarves. I even saw a woman walking among the cars, offering toilet paper for sale.

Churches are everywhere, especially on the Street of the Seven Crosses, and each one has a plaza, either ‘grande’ or ‘pequeno’, some of which cover cemeteries from Colonial times, not of the Spanish, of course, but of the Indian people. The Spanish were buried inside the churches, as close to the main altar as they could afford to get. Every church seems to have its legend, and most of the interiors are incredibly ornate, gold-leafed, arched, high-ceilinged affairs. My local guide for one day, the lovely, fun and knowledgeable Lourdes, said, “That’s what they used to believe the Lord needed. We know better now.”

As you walk along in Old Town, you pass tiny stores without names or windows, jammed into what I can only characterize as storage units with garage doors. A few had more room and beautiful old wooden doors, but most were a tenth the size of the smallest New York bodega. My guide and I visited one specialty cheese store with a line out the door (there’s only room for one or two customers inside). I don’t know how she finds it among all the other nameless, identical stores around it.  Lourdes showed me other stores with just one purpose – to provide Baby Jesus dolls and cribs, glass display cases and costumes for the dolls. They are taken to church at Christmas time and otherwise proudly displayed at home. The costumes range from christening-like gowns to chefs’ hats, cowboy outfits and you name it. I kid you not.

Another specialty shop was all about spices, in their unprocessed form. (Stevia leaves taste sweet - I know, duh, but it’s the weirdest anyway.) Great big bags of spices unknown to me weighed out into little plastic bags and sold for an unbelievably low price.

Before I came here, an acquaintance had given me a veiled warning about the food – “no me gusta,” she said, but I have encountered only deliciousness, thanks to Mara, her friends, and Lourdes. Empanadas, llapingachos (isn’t that a great word?) and, oh my goodness, locro de papa (potato soup), plus a new favorite ice cream flavor, fig! Lots of options in the meat, beans, potato, and rice departments, so don’t even think about low carb eating here. You’ll walk it off anyway. Mara took me to the farmers market, the mother lode of amazing fruits and vegetables. Indescribable, but fabulous. Ecuadorian food, not a problem for me. Me gusta!

            Getting around here involves a lot of walking and a lot of taxi rides. There is a street car system and buses, but of limited scope and not especially useful, depending on where you are and where you want to go, of course. Driving would be truly frightening. (Lourdes drove us around. I had to keep complimenting her on how brave she was!) We have used cabs a lot, and they are very inexpensive. We paid about $3.50 for a ride that would have been $25 or $30 in Los Angeles. Tipping is mostly round up to the nearest dollar or ten percent in restaurants. The currency, weirdly, is American, the most popular item being dollar coins. All those dollar coins we hated in the States? They’re here! Twenty-dollar bills are a problem, being mostly too big, and forget about fifties unless you’re buying large! The price of food is shockingly low. Last night’s dinner, at a popular chain that specializes in Argentinian meat, cost about $6.00 per person and that included a delicious sandwich, fries and a beer each.

            Lourdes also took me to La Mariscal, a neighborhood pretty much designed for tourists, locally known as “gringolandia”. She helped me with my shopping at the artisanal market, bargaining my purchases from $18 down to $5, while charming the heck out of the vendors, scolding them for not teaching their children their native tongue (Quechua), and complimenting the quality of their products. She knew exactly where to go and how much to pay.  It was fun to watch! She told me, “I say to them, I am not gringo! No gringo prices for me!” It was a hoot.

            Mara is an excellent hostess and we’ve had such a good time! Her apartment is cute and convenient, though itty bitty like everywhere here. She keeps it well-organized, as is necessary in small spaces. She has adapted very well, and her Spanish is very, very good and getting better daily. A cab driver asked Mara where she was from and how long she had been here. He was surprised it was only since August. (My pitiful beginning level of Spanish has grown by leaps and bounds, to a level slightly less pitiful. I’d like to come back here for a longer stay and take a Spanish immersion course. Ecuador is known for its beautiful, crisp, clear Spanish. There are Spanish language schools all over Quito.)

Mara’s school is beautiful and her kids cute. They respect and obey her without being afraid of her – a fine line she walks perfectly. I attended her class’ science fair and was very impressed with the quality of their work and how much they could explain about the scientific method and what they had learned from their experiments. While I was in her classroom, there was an earthquake. It wasn’t a big scary one, but it was significant. Mara and her students were so engaged in preparation for the science fair that they didn’t even feel it! Now THAT’S a teacher!

            Tomorrow, we’re off at the crack of dawn for Peru and our Machu Picchu adventures! I will try to write again about that, with perhaps more success in describing uniqueness than I have had here - Quito, but not quite.  You’ll just have to come yourself. I know someone who would love it!