This year for Thanksgiving we snagged cheap flights to Quito, Ecuador for the week and decided to knock off a few places on our bucket list including Quito, Baños and the Galapagos islands.
Flights from ATL to South America always seem to run pretty late in the evening so we planned to depart on a Friday afternoon and come back a week and a few days later on Sunday. Our Friday flight was scheduled for 6pm but once we got to the gate, they delayed us for 3 hours! Yikes!
Both feeling pretty bummed, we hung out in the Delta Sky Lounge until our new departure time came. We were supposed to land around 11pm and have a driver take us to our hotel, thankfully we were able to confirm that we would still have a ride when we landed.
Our flight was non eventful otherwise and we landed a bit after 3am with a 45 minute drive to our hotel, La Casona de La Ronda in Historic Quito. Our driver was wonderful and brought her sister along for the ride, they gave us some advice and were pleasant to chat with. I nodded off for a majority of the drive but felt ok about it as it was dark out and we couldn't see much.
We checked into our hotel and took a quick cat nap before our Tours By Locals guide was set to pick us up at 7am!
The next day we wanted to explore Quito a bit so we left our hotel for some coffee and walking through the streets.
The city of Quito is very walkable aside from the elevation and steep hills. We walked around a bit until a downpour hit us and we decided it was time to head to our next hotel. We were staying in the Historic area of Quito which I very much preferred to the high rises and sky scrapers downtown.
Our next stop was about an hour or so north to a hotel in a Crater, very originally named El Crater. Getting an Uber in Quito was a trip, the city is so large it was hard for the map to locate our position and when we finally got to our driver, he asked us for directions to get to our hotel, in Spanish. hehe woops- we were very much put to the test!
When we arrived at the crater we were basically in a cloud. I was amazed at how deserted the area was as we felt like the only guests. A man working there with little english and us with little Spanish helped check us in and make reservations for dinner in their restaurant for that evening. We then decided to do a bit of exploring before dinner. We found a few paths to hike through and met some local dogs and a couple llamas as well!
Our room was absolutely beautiful and had views on each side with huge windows overlooking the small town on one side and the crater on the other. We relaxed a bit as the sunset and got ready for dinner.
We had a great dinner and the service was wonderful. We headed back to our room at decent hour since we had an early flight the next morning. When we got back to our room, we were notified our flight had been delayed so we spent some time watching Harry Potter and repacking up our belongings for the next leg of our trip.
The next day we had breakfast, which I really struggled through, as I woke up feeling very unwell. Unfortunately we would be flying to the Galapagos Islands and I felt more than jet-lagged or tired, but nauseous and achey. I took a bath and tried my best to put on a brave face for our day of travel.
We'd called a cab to take us to the airport but not without one quick stop first! To the equator of course!
Ciudad Mitad del Mundo was very close to our hotel so we asked our taxi driver if she would stop and wait for us to check it out. It was about $5 a person and probably a total tourist trap but it was cool to see the latitude line and the egg balancing on a nail. We quickly took some silly pics and then booked it back to our taxi to get to the airport in time for our flight.
Once we made it to the airport I was feeling pretty awful and really struggled to keep it together. At this point I was getting sick in pretty much every bathroom we walked by. I consider myself fortunate that this was really my first time getting some kind of contaminated water on any of our trips but I was still pretty miserable.
We'd decided a couple days prior to bid on first class seats and got them and I couldn't have been more thankful to get a bigger and comfier seat for the 2.5 hour flight to the Galapagos. I mainly slept on the flight and drank sprite and managed to feel a little better by the time we landed.
We flew Avianca airlines direct and roundtrip to Baltras Island. We spent 5 days in the Galapagos and it was amazing! You can read more about that HERE!
After returning from the Galapagos, we'd booked a different hotel in Quito so we could see another area of the city. We stayed at Casa Gardenia which was a remodeled home in Old Town and provided a good location and beautiful views of the city at night. We hadn't made too many plans other than wanting to explore the city a bit more and to take the telefecio cable car to see the incredible views of Quito we'd heard about. Our first stop was the locals markets so we could buy some gifts for our niece and nephew.
We found some cute ponchos and brought home some alpaca blankets for our house and had worked up an appetite wandering around all of the shops so we decided to check out Hasta La Vuelta Señor for lunch. We were addicted to soups and Canelazo at this point and this menu offered both! It was inside this shopping center with a museum feel all the way at the back and on the 3rd floor.
We ate and sunset was quickly approaching, so we decided to head to this beautiful church that Brandon wanted to tour. The Basílica del Voto Nacional is a Roman Catholic church located in the historic center of Quito and is the largest neo-Gothic basilica in the Americas. You can tour the church on the ground where mass is held but you can also pay a few dollars to take the staircase or elevator to the top and then climb a ladder to over look the city at the top where the clock faces are.
We of course had to go to the very top and did so at the end of the close so we saw some beautiful views right before the sun started to set. Bring a jacket if your follow suit as the winds do pick up in the evenings and at this height.
After a day of travel and exploring we were so tired so we called it an early night, with plans to see as much as we could the next day before our flight home.
The next morning, we woke up and grabbed some coffee and breakfast at our hotel. The man at the front desk had been so welcoming and given us so many recommendations and things to do, we were ready to head to the cable car and check out the Teleferiqo. The forecast called for rain so we decided we'd go earlier in the day to beat the afternoon storms.
We took a taxi to the bottom of the cable car entrance and while it was only about 10-12 minutes from our hotel, it was a decent hike from everything else. There is a booth when you enter to buy tickets for the cable car, right next to it are some restrooms, use those before you go up as they do charge you once you're at the top to use the facilities... and the line is long!
We got our tickets and waited in a relatively short line to go up. We were in line behind a family with a dog so pups are welcome if you happen to have yours! :)
Once we arrived at the top we were glad the man from our hotel had told us to bring a jacket as it was very windy and the fog had rolled. The elevation is also significant up here so wear sunscreen and expect to not have much breath when walking.
The views were not great for us when we were up there. At least not great enough for any photos to turn out. Thankfully there were some swings and other beautiful scenery to enjoy... including some alpacas!! Don't worry, we took festive pics!
You could probably spend a majority of your day up here if you packed properly and had good weather. There are hiking trails, people horseback ride and there are facilities and snacks like ice cream and coffees at the top so its definitely something that would be fun to check out pending weather!
The cable car ride down is about 15-20 minutes and upon arrival back to lower elevation, the temps are much warmer and manageable.
We stopped into a little café for some coffee to get some energy as our flight was 11pm local time and we weren't quite ready for dinner. While we were in the café, an organized protest came by with crowds of folks of all ages with signs, a chant and local police in tow. We asked the locals in the café about it and they said it was mainly due to road conditions but that they usually don't last long and are very cooperative on both sides and to not worry.
Sure enough, by the time we finished our coffees the crowd had dismantled and we walked a few blocks to a local concert being played with families outside dancing in the roads. Quito was definitely a very interesting and large city!
We packed all of our bags and had our things ready so we could eat dinner and return to the hotel to get our belongings and catch a taxi to the airport.
We ate at La Purisima again as we had decided this was our favorite restaurant in Quito. It'd been recommended to us a few times at this point and both times we ate here it was wonderful!
We had some more soup and slowly made our way out of the city to head back to our 5ish hour flight home.
Things I wish I'd known ahead of time:
Don't eat salad - seriously this is probably what made me sick :(
It is not THAT cold- I packed a ton for the elevation but would have been fine with one good puffer and anorak/rain coat
The air is dirty!! - seriously! The city is very dense and the gasoline fumes are out of control. I had a sore throat after just a day
Try not to carry a purse... this is the fist place I really had several men bump into me hard and I felt like it was mainly for pick pocketing
It's ok to negotiate... I am bad about this but Brandon negotiates everything and I think its pretty common here so they almost expect it with higher prices for taxis or goods that often quickly are half when you ask for it
Eat soup! It is SO good! Not what I had heard about or thought of with Ecuadorian food but they have over 600, or something crazy, kinds of soup!
Wear sunscreen even on the cloudy days!
Spend more time in the country than the city! The Ecuadorian countryside is hard to beat and you'll need the fresh air away from the city!