Quito and Pululahua

We left Baños last Sunday morning. Before we could leave though, we had to go back to Arome Cafe y Chocolate for breakfast. We had crepes and pancakes with chocolate syrup and strawberries, chocolate fondue with strawberries, and I had a hot chocolate made from Amazonian cocao. We bought some bars of chocolate, baking cocoa and coffee to bring back home and they also have a spice shop in town where they have everything I could ever want. The restaurant is run by a husband and wife, with their two year old daughter laughing on the counter playing peek a boo with customers.

from the terrace of our hostel

The bus to Quito only took 3 1-2 hours or so and when we got to the Quitumbe terminal we took the city bus 17 stops to a hostel that we reserved in the Old Town part of Quito. A German girl ended up staying in the same dorm as us so I took her and Dave around to show them the parts of Quito that I remembered from last year--the Basilica, the presidential palace and the million churches around the plaza.

On Tuesday Dave and I decided to head to Mitad del Mundo and the Pululahua crater for the day while our friend decided to stay back and book a trip to the Galapagos. The Mitad del Mundo is a little park like thing with the Equatorial monument set where the equatorial line is supposed to be (after GPS, it was discovered that the monument is about 200 meters off), some restaurants and artisan crafts, llamas and little museums.

After taking the routine picture at the monument, we took a bus to Pululahua, an active volcano that contains an agricultural town within the crater. Because of the altitude and the mountains, visibility becomes impossible by about 3pm but we were able to get a decent view around 2pm from the lookout point we hiked to when the clouds passed for a few moments. Because of the constant presence of clouds, our guide told us that the entire town gets water from the clouds and the soil is perfect, making irrigation unnecessary.

from the top of Teleferiqo

On Wednesday we took a taxi to the Teleferiqo--a cable car that climbs up the top of the Pichincha volcano that towers over the city. At the top there are a couple of restaurants, more used to be there when the cable car first opened up but now there are small empty buildings at the top. There are paths to explore more of the volcano but we didn´t spend too much time up there because it was freezing. When we got back into town, we went to La Compañia--a beautiful church that is all gold on the inside--but we were not allowed to take any pictures. After that we got lunch, bought new shoes and met up with Dave´s friend Javier who is originally from Quito.