Travel Day 013 – Quito, ECUADOR
Seeing the Old Town and New Town of Quito on the ground yesterday was great, but today we decided to get a better overview from the summit of Cruz Loma, at the slopes of active Pichincha Volcano…
Atop Cruz Loma overlooking Quito, Ecuador
It appeared that Quito had just recently invested in a brand new tourist attraction and it was a multimillion dollar sky tram called Teleferico which was lifting people up to the summit of Cruz Loma at an elevation of about 4100 meters. From there, not only spectacular views over the city were promised, but it was apparently also possible to do a three-hour hike to the top of Rucu Pichincha which was one of the two volcano peaks. Since I only recently arrived in Quito and was still getting used to the altitude, the hike to the 4698 meter high volcano peak was not really my goal of the day, but rather the nice news of the city and the scenery… : )
With some new-found friends from the hostel, I took a taxi first to the bottom of the Teleferico and then enjoyed the airy ride up the mountain. Even if the views were already spectacular from Cruz Loma and we were quite short on breath, we still decided to walk up the mountain pass for a little bit. The climb was extremely exhausting, but the warm sun, the strong wind and the great views put us in such a state of happiness that at some point we didn’t even let feel the exhaustion any more and we simply enjoyed this beautiful day… : )
When we came back to town, we went to a local market for some nice lunch and walked around for a bit. For the rest of the day I had to get packed up and ready for my Travelling Spanish Classroom. I was equally as excited as I was nervous about the prospect of travelling for a week with my new Spanish teacher Paola through the local villages. Everything sounded great, but the prospect of having to speak Spanish all the time suggested that it might become quite an intense experience. At least I was hopeful that by the end of the week I would have a much better understanding of the language, the culture and how things work in Ecuador. This would hopefully enable me to travel more comfortable on my own through the rest of South America… : )
Loved Quito!! Lived there a few years and totally loved the people and sites. Now in the UAE. Dubai is nice too!
Hi George, yeah Quito was a great place to visit and especially the views over the city from Cruz Loma were quite amazing. I can’t speak much for Dubai since I only ever spent half a day there, but I imagine that it must be an interesting place as well, even if very different from Quito…