Touring Quito

We spent the day touring the city and while we were waiting for our bus tour, something special happened very quietly and with no fanfare- the feeding of the poor in the City Square:

While waiting, we saw three cars arrive and about a dozen kids come out along with containers full of a local drink (above) and round tins of hot food. Turns out that this is a group of kids from a local church who make the meals and go to 2 stops in the city every Saturday to feed the poor. They make 300 meals every weekend. This was done very low key and little fanfare.

 Our bus tour took us through the commercial, residential and colonial parts of Quito. There are a lot of old churches dating back to the 1700s and you could take a walking tour of 'the 7 crosses' representing the oldest churches with different crosses. Recently though, there was a statue erected on top of one of the mountains of Quito with some some controversy- the statue of the Madonna Mary. 

It was commissioned in 1976 by the religious order of the Oblates and is 45-metre-tall and made of seven thousand pieces of aluminium. The controversy stems from the fact that the site was originally (way back) a sacred site of the Incas and not Catholic at all. There is mixed feelings for this becoming a city hallmark.

The city itself stretches out about 60 km long but only 10 km wide which makes for some very interesting traffic congestion especially during the week. So, even though the roads around the city are good, getting into town and managing around is chaotic.

Next up- Galápagos Islands!