Quito

After our long flight to Quito I was excited when we were instructed to prepare for landing. I was watching the small screen in front of me that displayed our route from Atlanta to Ecuador including information like flight speed and altitude. I had just noted that our altitude was 10,000 feet when suddenly the wheels hit the tarmac. We had landed at the capital city of Ecuador which is high in the Andes mountains. The altitude left us a bit breathless and tired for the two days we there – or maybe we were just breathless at the fact that we were actually in Ecuador.
Quito is divided into two sections, New Town and Old Town. New Town is a big modern city with tall buildings and traffic. Old Town was built by the Spanish in the sixteenth century. It is full of beautiful old churches, narrow, crowded streets, tourists and little boys everywhere trying to shine our shoes for only one dollar. Little girls were trying to sell us chewing gum and the women were selling beautiful scarves made from alpaca. I really could not understand what they said since I do not speak Spanish and they spoke no English, but their meaning was clear. If I ever move to another country I will learn the language. It is very frustrating not to understand what is being said.


On a high hill overlooking the city is a enormous statue of the Virgin protecting the city. She is fairly new, built is 1978, and quite spectacular to see. You can see her in this picture taken from one of the many plazas in Old Town. The yellow building is one of the many monasteries in town.





In this picture you can see the crowded, streets of Old Town. It is hard to capture the feel of the peddlers and beggars that lined every street.





We were at the presidential palace at the changing of the guard. It was a nice ceremony, but only two guards were involved so it was a very short ceremony. The guards appeared very young, just boys.





Looking out our hotel window we could see past some of buildings of New Town to the Basilica. The building is lit up at night and was a beautiful sight.





Tomorrow I will start a series of posts abut the Galapagos and the fantastic things we saw there.


Jean's condition remains unchanged. She is still in a coma. She is breathing mostly on her own but is only responsive to painful stimuli. The doctors are not very encouraging. The fear is that she may not wake up and just remain comatose. Bill just cries. It is hard.