I wake up today and am feeling normal, I’m back!!! We have
figured out that I probably had altitude sickness as I had all the symptoms and
the illness didn’t last for too long.
Thankfully we will not be at altitude for too much longer! We decide to
book flights this morning for Bogota, Colombia tomorrow. We reckon we will finish everything we want
to see in Quito by tonight. We book
flights for about 4pm the next day, which should get us to Bogota in time to
get settled into a hostel and have some dinner and prepare for the next
day. The reason we are flying is
basically for safety issues, convenience and to save a few days! We have been
recommended not to travel at night in Southern Colombia as armed groups are on
the highways and sometimes rob the bus.
Security however has increased a lot in Colombia so it probably isn’t an
issue but we don’t want to take the risk.
Also with no night travel, the trip from Quito to Bogota will take a
total of 3 days on the bus. It is a much
better option to take the hour and a half flight. Also we have heard horror stories about the
Ecuadorian and Colombian border. When
everything is all sorted we start the day by getting a taxi to the Teleferico,
which is a cable car that takes you to the top of a mountain. In Quito we are at about 2,850 metres above
sea level, at the top of the Teleferico the mountain is about 4,100 metres
above sea level. The cable car takes
about 15 minutes to get to the top of the hill, the views are amazing as we
climb, but not as good as the Basilica as we are further away from the
city. Also the cloud is interrupting our
view. When we get out of the cable car
it is freezing! It is incredible what altitude can do to the temperature! We spend a bit of time up here exploring what
there is to see and taking in the views, but other than the views there is not
too much to see, so we decide to head down, and it was freezing! After this we head into Old Town once again,
the majority of the cities attractions are here so it is a great place to base
ourselves. We then have a look around the old Archbishops palace which is located
off the main plaza and has now been converted into a shopping and eating
area. When we have looked around we have
lunch here, a set menu for US$4 each.
Here we get soup for an entree, a main of very tasty chicken and pasta,
and ice cream for dessert. We also got a
fantastic drink which was basically blended watermelon, it was very tasty.
After lunch we made our way to the Cathedral which is on the
opposite side of the Plaza to the Archbishops Palace. This Cathedral has heaps of tombs inside it,
including that of Mariscal Sucre, the name of our suburb we are staying in
(also known as New Town). After the
Cathedral we make our way to the city museum, which was previously the city
hospital. Here it showed the history of
the city and also the history of the old hospital. There was also an art display where Ann got a
picture holding a sign saying “Hello NZ, from Quito”. After this we had finished everything we
wanted to do in Quito, and it was 4.30pm so just about perfect timing! We made
our way back to New Town and went to the supermarket to pick up some dinner,
breakfast and snacks for tomorrow. We
got back to the hostel, cooked dinner and parked up in front of the tv again
for the night.
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