• Tag Archives quito
  • Quito

  • Pichincha Volcano

    The mountain goes up to 4696 meters.

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    But we were feeling sick and only made it a bit past 4050m.

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    And Quito is already at 2850m.

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    And we took the gondola to 3,945m.

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    So we really only climbed a bit over 100m.

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    There is a church at the top, because this is Ecuador.

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    And a kid spraying Mardi Gras foam.

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    There seemed to be practically vertical farms on the other mountains.

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    Matt gave Kerri a flower for Valentine’s Day, because he’s super romantic.

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    This is a Carunculated caracara.

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    Which sounds even funnier than chicken-hawk, which is what we were calling it.

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    It is closer to a hawk than a chicken. It is a falcon. Which is why it flew away when Kerri chased it with the camera.

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    This is a millipede.

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    Look at all of those legs.

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  • On Top of Basilica de Vota National

    We climbed to the top of the Basilica to see Quito from above.

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    The stairs were built for short people and a bit maddening.

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    This is the space between the curved ceiling inside the church and the pointed roof.

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    At the end of that we still had to go further up.

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    And then further up on the outside.

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    This is the inside of the clocks in the tower.

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    The view at the top was spectacular.

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    That is the hill with the statue of the Virgin Mary on top.

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    They have police stationed at the bottom of the hill warning tourists not to climb it to see the statue because they will get robbed.

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    We decided to admire it from afar.

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    Which  with Zoom meant we could still get a pretty good look.

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  • Inside the Basilica de Vota National

    The Basilica was big on the inside too.

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    Very big.

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    It wasn’t crooked, we were just too lazy to take a straight picture.

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    It had holes for artistic reasons.

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    The stained glass had been damaged in some places. The replacement glass did not blend in.

     

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    Even where the damage was smaller it was like they didn’t even try to fix it properly.

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    Even the ones that weren’t damaged at all had kind of weird patterns.

     

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    This is the big flower at the front.

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    There were little flowers in the big flower.

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    It was huge.

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  • Carondelet Palace

    This is the balcony of the Palace in Ecuador.

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    This is Kerri being guarded.

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    This is a pretty fountain in the courtyard.

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    This mural is of the Spanish expedition into the Amazon rainforest.

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    3000 native people died in this expedition.

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    The rooms in the palace are very fancy.

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    This is the dining room.

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    The dishes look expensive and ugly. And probably not dishwasher safe.

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    We were not allowed in that room.

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    This is the little chapel in the palace.

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    This is mask for the Diablada celebration.

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    This is another big fancy room.

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    The flag has silver and gold thread in it.

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    So does this presidential sash.

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