After visting the Old Town we had a few other adventures in Quito during our week long stay. One of the main attractions for the boys was Parque la Carolina in the financial district and very close to our AirBnB. The boys loved playing football there almost every day of our stay. We bought a football and for the amount of entertainment it provided, the modest cost of the ball was well worth it.
On the Sunday of our stay in Quito we stumbled across a football match that afternoon. Some quick online research told us it was a professional match between the team in fourth place in the league from Guayaquil and the team in second place from Quito. What luck! What excitement! A real live professional football match in South America! Would we be able to get tickets? Ha! Oh how naive we were. Entrance was only $6 each, $3 for kids and we walked straight in. The stadium was in terrible state and less than a quarter full. At least 90% of the fans were inexplicably cheering for the away team and there wasn’t much of an atmosphere.
The standard of play on the field was…erm…not good? Maybe even really bad? Three of us left at half time. We found out later from our new found Ecuadorian friend that we were at the old stadium, home of one of the least popular teams from Quito, while the team from Guayaquil has historically been the most successful team in Ecuador. Finally, he eagerly agreed that, yes, Ecuadorian football is ‘muy malo’. His words.
More successfully, we spent a day in Quito going up the Teleferico. The Teleferico is a cable car up the side of the volcano that looms over Quito. It was a short taxi ride from our place and then a small fee for a 15 minute or so ride up to the top.
At the top, there are some hikes (we did a short one – still acclimatizing to the altitude!) and great views.
We had fun in Quito and there is something to the city but overall it was not the favorite place we’ve ever visited.
It is a very big city of about 2.7 million people all squeezed into a valley between numerous volcanoes, making it a very long and narrow and densely populated.
The streets always seem to be busy with multiple lanes of cars weaving in and out and all honking at each other. We found it to be safer than we’d read about and the people nice enough albeit with that obligatory gruff impatience that seems to come from living in a big city. I suppose we’re just not big city folk…in defense of the city, this was our first stop and we were jet lagged and not used to the altitude.
No worries though, our adventures in Ecuador were just beginning, and we have a few fun day trips from Quito to share with you, along with more adventures further afield in this amazingly diverse country.
