Birding in Southern Ecuador

Winding up in Quito

early March, 2015

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We arrived in Quito at sundown from Loja; we had spent the afternoon driving from Copalinga to the Loja airport. Unfortunately, except for the very beginning of the flight as we took off, the country was covered in clouds and we couldn't see much of anything. It cleared off as we were arriving in Quito so we could see the Pichincha Volcano as we landed.

Loja Airport View


Loja From Plane

Pichincha From Plane

Quito Sunset From Tarmac

Dona and I were staying at the "Secret Garden", a hostel in the old part of town; Ram and Dawn were in another hotel not too far away. We arrived in time to get something to eat on the rooftop cafe, so we dumped our stuff in our room and headed up to the top.

The Secret Garden has a funky check-in arrangement -- check-in takes place at the desk in the restaurant, up five narrow flights of stairs on the rooftop. You can check luggage on the ground floor when you arrive so you only need to haul what you need up to your room. It's a funky, narrow hotel. But the view from the rooftop is outstanding!

Quito Lights From Secret Garden


Our Room	The Secret Garden	Rooftop Cafe


Church	Monestary Statue


Statue Virgin Mary

We went down to the artists' market, then wandered around some of the more upscale shops which had much better quality Ecuadorian craftwork. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around looking for music by two Ecuadorian artists who had been recommended to us. Much to my surprise, plain music CDs were pretty difficult to come by, and ones by the artists we wanted in particular were non-existent. But the search took us places we wouldn't have gone otherwise, and we saw more as a result.

Mariscal Artists Market

Old Town Street

Quito Statue

We came across a guy painting a big mural on the side of a building. He was doing it freehand using conventional spray paint, and it was impressive.


Spray Painting Mural	Closeup

And that was it. At the end of the day we took a taxi to the new airport and took a red-eye flight home. We arrived appropriately red-eyed.