Saturday, March 5: Quito, Ecuador

Our cruise actually started with a day on land, in the city of Quito, Ecuador. As mentioned, we had spent the night at the very nice JW Marriott hotel in what might be called the business area of Quito. On awakening about 6:30 in the morning, I was lying in bed and would hear occasional loud noises, like a loud BANG…. Bang-Bang-Bang-Bang… BOOM! I could not help but think that it sounded like gunfire. “What have we gotten ourselves into” I wondered. After listening to the noise for a while I got up and looked out the large window, which overlooked what turned out to be a military school where a small band was forming up.

Small band forming up at military school

It is amazing just how loud those drums could seem, but I was very relieved to see where the noise was really coming from. We had to get to the hotel lobby at a specific time to take a COVID test to satisfy Celebrity, although the government requirement for such a test had been removed about two weeks prior. Breakfast at the hotel was the standard buffet with staff people doing the actually serving as we pointed out what we wanted. We would see this at almost every breakfast on our trip.

Lobby of Quito JW Marriott Hotel

About 9:30, we were to meet in the lobby to head out on a city tour of Quito. Since almost everyone on the cruise were here, there were almost 100 of us and we were split up into 9 busses so that no bus was more than about 50% full. We all had to wear our face masks while in the hotel and on the bus: we could occasionally take them off when walking around in open spaces. Our first stop on the tour was the Basilica del Voto Nacional (Basilica of the national Vow), the largest neo-gothic basilica in the Americas. It was big.

Part of the front of the Basilica del Voto Nacional

We did not have the time to go inside, so we looked at it from the outside for a while and also took in the small square of park across the street, the “Parque Gabriel Garcia Moreno”. The park included a status of the two-time president of Ecuador, Gabriel Garcia Moreno, who was assassinated before he could serve a third term.

The park, with Gabriel Garcia Moreno facing away from us.

We got back on the bus and went to another area where we got off the bus to explore. There was another park which was in the center of a number of government buildings.

There are many parks, and it seemed each had a major statue or monument.

The organization of government related building around a park reminded me somewhat of our government buildings around the National Mall in Washington DC, but on a smaller scale. We walked around the area, with our guide telling us a bit of history and seeing the sights. Some of the sights were obviously there specifically for the tourists.

I’m not sure this is an accurate depiction of Inca dress.

We walked to a large square, the “Plaza San Francisco” which was in front of our next church to tour, the Iglesia de San Francisco, which is both a basilica and a convent. The interior grounds were relatively large for being in the middle of the city.

Some of the interior space of the Iglesia de San Francisco basilica and convent.

We went inside to a balcony overlooking the main chapel and the interior was very impressive. In our visits to several churches in Ecuador and Peru we saw extensive use of gold and silver. Apparently, much of the gold had been “liberated” from the native peoples when the Spanish arrived in the 1500s.

Part of the main chapel of the Iglesia de San Francisco basilica

Next stop on the tour was a short bus ride to another old church, part of which had been set up to host visitors who were hungry. They were serving a number of local/Ecuadorian dishes and we tried as many of them as we could fit into our stomachs. At this point we were lucky that we were on bus number 8, one of the last buses in our group. While we were eating, a heavy rain started and was still going when the first couple of buses had to load up. It was only a few steps from the building to the bus, but some people still got rather wet. By the time our bus was ready to load, the rain had practically stopped, so we stayed nice and dry. This time we had a bit longer bus ride to an area a little outside of the city and to the “Intuinan Solar Museum” which is located right at the equator. It was a bit of a touristy facility, but they did present some interesting history and ancient culture, besides the “stand on the equator” related things.

Yes, I’m standing with my two feet on different sides of the equator.

They had the expected sundial demonstrations and tests of whether water in a vortex rotated in different directions on the two sides of the equator. At least we can now say we’ve “been there and done that”.

After this visit, we loaded into the bus and headed back to the hotel to rest and clean up a bit before dinner. Dinner was at a local nice restaurant (another bus ride) that was known for its selection of wine.

Part of the “wine cellar”

I checked out the wine cellar room and there was a large number of bottles of many kinds of wine, but I noticed a lot of what we would consider “supermarket brands”, mostly of South American sources, of course. We tried an Ecuadorian Merlot (didn’t even know they produced wine) and it was very respectable. The restaurant, however, was really overwhelmed by our 100 guests arriving at once. The food was fine, not great, but service faltered several times as the staff tried to keep all the orders straight. I don’t think anyone went home hungry though. Then, back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep and, hopefully, no early wake-up from the drum corps across the street.

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