The Dunchies in South-America: Quito Part 2!!

Ah, finally!!

You couldn't wait anymore, your heart broke down dozens of time everyday when, out of breath, you would open your favorite blog again, hoping for a new post. But no. Nothing...

Well, today marks the end of the suspense. So, wipe your tears, grab a cup of tea - without milk and sugar PLEASE - put your glasses on - if any - and be ready for...

Yeah.

You know the historical center of Quito and its beautiful colonial buildings. Let's now dive into the modern center of Quito.

If you walk out from the historical center and head on to the north of Quito, you pass by very modern areas, very neat and organised. And as for many capitals and big cities around the world, Quito has its business area, with those high buildings modernly shaped.

Tired of walking? Quito also offers a trolley that spreads over the all city. And in a couple of years, there also should be a Metro. What a shame, would you say, as you may regret that the western influence over-rules some local charming customs... Don't worry: old fashion buses still zoom along at high speed and spit their black exhaust gas in your face!

Well, Colombian crappy cars still remain masters of the game on that aspect though...

Along the way, you can relax in many parks, take a pedalo tour here, dig in some craft market there, stretch your tired muscles on the thick and soft grass, in the sun - yeah well, you clearly can enjoy your time!!

We found one park with a BMX racing area, where Arthur happily went crazy on - and crashed - but had a lot of fun! (ed: "Not funny!")

As for many regions in Ecuador - at least as far as we saw the country - Quito is very developed and works on subjects that you usually care about when your economic situation is not that vulnerable anymore. For instance, we found bicycle stations, as you can find in Europe. The idea is the same: you rent a bike for half an hour or more and when you have reached your destination, you leave your bike in the station nearest to where you are.

"Nice guys. But what about night life over there?" Here you go! Of course, Quito has its party-animal area!! With nice restaurants, bars and discotheques. Each barrios offering night life has its own atmosphere. We went to two of them:

**Barrio La Ronda - Ambiente Bohemio!**

This emblematic area of Quito is located in the old center. This area is one of the most traditional you can encounter in Quito, in terms of both food and music style. It is a great place to eat delicious and traditional empanadas while looking for which traditional live concert you want to enjoy, in which bar.

We ended in a nice bar with traditional live music. The videos below will give you an idea of the nice atmosphere - even with the bad quality of the video! Just... lower the sound of your computer :-)

Barrio La Mariscal

If you're not in the mood for a traditional night, that you look for a hype atmosphere, then prefer the Barrio La Mariscal.

You will find there a good amount of bars, all style: from the "relax-man" one, to the "can't go in with those shoes" one, including the hard-rock one, the pub with delicious beers, etc. So yes, we went there too!!

"Well guys, you're too busy. I just want to relax and watch a good movie or listen to a nice concert."
No problem! We have what you are looking for!

"Let me be a VIP"

See that area? It's a cinema in one of the big malls of Quito. See on the right, the old fashion entrance? That's your ticket for a VIP evening...

Yes, you want a good movie, but even more: you crave for being one-on-one with your favorite actor, without being disturbed by the irritating noise of chips bags being torn, or pop-corn being chewed and of smelly food being heavily swallowed.

Go then for one of the Supercines in the close suburb of Quito and ask for one of the VIP rooms.

Before the movie starts, you can then already relax in the VIP lounge, comfortably stretched, ready to chat with your friends, together with Vito Corleone... or with Scrat, the squirrel of Ice-aged - as you wish.

Below some pics, to give you an idea of the malls over there.

As you can see, in addition from being neat, the light, the space, the plants and decorations give a very warm and welcoming feeling as you walk in. The downside is, that you don't find Ecuadorian prices anymore: you are back in Europe!

Still, we spent quite some time in there, hanging around - and drinking nice coffees, of course!

La Casa de la Musica

Or where to relax for real, while listening a bit more than one hour classical airs interpreted by an Ecuadorian, at the violin, and a Belgium, at the piano. And that was good!!

And because we liked it, we took some videos. Open your ears!

The only thing we regretted was the lack of connection with the players - the typical shy guys who perform and go hide as soon as they are done! In fact, they didn't say one word. None! You geeks :-)

Some tango steps...

About music, we saw here and there some musicians playing on the streets. And dancing also! As for these Argentinians, performing tango on one of the most beautiful places of Quito.

"But guys, I am so eager to learn more about Quito"
Aaaah... now you wonder more about Quito's history! Understood. Quito is full of museums: about arts, history, science, and more. We visited three of them:

El Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño or Museo de Cera: an interactive discovery of Quito's history

Alberto Mena Caamaño

In the late 50's, Alberto Mena Caamaño donated to the Ecuadorian municipality an impressive amount of documentation and art pieces about Ecuador history, from his own researches.

From there, the municipal of Quito created a really cool museum, using various means to provide information to its public - in other terms, you are not only faking-reading while hoping that the exhibition ends after the next turn...

The museum relates the events from from 1700 to 1830, when the new Republic of Ecuador gained independence from Gran Colombia.

Let's first recap in 4 lines Quito's history until Spanish conquest:

The Quitu tribe lives in peace in the area of futur Quito
In 980, they are defeted by the Caras tribe...
Themselves conquered by the Incas during the 15th century...
Who lost it all when the Spanish occupied the place 100 years later, in 1534

Since it had long been a fashion in Europe to live under the flag of Christianity, Spanish conquerors excelled in forcing the indigenous to chose the right path. And what better way to quickly fit a cool fashion than diving deeply into practical workshops! That's how indigenous have been enslaved buy the conquerors to build the new city of Quito. No need to blame the Spanish though: I rarely read in my history books that conqueror treated their defeated enemies with candies and warm chocolate - or good coffee, for once!

Still, Spanish are nice and we all like their ham and delicious tapas but after about 300 years of colonization, there is a time you crack when being buzzed all day with their zeta. So I can understand that, in 1810, some people decided to send them back in Europe.

The museum displays very well with life-size wax figures the conflict of the 2nd of August 1810, confronting the Spanish royal troops and patriots fighting for independence - and the extent of the massacre...

Conflict of the 2nd of August 1810

The massacres of the 2nd of August 1810 didn't reduce the will to fight for independence. A new movement, starting in Guayaquil - today's biggest city of Ecuador - mastered the Spanish forces. In 1812, the state of Quito was created. It didn't last long but hey, it was a first victory!

1812 - Constitution of Quito's state

Later, the Venezuelian Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco, commonly known as Simon Bolivar - ah! - took the lead of the fight for independence.

Talking about Simon Bolivar, have you ever heard of Manuela Saez? Well, before we arrived in Ecuador, we hadn't either.

Yet, she is another great figure of Ecuador's independence. And as Simon Bolivar's girlfriend, she'd better!

The fight for independence in Ecuador, along with other countries of Southern America, went stronger from 1820. In 1822, the Marshal Sucre, under Simon Bolivar's command, defeated the Spanish and won the independence of Quito and of some areas around.

1830: Ecuador splits with Gran Colombia

By the way, guess what we found in one of the first room of the museum...? Look at this:

Yep! It's the French Declaration of Human Rights! Both the French Revolution in 1789 and, before, the American one, inspired the Ecuadorian to fight for independence. Et ouais !

This museum offers much more than this, so if by any chance you pass by Quito, just hop in! And enjoy :-)

El Centro Cultural: focus on Bolivar Mena Franco

In the same building stands a library, a university and some rooms dedicated to an Ecuadorian artist called Bolivar Mena Franco. I loved some of his art work. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed. But fortunately, I was permitted to take 2, quickly... Below!

Quito en Azul - 1982

Barranco - 1977

You can see more about his work by following this link: http://issuu.com/covi3/docs/menafranco
Go directely to page 23. You will see, amongst others themes, crude, expressive and moving depiction of the indigenous people.

El Museo de Ciencia

Representation of synapses

Was great! Once again, a interactive museum - and including quite a special room... Originally, the building of this museum was an old textile factory. On the ground floor, in a huge room, remains the sewing machines of this industrial era.

Thcakatchakatchakatchakatchak!

The best thing is, that you can freely walk in this room and observe these machines in details, see how they were linked together and even operate some of them.

And to make you realize the work atmosphere in there, they left the room as it was, without light, and once in a while a record plays the sound of the noisy operating machines.

This is how it looks like without flash

Back to classical physics

We then had fun trying all the physics experiments.

For example, how kinetic energy can be used, by changing horizontal movements in to rotation. Or how heavy weights can be lifted with a lever (force times arm)...

1. Projectile motion
2. Earth rotation (Foucault pendule)
3. Projectile motion

Effect of rotary motion on a body (centrifugal force).

Effect of Panoramix magic potion on a Dutch man

We finally trained our brain muscle... Oh, dolorosa!!

New roommates!!

Let me now introduce you to Nancy and Esteban, with whom we've formed a dream team for one week long!

And yes you've seen them on some pictures earlier in the post. Normal: we have spent half of our time in Quito with them - and we loved it!!

Esteban and Nancy live in Quito, in a nice and calm area close to the largest urban park of South America: the park Metropolitano, which covers 6 km² of the North of Quito.

Over there, you can mountainbike, hike, enjoy the nice fragrance of its eucalyptus forest, grill your steak on a barbecue and well, rest as long as you wish!! That's what we did - except for the BBQ - before we met Esteban for the first time...

But how did they know that guy?? To explain briefly, Esteban is the brother of Juan-Carlos, an Ecuadorian ~~party-animal~~ who studied in France. He and Anaëlle met in Lille, during some ~~party~~ study time. When Juan-Carlos learnt that we would visit his country, he instantly linked us with his brother Esteban. Et voilà ! Now, you know everything!

We quickly matched very well with Esteban and then with Nancy, his girlfriend, that we met a couple of days later. For both Esteban and Nancy meet five major qualities of Duntchies criteria:

They like good food
They are energetic
They have a very positive mindset
They like to have fun! And they are fun
They really like good food - really!!! As you can see below... And how you will see further :-)

Our first diner with Esteban. He won all points!!

So now you can imagine how we enjoyed our week in their company!

We started together by going up-hill, to enjoy a stunning view of Quito and its mountains around. We were all nice and behaving, when suddenly, popping up from nowhere... a fancy-fair!

Behind, some of the mountains surrounding beautiful Quito.

That's when we all lost control...

And the bets were on... The winners could enjoy the homemade pizza we had planned to share for dinner. The losers could watch the winners eating.

Esteban and Anaëlle, thanks to fine methodology, won a price each. Gniark-gniark!! (ed: Anaelle played against 2 children of 7 and 4 years old)

However, they had quite a hard time fighting with Nancy and Arthur when racing and air-hocking...

And since they once in a while reconnected with social manners, Esteban and Anaëlle decided to officially abrogate the 'you-win-you-eat ; you lose you watch' law. Arthur came back to life...

We then left the fancy-fair, all happy, to enjoy a good dinner at Nancy and Esteban's place. But first things first: the groceries. We headed on a big mall. That's when we both lost control for the second time in one evening...

We found CHARCUTERIE, CHEESE with TASTE (even blue cheese!!!!!!!) and delicious WINES!!!!!

And more :-)

We were all settled. Time for home-made pizzas!!

No need to stress that we stuffed ourselves. Nicely!

The same evening, Nancy and Esteban offered us to stay one week at their place and to spend time together visiting Quito's area. Guess what: we said yes!!

So we would finally left our hostel room, its nice balcony, its early and late noises, its thieves (of Anaelle's phone)... Ah, nostalgia!

And indeed, the next morning, Esteban and Nancy drove us to our hostel. We packed, said goodbye to the owners and staff, filled the car with our bags, attached the bikes on the roof and headed on to our new hosts' flat!

And what a flat...! As many buildings in South America - as far as we know it - this one had a terrace on the roof (with a BBQ!!). And since this area is a bit higher than the center of Quito, we could enjoy a stunning view of the city.

Below some shots of the view, at night.

The Panecillo with the virgin on the top

In the middle of the picture above, you can see the hill on which stands La Virgen del Panecillo.

But what is a panecillo? A panecillo is a small bread, which refers to the round shape of this hill. Originally, the indigenous apparently had build a temple on the top of this hill, to worship the sun. The Spanish conquerors replaced it with a virgin. Fashion thing again... Who knows if you may not find one day an Ipod erected there...?

Jokes aside, if by any chance you one day visit Quito - which we strongly encourage you to! - you can't miss this statue, visible from almost everywhere in Quito.

Now what...? You have the view, you have new roommates and a BBQ. Well, time to enjoy it then!!
As you can imagine, we went crazy on the meat. And Esteban being very picky with food, he chose a delicious piece of meat for our taste buds happiness!

And since we were in Ecuador, we decided to prepare... Mexican tacos!

And no it was not the same day.

'Damn', you think, 'they must be huge after such diners!' Well, every home-made food evening, we were like whales. But in the morning, tadaaaa!! NADA!!
That's when we remember we were back in altitude, like in Bogota. And yes the altitude gives you a hard time breathing just by folding 3 blankets (experienced...), yes you are tired the first days but wow!! You can enjoy all those little delicious Ecuadorian snacks and big home-made meals without gaining an ounce! So we did.

Going to Mars through the Milky Way or a tremendous culture shock

Some culture shock, you can handle. But some, they just break your brain in a shot. That's what happened when a highly agitated discussion with Esteban ended on finding out that Mars was the Milky Way... The explanation in pictures...

Yes, I know. For all of our friends and family members who never went on the american continent, this is a big shock. And a killer for your brain. Since indeed, who would think that on alnost all the american continent, the European Mars bar is in fact a replicate of the US Milky Way bar??

A 3 Musketeers bar, US equivalent of the European Milky Way

But then, would you ask - a bit in panic and with this drop of sweat on your forehead - do the US and the South American countries have an equivalent of the European Milky Way? And if not, how can they survive??? Breathe and cool down: they do have an equivalent called the 3 Musketeers.

We hope your world didn't collapse when reading these news. We were close to panic room over here...

Surrounded with volcanoes

To avoid falling into pieces, we decided to take a break and go breathe the pure and perfect air of the mountains.

From a wooden structure, we could enjoy the view on the old volcanoes around - and meditate on culture shocks and stuff.

Relieved and feeling much better, we went back to our regular activity: being happily stupid.

And then we've had a big fight with the guardian of the site, who decided to tell us after we entered and walked our way to the peak that "ow, by the way" we had to pay 6 dollars per person, plus some more for the car - and that we certainly could afford it since we were tourists and that we were driving a big car. Well, that story didn't end very well and we left furiously without paying. I won't dive into more details - that was not a kind and sweet moment... But that didn't stop us remembering this day with a big smile!

Mitad del Mundo - better two than one!

We did it - check! We were on the Equator line. ZE one that splits the two hemispheres and where the water turns in a direction on one side and in another on the other side. And all of this had been calculated by the French Science Academy, under the responsibility of Charles-Marie de la Condamine, during the 18th century. When we went there, we were a bit disappointed since we expected experiments with water, eggs and more - that's what we had read about this place.

We understood then that these experiments take place in another place, just 240 meters further... "Bah pourquoi ??" Well, even if the team of La Condamine worked a lot and as much precisely as possible with the measurement tools of these days, the result was not exact. Nowadays, thanks to tools as GPS, scientists found out that the Equator line passed 240 meters further than where it had been first calculated. The ecuatorians kept the monument, so now there are two monument sites with entrance fees... one 'fake', one real. :)

Since it was too late to reach the other site, we decided to come back!

Take 2

We went back with Esteban and Nancy and went through all the experiments. That was fun! But we all had quite some doubts about the veracity of these experiments...

To try to stand an egg on a nail

Hard! But some did it. Not sure that you can't do that everywhere in the world. Will try!

To feel your muscles turn to jello when you stand on the 'wrong' side of the equator line

This one was stunning since we really could feel our muscles being less strong. However, it can also be the effect of our mind. Which Anaëlle experienced in other circumpstances during a training at work. Stunning though how manipulative and / or strong your mind can be!

The water flowing strait on the line and turning in two different directions depending if you stand North or South from the Equator line

In other terms, the Coriolis effect. Well, there is not effect difference on such a short distance and for such a small amount of water. The guide has to trick the show...

Walking on a strait line with your eyes closed.

Same story: not sure I can walk in a strait anywhere in the world. Anaëlle messed up the first time, did better the second!

The museum around

Around the experiment area, the other cool thing of this place is the outdoor museum. They did a really great job in replicating indigenous houses, artifacts and thumbs.

Totems

Thumb - and yes this woman was alive when she went in the jar but no worries, she was drugged! "Ah! ok."

Inside a indigenous house

How to scalp your friends, step by step!

This part also was really interesting and the guide was energetic and interesting. Another cool day!!

Timbio: back in sub-tropical areas

When Nancy and Esteban understood that, from Ecuador, we only saw the Andes, the decided to bring us down to the sub-tropical area... We then drove down from 3000 to 1200 meters.

We stopped in a small town, back in the sub-tropical region and its high temperature. From there, we kept ourselves nicely busy!!

The butterfly farm

We first visited a butterfly farm. There you could see different species of beautiful butterflies, but also see larvae getting out from their cocoon. Indeed, the team working in the butterfly farm could identify every day which larvae was ready to become a butterfly.

On the shelf below, I saw within one hour a dozen of butterflies getting out from their chrysalises and cocoon.

Let's now have a closer look:

As you can see, each specie has its own trick to go unnoticed in its natural environment. For instance, if I understood well, the shiny ones attach their cocoon close to rivers. The sparkling of their cocoon merges with the sparkling of the water.

They can need quite some time before they can fly. First, they have to go out, meticulously, without damaging their wings, legs and antennas. When they are out, they empty their abdomen of a yellow liquid - and lose half the size of their abdomen ! Then, they wait for their wings to dry. It can take one hour for some of them before they actually start flying.

This area is also known for the amount of Hummingbirds hopping all around the place (colibris in French / kolibries in Dutch). That was really fun to watch! And as you can expect, we had a hard time grabbing some good pictures of them! These are our bests.

After this nice visit, we decided to cool down in the river! But in a special way: tubing!

Unfortunately,we don't have any picturesof this very nice river trip...

After we had fun on the water, giving us beautiful views on the environment of Timbio, we went back in the car to climb up a mountain and reach the seven waterfalls area. At the end of the path we drove, a small construction made of concrete, shelter of a very special worker...

This guys job is to make sure that a cabin attached on a zip line brings tourists from hill A to hill B, where the seven waterfalls stand. For this to happen, what better tools than the engine, gearbox and and paddles of a car!

And here you go! Starting around 9' am and playing on and on with the paddles, till 5' pm. Not sure how much he enjoys repeating the same process all day but the amount of customers in one day can keep you motivated!

Anyway, we jumped all happy in the cabin to reach the other side of the valley and start a quest for the 7 water falls.

The trip in the cabin is quite fun and offers a stunning view on the whole valley, as you fly over the trees.

Landed on the other side, we started a nice hike, back in sub-tropical jungle style :-)

As you can imagine, the nature is over-crowding the lace and is beautiful. Well, in that case, picture speak better than words so enjoy!

As we planned to dive into one of the cascade pool, we saw this small tiny bird fighting against the flow to fish - at least that's what we guessed. So it swims up the river against the flow and at some point lets itself go to starting point. And goes again, against the flow. The amazing part is how fast it swims. And how much it repeats the same action again and again!!