After
writing my Blog about our experiences getting our visas and cedulas, I thought
that I better follow up with the fun part of our week in Quito.
We had
booked online to stay at a cute boutique hotel called Vieja Cuba. http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g294308-d580806-r160681968-Vieja_Cuba-Quito_Pichincha_Province.html
We had given
up staying at large commercial multi country hotels many years ago and now
enjoy discovering these little gems. If however, you need to stay in Quito for
a month or more, I highly recommend our friend Liliya’s apartment rental http://quitorental2.blogspot.com/
in the La Ronda neighbourhood.
Hotel Vieja
Cuba is located near the Mariscal area of Quito, quite a ways from where we had
spent the month of October 2012 but a part of the city we had visited at that
time.
We arrived
late afternoon Sunday and were given a cute 2 story room with a round tower
upstairs room for our bedroom- room 23. The stairs leading up to the bedroom.
Our
breakfast the next morning was great- fresh juice, muesli cereal, fruit,
yogurt, toast, scrambled eggs, cheese & ham and very strong coffee. The
breakfast was made even more pleasant by our wonderful waitress, Marie, who
spoke some English but was delighted when we spoke Spanish to her and
complemented us on our effort.
The breakfast area
Monday was a
dreary rainy day and after our meeting with Sebastian, we set out to find a
place for dinner. We found an Indian restaurant Shere Punjab that was
incredibly good. http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g294308-d3199722-r135550778-SHERE_PUNJAB-Quito_Pichincha_Province.html
I had worked
in Bangalore, India in the mid 90’s and missed having Indian food. In our home
city of Salinas, Ecuador there are no Indian restaurants- nada! So this was a
real treat for us. We had a few of our favorite foods ( daahl-yummy) plus 2
beers each and the bill came to $31- a bargain for sure.
The
remainder of the week was mostly sunny, low 20’s Celsius and between visits
with Sebastian and our ever allusive cedula, we explored our present
neighbourhood. We visited an interesting museum with many Ecuadorian artifacts-
no photos with flash- so sorry, no pictures but definitely worth a visit.
A very
extensive gift shop was also part of the museum and we bought this hand-made
mask.
See the
inside wood carving.
On another
day we finally found a brew pub that was open. Hallelujah!!! I have mentioned
that Uwe loves micro brewed beer- LOL. And brew pubs are almost impossible to
find in Ecuador.
Uwe enjoying
his dark beer.
We also
spent some time in the very modern mall Quicentro near Sebastian’s office. This
mall contained some very high end stores, a huge food court and a TGIF
restaurant.
We discovered
yet another great restaurant near our hotel on one other evening. This one was
a Peruvian restaurant called Inka owned by a very interesting young man Jessy.
Our meal
there was excellent, Uwe had steak and I had the most delicious duck ever. As
well, Jessy, who speaks English, French and Spanish, kept us amused while
waiting for our food. He owns 3 restaurants in Quito, takes marshall arts and
is learning to speak Japanese! Wow
As well as
fabulous eating and drinking ( yes, we did do other things-LOL) we explored a
local craft market in a nearby park, took many trolley and taxi rides and
explored Av Amazonas several times. So in spite of the frustrations concerning
our cedulas, we actually had a great time in Quito.
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