A day in Quito

I started the day by heading to my hotel in the New Town to the Old Town, the colonial area of Quito.  It was rush hour, so I was advised by the hotel to take the Trolley instead of taking a Taxi.  The Trolley is an electric bus that runs on a separate lane of traffic (and so it's relatively immune to traffic jams).  It costs only 25 cents and all stops are announced both by speakers and electronic signs.  I was told that they are very safe, except for the occasional pickpockets that operate when the bus is very busy. 

My first stop was "La Plaza Grande", also known as "Plaza de la Independencia".  This is a big square in the middle of the old town that it's flanked by 3 colonial buildings (The Cathedral, The Archbishop Palace, and the Government Palace) and one Bauhaus building (The City Hall).  I was surprised that despite Quito being at 2854m (9364 ft), I was not really feeling the altitude.  Maybe I'm still acclimatized from my trip to Nepal.

From the square, I walked two blocks to the Iglesia de San Francisco, the oldest church in Quito.  The Church construction was started in 1535, just one month after the Spanish arrived.  The church is built on top of an Inca temple and for that reason is higher than the rest of the buildings of the Old Town.  Going up the church requires navigating uneven and wide steps.  Locals believe that they were built like that so you have to keep your eyes on the ground (to see where you are stepping), and thus forced to bow your head in respect.  Unfortunately, the church is currently closed as it is under renovation.  Although you can peek inside the church, all the artwork is covered, so you don't really see much. However, the museum and the choir are open.  The museum contain many masterpieces of the colonial time, not only from Cuzco (the most advanced artistic community in Colonial South America), but also from Quito itself.  Many of the pieces contains obvious Indian elements with cuyes (guinea pigs), toucans, sun symbols, and even Indian faces.

La Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus (Jesuit Church) is a baroque masterpiece.  The exterior, with detailed carvings on gray stone, doesn't give you an idea of the amount of gold encountered inside.  You almost need sunglasses as you walk inside the church.  No pictures are allowed inside (the picture below is just at the entrance, the only place where I could take a picture) and it's hard to describe with words the intricate decorations of the ceiling all covered with gold leaf.  A common motif at the Church is the Sun which is a clear attempt to lure the Inca population into the Church, as the Sun was a very important deity for them.  The church, built between 1605 and 1765 has a strong Moorish influence (common at that time) so the decoration doesn't contain human forms, but instead geometric shapes.

My next stop was the Casa Museo Maria Augusta Urrutia.  The purpose of the museum is to showcase her philanthropic work with the poor of Quito (with a very strong Catholic influence).  The real reason to go there is to see how a well-to-do person lived in the Old Town during the 19th century. The house can only be visited with a tour guide (I was the only one in his group).  The tour was very good, starting with a video about the current activities of the philanthropic society that was founded years ago by Maria Augusta Urrutia.  After that, I visited the amazing courtyard.  Then to the back of the house with the small open area where cows were butchered, the kitchen where they were cooked, and the room where meals were given to the poor of Quito.  Upstairs is the residential area and you have the opportunity of seeing the modern main bathroom, built at the start of the 20th century in the Nouveau style.  And the main bedroom.  There are also a large collection of paintings of Victor Hideros as Maria Augusta Urrutia supported his work.

After visiting the house, I went back to the Plaza  de la Independencia with the intention of visiting the Government Palace.  Unfortunately, the scheduled tour (anything beyond the veranda requires joining a tour) didn't happen and I was told to come back 2 hours later (which I couldn't do).  While I was there, I was able to see the change of guard ceremony.

A bit of Ecuador history: Spanish rule in Ecuador started in 1544 with the arrival of the conquistadores.  The situation was stable until the 19th century when Spain was taken over by Napoleon troops.  The subsequent instability and economic downturn gave the "criollos" (local people with Spanish ancestry), the momentum for independence. In 1820, Ecuador declares independence and asked Bolivar (in Venezuela) and San Martin (in Argentina) for support. Bolivar sent troops to Ecuador and with the help of Antonio Jose de Sucre, defeated the Spanish at Pichincha (just outside Quito) on May 24, 1822.  The Granadero to the left, guarding the entrance of the Casa de Gobierno, is wearing the uniform of Bolivar's army.  After defeating Spain, Ecuador joins the Republic of Greater Colombia, a federation of present Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru.  This republic was short lived and fell apart after Bolivar resignation as president and subsequent death in 1830.  That year, along with the present countries of the Greater Colombia, the Republic of El Ecuador was born.

From the old town, I headed to nearby "El Panecillo".  This hill is 3000m high (9840ft) and it's capped by a huge statue (45m, 148ft) of a winged virgin (Virgen de Quito).  Inside the statue there is a small (overpriced) museum that tells the history of the statue as well as how the hill was used in the past: an Inca temple to worship the Sun, and later as the place of a fortress during the colony.

Near El Panecillo, I had a lunch at the famous Pim's.  For those of you that are fans of the Amazing Race, this was one of the objectives for the All-Star season in 2007.  The restaurant has amazing views of the city from every single table.  You can sit inside (with a large glass wall overlooking the city) or outdoors.  I chose the latter and ordered a typical Ecuadorian food: fritada.  This is deep-fried large pieces of pork accompanied by fried plantain, a salad with onions avocado, and tomatoes, and corn (cooked as pop-corns that are about to pop, but not quite).   It also came with fried patties of yucca filed with cheese.

From the restaurant, I took a taxi to the North of the New Town where the Fundacion Guayasamil is located.  The Fundacion contains three museums: an archeology, a colonial, and a modern art museum.  The first two were the private collection of Oswaldo Guayasamil, while the last one showcases his own work.  Oswaldo Guayasamil is one of the most important contemporary Ecuadorian painters.

The archeology museum contains pre-Colombian art from 500 BC to just the arrival of the Spanish.  This art was an inspiration for Guayasamil paintings and contains from very primitive pieces (barely work stone) to sophisticated pottery produced by the Incas.  The collection is arranged according to a "aesthetic" criteria rather than historical, so the help of a tour guide (provided for free by the museum) in interpreting the pieces was very helpful.  The colonial art museum also contains pieces from the Cuzqueño school as well as the Quito school.  Pieces tend to have dramatic expression of suffering, specially the large collection of more than 70 crucifixes.

The art of Guayasamil is divided in three periods: the age of the introspection, the age of anger, and the age of the tenderness.  The age of the introspection cover the years when he was a student of art.  He is looking to define his art and he mostly copies from masters including Picasso.  His paintings cover familiar subjects such as landscapes, still live, and nudes.

The age of anger runs from 1964 to 1984.  During these years, his paintings become a protest and a political statement against the violence in the world and particularly in South America.  In this period, he paints the pain from the Spanish Civil War, the holocaust and the Nazi atrocities, Hiroshima, Vietnam, and the dictatorship in Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay.  His subjects become tortured figures, almost skeletons, trying to escape from the pain of the world.

The age of anger also reflects his political agenda.  He becomes a close friend of Fidel Castro and although he was never affiliated with any political party, he took position in favor of oppressed nations, and the integration of Latino American countries.  He fought against dictatorships and the abuses of powerful and imperialistic nation.  Despite his blind eye to the abuses of totalitarian regimes such as Fidel Castro's communist dictatorship in Cuba,  he had a positive influence by denouncing the atrocities of right-wind totalitarianism.

In the age of tenderness, he portrays his relationship with his mother and how it was growing up as an Indian in the white-ruled society of Ecuador.  The art expresses tenderness and compassion to the poor.  In the picture to the left, the mother shelters her child who looks forward to the future and tries to break the embrace.  The calm but sad face of the mother shows her awareness of the unavoidable moment when she will have to let go and expose the child to the world.  For my taste (although most art critics would disagree), the best pieces of Guayasamil belong to this period.

His final project was "La Capilla del Hombre" an impressive building created with the purpose of "honoring people, in particular the Latino American people, with their suffering, struggles, and achievement." The end result is somber, pessimistic, more an instrument of protest than an optimistic view of the future. The chapel didn't open until 2002, three years after his death.  Guayasamil remains are buried in a clay pot under a tree overlooking the building.

 

My next stop was the Teleferiqo, a clever name that combines the word for cable car in Spanish (teleferico) and Quito. The cable car was supposed to be very popular with locals as well as tourists, but that day was deserted.  Foreigners are forced to buy the "Express" tickets that allows to take a shorter line, something that was completely useless the day I was there.  The cable car takes you very quickly from Quito up 1000m (3280ft) to the side of Pichincha at 4050m (13280ft).

From the top there are views of Quito, making it obvious how it was built on a long narrow valley.  There is also a view of the plateau, just above the city where Bolivar's army defeated the Spanish army.  Unfortunately, it was cloudy, so I couldn't see any of the glaciated peaks (nevados) around the city.

I stayed at the top just before sunset and enjoy the changing colors on the landscape.  After a brief visit to the building next to the cable car station (containing an oxygen bar, a winter cloth outlet, and a restaurant).  I took one of the last cable car down with a nice couple visiting from the Ecuadorian coast.

From the cable car, I was ready to go back to my hotel, so I started looking for a taxi.  This proved to be hard as there were no taxis around.  Eventually, I found one but it was waiting for a passenger.  The driver got tired of waiting and decided to take me.  However, just after leaving the cable car area, he got called by the waiting passenger and he told me that he couldn't take me and drop me off on the main street after making sure that I caught a taxi from there.  I got to my hotel and I bought some snacks at a small nearby store and had a small picnic dinner at the veranda of my hotel with  cheese crackers and traditional sweets before calling the day.