Quito Sightseeing
It was hard to top La Capilla del Hombre, but La Casa de la Cultura was another amazing experience. This museum houses artifacts from all the peoples of Ecuador, from 4,000 b.c. on. At least I think that´s how far it goes, at least to the Conquistadors. But I´m not entirely sure because I thought the museum was open until 6, but at 4 p.m. the guard invited me to leave. I may have to go back and see the rest.
Unfortunately, I could not take photos nor could I find any good ones on the Internet. This is hard to believe, but I think I enjoyed this even more than the amazing Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. That museum is more spectacular, but perhaps the contents more familiar to me. This is my first visit to South America, and many things here are different than Mexico or even Central America.
Casa de la Cultura houses more pots than you could probably count, but they are absolutely amazing, with figures of animals and people using techniques of irridescence and relief that were absolutely incredible and long before the time of Christ. The Incas only conquered Ecuador less than 100 years before the Conquistadors. They may have been better administrators and certainly were better warriors (with countless forts and military outposts shown on a relief map at the museum), but their art was nothing compared to those who came before them, and much earlier. There were numerous indigenous groups, none of which had names familiar to me, so I can´t educate you much on that. Let´s just say the Incas weren´t so cool and so developed when it came to art.
If La Capilla del Hombre counts as a church, then I broke Martha´s rule of only one church a day by squeezing in a quick visit to La Basilica - Quito´s hyper-Gothic church.
I got a fake tour by a man who wanted to show me around for a tip. Then I got a semi-real tour by a security guard who was far more informative and didn´t expect a tip, so I gave him a really good one. I only had about 15 minutes before closing by the time I started chatting with him, but he did a good job of showing me around. All the stained-glass windows came from Europe, and he said the church is a copy of one or those in France. Or perhaps it looks similar to Gothic churches everywhere.
One highlight of La Basilica is the heart-shaped window in the rear of the church. La Basilica sits on a hill, opposite another hill upon which sits a huge statue of the Virgin of Quito. From near the altar one can look through the heart-shaped window and see the statue of the Virgin on the other side of town. It´s quite beautiful. Unfortunately, this is difficult to photograph, but here´s a photo of the window and rear door of the church, guided over by none other than JP II. At least, that´s who it looks like to me.
My guide/security guard says this church is very new - only about 125 years old and is the largest in South America, or perhaps in the northern part of South America.
Thank God for my bad travel Spanish. I´ve been using it constantly. Another reason for complete exhaustion. After three tourist stops in one day, I was beat. So beat I even took three taxis. It´s often easy to get to a destination on public transportation than it is to get back. But getting around Ecuador is very easy. The trolley is about a block from my hotel and only costs 25 cents. Public city buses are more complicated, but there are about a billion of them and they cost 15 or 25 cents. Some are pretty grimmy, but others are new and clean with fancy trolly-like platform stops. Everyone is very friendly and helpful and I have stopped and asked for directions many times. All in all, an easy and very affordable travel destination.