Quito, Ecuador

Yesterday we left Ipiales, Colombia and headed for the border crossing to Ecuador.  First we made a slight detour to see Las Lajas Sanctuary. This basilica church is built inside the canyon of the Guáitara River. The border crossing was straight forward but still took us 2.5-3 hours to complete. Immigration and customs in one country and then the same again in the other. There was no charge nor did we need any extra copies - just your passport, Covid card, title and registration.

Ecuador displayed beautiful, lush green hills. The roads were in generally great condition and we were able to ride quickly. It's a good thing because we wanted to make Quito before dark. We stopped in Otavalo to find the equator monument, but we were unsuccessful. Shortly outside Otavalo the skies darkened and lightning bolted. We needed to climb another few thousand feet to reach Quito at 2850m (9350 feet). Way up high in some small town, the water rushing down the culverts on either side of the road was biblical. We missed the torrential rains but got to ride through the aftermath.

The final 30km into Quito was a full-on mortal combat riding experience. It probably took us 1.5 hours to make this final trek as the skies turned to dusk. The streets were confusing, the signs didn't match the GPS or Google Maps and we made a few wrong turns.  One took us down a bus-only lane with transit police waiting. ¡Lo siento! We exclaimed, fortunately the officer was the happy type and helped us ride the wrong way down a road to get back to where we needed to go.

Our hotel, Traveler's House, is fabulous! All you see is a giant wooden door at which we were told to honk. The opened the gates and we rode into this killer courtyard. The hotel currently has three rooms, we took two. The total for 2 rooms for 2 nights was $129.

We took a personal tour of the Catedral Metropolitana de Quito. Construction started here is 1535 and finished in 1799! Workers were building the nativity display that began in March. We climbed the tiny staircase to the top of the church which displayed stunning views at the Plaza Grande.

Tomorrow we hit the road again!

P.S. South America -2, Shuli - 0