Picture Summary of my trip to Ecuador (June-July 2016) Part 1

zabadria (30)in #new • 7 years ago (edited)

My mother and I had been thinking for a while about visiting another South American country to check it out and measure the possibilities to go living there (you may know that I live in Venezuela). So before buying the tickets we had to research about several topics: currency exchange rate (the US Dollar is pretty expensive for us), flight ticket prices, food prices, living expenses, business affordability, among others. Then, after getting all this information, we decided to go take a look at Ecuador. We bought the tickets via CopaAir and we started our trip on June 19th.

We made a short stop at Panama Tocumen Airport to wait for our plane to Quito. I really liked this airport. Some friends told me that it is a regular one, but I loved the food, the stores, and the way they organized the gates.

It was a long trip, we departed from Valencia Venezuela at 2:30 p.m. and we got to Quito at 11:30 p.m. so we were kind of tired.

Fortunately, we had made an excellent choice by having reserved our stay with the good friends of the Blue Door Housing (Alejandro Hinojosa and his kind mother Germania). They picked us up at the airport and took us to the Inn. This was a very comfortable place to stay, near the best touristic destinations and transportation services which I completely recommend to use since they are very cheap and secure.

The closest touristic destination was the "Centro Histórico de Quito" (Historical Downtown). So we went by walking. The first thing that called our attention was the cleanliness of the city. These people really like keeping everything neat. After a 30-minute walk we were there.

After that, we were told of the Mariscal Sucre's house, which was near the Central Square. My mom and I were really excited about having a look at the different historical viewpoint Ecuadorians have of the independence process. In Venezuela everything goes around Simon Bolivar, but in Ecuador the main character of the independence process is Antonio Jose de Sucre. And we could see this because of the way they preserve his house.

These three pictures are from Sucre's house balcony where you can observe the little streets of the Centro Histórico.

On the way back to the inn, we entered the Mercado Central (Central Market).

And we took a look at the Cathedral.

On the following days we visited several other places using the public transportation system called for them as "el trole". It crosses the whole city from south to north. You just pay 25 cents (US $) for a one-way trip. My mom payed 12 cents because she is over 55 years old.

One of the things we were researching about was the housing, and we were told of a good place to live where rents were not so high and the living environment (specially for families) was nice. This is a residential field called La Kennedy.

The unavoidable place to visit was the Monumento the Mitad del Mundo (the Middle of the World Monument). And of course, we went there on public transportation. There is a bus route that goes straight there, and it only charges 2.5$ each. What is kind of expensive is the ticket to enter the Monument, which is not only the monument, but a theme park. There are different payment options depending on the amount of places you are allowed to enter. We payed 14$ each for the all-access ticket, but I have to say, it was totally worth it.