Sunday was our last day in Quito. We still hadn’t fully recovered from the jet lag/work lag, but we felt good enough to test the limits of our one activity per day rule.
We started the day with a trip to the Panecillo lookout, Quito’s version of the hilltop Mary of Nazareth that are so ubiquitous throughout South America. You can see if off in the distance behind the kids and Isaias in this photo from the Catedral Metropolitana earlier in the week.
And one up close.
It's unique in that this madonna has wings, and that it's based on another famous (to people who aren't me, at least) sculpture of the Virgin of the Apocalypse made by Bernardo de Legarda in Quito a few hundred years ago.
The symbolism was wasted on me, but it did prompt dozens of questions from our children about what a virgin is as we ascended the internal staircase to the top. So there’s that. Nothing like biting off a conversation on virginity and biblical mythology while climbing 10 flights of stairs two miles above sea level.
"Well [huff, puff], you know how [huff, puff] we talked about how [huff, puff] it takes an egg and a sperm [huff, puff] to [huff, puff] make a baby [huff, puff]?"
The only consolation is that the kids would consistently be distracted by the museum exhibits along the staircase before I could complete a full sentence. So I was spared anything more than the most superficial explanation.
All in all, if you've ever wondered what it would be like to go to church and take a crossfit class at the same time, this is your place. But at least the view was nice.
We worked our way back down and wandered around the base of the sculpture for a few minutes, although we didn't linger long. Ironically, the neighborhood around the Virgin isn't known as one of the safest in Quito. But we never felt like we were in any immediate danger from anything besides the hangries. The climb up to the top left all of us so hungry we couldn't complete a full sentence (it wasn't just the altitude). Quinn was delirious to the point that I had to effectively force feed him some of the leftover french toast we brought from the apartment. He was so hungry, he couldn't keep it together long enough to feed himself. That's a real thing in this family. But within minutes, we had all come around and were ready to bite off another adventure.
As we took a taxi back into town, I found myself hoping I had built up some spiritual protection from the morning's activities. Not only did the driver seem to be unaware that it is possible to drive a car at speeds below Mach 1, but the zip tie holding my seat belt in place seemed to only serve the purpose of keeping the driver from getting a ticket. I almost snapped it countless times myself every time he slammed on the brakes as we came into an intersection.
At several points on that drive, I wondered if our next destination would be worth it. We were headed to the Basilica del Voto Nacional (or our Final Destination, pending traffic conditions). Made in the 1800s, it is centuries younger than several of the other cathedrals in the city. But this one is the biggest. In fact, it’s the largest neo-Gothic cathedral in the Americas. It’s visible above the skyline from pretty much any point in the city.
I'm not entirely sure what the kids are doing in this photo, but you can see the Basilica off in the distance behind them.
We did eventually make it, and I never had to count on that zip tie to do more than keep the seat belt from tripping me as I very excitedly jumped out of the cab. So, thank you, I guess?
The main (secular) attractions of the Basilica are its four massive bell towers that are open to tourists who don’t mind another stair climb. But if we were to have any prayer (sorry) of making it to the top, we were going to need some real food beyond what we had already used for emergency resuscitation at the Panecillo. So we asked at the Basilica's ticket counter if there was a good place to get some lunch nearby. The staff member told us that the closest restaurants were about ten minutes away. That seemed painful, but doable. However, whether it was just due to a miscommunication or the staff member trying to send us to the type of restaurant she thought we’d prefer, there was actually a charming little cafe right across the street. We easily could have missed the tiny sign on the nondescript door. We worked our way up to the second floor terrace and found a few small tables dotted with locals. It was perfect. The kids sat at their own table and the adults ordered a round of beers for ours. It was a delightful lunch overlooking the Basilica entrance, and just what we needed before taking on another stair climb.
As we were planning our day the evening prior, Alicia and Isaias told us that the stairs up the bell tower were more like a ladder. I pictured some steep, shallow stairs scaled by monks centuries earlier. But I should have taken their description more literally. The last 40 feet of the climb were on a near-vertical welded-in-place rickety set of “stairs” on the OUTSIDE OF THE TOWER. This was not on the brochure.
I don’t have a ton of pictures from this stretch of the climb, since taking my phone out of my pocket would have directly resulted in either it or my children taking an abrupt decent. But thankfully Alicia, knowing what we were in for, stayed back to snap a photo.
My attention was squarely on the child ahead of me, so I was more than a little surprised when I turned around after reaching to summit to see a stranger behind me. I immediately (and correctly) assumed that Quinn decided to turn around after the first few steps, as any reasonable person would have.
The view was spectacular, however. Worth it? Debatable. But it was an amazing photo op.
You can see the Panecillo way in the background. We were at near-eye level with it.
After an equally harrowing descent, Mimi and I met back up with the rest of our group. With unspoken-yet-unanimous consent, we all decided that we could leave the other three towers unascended.
But Quinn was noticeably bummed about missing out on the climb. So I asked if he wanted to give it another go. He did, and Aimee graciously (?) allowed me to take him while she stayed on solid ground. How kind. But at least she got a good photo.
I talked Quinn (and myself) through the climb, literally step by step. But his pride after making it to the top almost barely justified making the ascent for a second time.
When Quinn made it to the bottom, he sprinted to tell Aimee what he had done. He was absolutely buzzing with adrenaline.
Speaking of adrenaline, our taxi ride home solidified my plan to only use Dayana as our driver from here on out. The first mistake of that drive was mine. Although the taxis here cost a lot in terms of life expectancy, the financial burden is typically minimal. The drivers usually use the meters, and we hadn’t experienced any of the usual semi-scams like taking the longer way to rack up charges (let alone anything more serious). So I had gotten used to that and hadn't been negotiating a price ahead of time. That's on me. As we set off on this trip, our driver quoted a price that was twice as high as the going rate. Only after we threatened to get out of the taxi at a stoplight, the driver was open to renegotiating. But not a minute after we came to an agreement, the driver turned a corner and encountered a police officer waving a couple of cars over to the side of the road (including ours).
Our driver nervously put his seatbelt on as soon as he saw the traffic stop, so that wasn’t the reason we were getting pulled over. It may have been because Quito has traffic restriction on which cars can use the roads each day based on the last digit of their license plate. It’s an effective way to keep down road congestion, and even applies to taxi drivers (but not rich people, who Alicia tells us often buy two or three cars to have one that can be used every day of the week).
We’ll likely never know the reason our driver got pulled over. And neither will the city administrators, if my presumption is correct about why the driver took a $10 bill out of his wallet as he stepped out of the vehicle. After a few minutes of quiet conversation between the driver and police officer (and us getting asked by the officer where we were headed), the driver got back into the car, muttered about how the police “just pull anyone over,” then proceeded to demonstrate his obvious agitation via his now even further-accelerated driving style. At one point, he nearly blew through a red light before realizing it and slamming on his brakes.
If that wasn’t enough, there was also what he was playing on the car stereo at max volume. As soon as we renegotiated the price, he turned on what started out as some type of fire and brimstone sermon that shortly devolved into literally nails on a chalkboard. Seriously. It was some type of religious podcast (Godcast?) that was apparently trying to chase out the demons through the listener's ear canals. It was horrible.
So yeah, we’ll be calling Dayana from here on out.
