Wednesday, 3/6. Excellent tour of Quito. Began in what was the cleanest, roomiest food market I’ve ever seen. Cheerful people. Hire a cart pusher to follow you around for $1. Huge variety of fruits and vegetables. One stall sold various forms of just potatoes. For a fee they’ll peel the potatoes for you. The fish section was very large, especially surprising since Quito is 4 hours from the ocean by truck.

There is a huge number of various law enforcement personnel everywhere, including a large contingent of “Tourism Protection”. Far more police presence than in Peru or Bolivia.

City square had three sides with pretty historic buildings and one side of ugly city hall. The entire area is a UNESCO Heritage Site, but unfortunately the city hall was built before the designation. The Catholic building is now mostly shops; Ecuador became secular a few decades ago, so the religion lost a lot of revenue and was forced to turn commercial. The square was full of [older] people discussing the state of the country. Some were louder than others.

Next was the old section of the city, cleaned up recently and now a hot spot for weekend socializing. The style is largely French, intended to be an intentional snub at their vanquished Spanish overlords. The group interviewed a prostitute, whose profession was recently ruled legal based on a rigid interpretation of the constitution (the right to work).

Lunch was at an oversight restaurant. The view was good enough to skip the cable car ride up to an even higher oversight. Great food.

Afternoon was free. Visited some very artsy shops with high quality statues, jewelry, and wall art. Watched some more football. Lasagna at a small eatery with the Trip Leader, who is actually living on the Galapagos. (Our tour today was conducted by a native of Quito.) Learned a lot more about the islands.

A good day of lightweight touring. This is partially intentional to let everyone rest up before the Galapagos, where we’ve been warned that the pace will pick up.