Preparing to exit Quito (for now)

27.12.2016

On the morning of the 28th Tom and I decided that we would visit the Basilica and try to climb the clock tower. The entrance fee was $2.00 p/p. It was beautiful. We walked up to the 2nd level and visited the 2 souvenir shops. Wow! I wanted to buy ton of stuff. The alpaca capes were very reasonably priced - around $20 -$45. Hats and mittens were less, and beautiful scarfs were like $5.00. I picked up a scarf and we decided that when we were back in Quito we would purchase some gifts for ourselves and others.....can't wait! After visiting the gift shop we walked up to the 3rd floor. From that floor you walked over a rickety bridge, then you had to climb up a flight of metal steps on somewhat of an incline. Once you did that, you were outside and very high. There were 2 more flights of stairs to take but the difference was that you were outside doing this, like as in, you could see how high up you were. I chose not to look. When we made it up to the top of the tower, we were at eye level with the two clocks. I videoed some of this expedition and we also took lots of pictures. Once we arrived back on ground zero we went into the church which was another $2.00 p/p. It was stunning. But there is a part of me that says with all this wealth, why isn't the Church doing more to help the poor. We had planned to go back to our room and take a break then do some more walking but when we arrived back we were told that it was tough to find tickets and our best bet was to go to the bus terminal ASAP. So that became our priority.

We had originally booked our accommodations in Quito with a check out date of December 29th, however we inquired about transportation a couple of days before we left and found out our best option was to take the bus the evening of December 28th to Puerto Lopez. It was an 8 hour non-stop ride to Puerto Lopez, meaning that we would arrive at our destination at 5:00 a.m. We hoped that we could leave our luggage at the hotel until our check in time of 2:00 p.m.. In order to get our bus ticket we had to take a 30 minute ride via cab to the bus station. It was huge and very modern. Our taxi driver came in with us and do all the talking. We found out later on, that we were very lucky to have gotten our seats as there were only 4 left.