Not much happened today. I was tired after the last three days of playing tourist, so the only excursion I made was to the mall, to see if I could buy another length of faux-leather cord to hang pendants on. I couldn´t, but I did buy some more socks, plus a few packets of candy and gum. I spent the rest of the afternoon uploading photos, and then went back to Casa de Isabel to blob and look up other locales to visit.
Day 12: On Top of the World, Looking Down on Creation
After resting up yesterday, I once again felt ready to tour the town.
Said tour began even earlier than I´d planned, because for the final hour or so of the Spanish lesson, Pilar took me to visit a local artesans´market a few streets away from La Lengua. The market was . . . wow. It´s set up inside a semi-open building, with stalls on either side of several narrow halls/paths, and the goods are amazing: jewelry, scarves, ponchos, embroidered shirts and dresses, hats, carvings, leatherwork, and other stuff that I can´t remember but know was awesome. Pilar and I didn´t buy anything, because we wanted to keep moving, but I know I´ve finally found the perfect place to go back and buy souvenirs for everyone back home. And for those who don´t like art things, there´s a very good bookstore near the market that I also plan to go back to. Pilar also invited me to go out dancing that night with her and her friends, but I turned her down because a) I try not to go out after dark on principle, and b) I didn´t bring any non-schoolmarmish dress clothes.
One of the must-sees that my guidebook (which I´m coming to trust less and less) recommends is La Basilica del Voto Nacional, a Notre Dame-esque cathedral that started construction in 1892 and still isn´t completely finished. Unlike the other churches I´ve visited, taking photos was allowed, and I´m glad, because La Basilica is absolutely beautiful. I won´t even try to describe it - I´ll let all the photos I took do the talking.
After I´d taken enough photos of the inside, I went back out and bought a ticket so I could climb up to the tower. This turned out to be much more of an adventure than I´d wanted - once again, I´ll let the photos talk.
Since it was a long and nerve-wracking climb up, I took the elevator back down, and walked some blocks back to the Centro Metropolitano to see if I could get another look at La Compañia. Nothing doing - once again it didn´t open until 4:30, and once again that was only to hold a service, so I sort of crept quietly around the edge until a guard asked me to leave (in my defense, I was a lot more respectful than the other tourists, several families who talked constantly and took lots of photos).
I know I said that the neighborhoods around the base of El Panecillo aren´t very safe, but after getting so many good photos from La Basilica´s tower, I couldn´t resist taking a taxi up to the base of the La Virgen statue and getting photos from there too. It was very much worth it - the view is the most amazing one I´ve seen yet. The only snag came when there weren´t any taxis to take me back down, but there´s a set of stairways that take you almost directly down the hill, avoiding the worst parts of the neighborhood, so I tagged along with several other tourists who were going that way, and all was well.
I forgot to mention that I took El Trole, the city´s somewhat-new trolley bus system, to get to La Basilica. The trolley bus is a lot of fun: picture two city buses, one behind the other, chop the back off the first one and the front off the second, attach them with some accordion-stuff, put two poles on the top to connect with the cables, and you have a pretty good image of what a trolley bus looks like. You pay 25 cents to get into the little station, and then you sit around until the bus you want arrives, and ride it as far as you like.
At least, that´s how it worked the first time. When I tried to take it back home, though, I had to ride it to the big station at the end of the line and change buses there, so it was fairly dark by the time I got back to Casa de Isabel. Fortunately, all went well, and I can start planning for tomorrow´s adventure.
Attack of the photos:
Part of La Basilica´s exterior.
And part of its interior. I was there mid-afternoon, at the perfect time for the sun to come in through the windows and paint the whole cathedral in rainbow.
Some shots of the beautiful stained glass windows.
Two shots of the hall lit up in jewel tones.
Another part of the outside.
John Paul II visited the cathedral in the 1980s, and they put up this statue to commemorate it.
The doors have biblical and historical scenes carved on them - this one is from a depiction of the Andean natives being converted. I loved the llama.
One thing La Basilica´s famous for is having ´gargoyles´ of native Ecuadorian animals. My favorites were the armadillos and the marine iguanas.
Another interior view, taken from a balcony on the way up to the tower.
A pigeon couple courting on an outside balcony. They started going at it a few minutes later, so I guess the date was a success.
This was when I had my first clue that reaching the tower would be more exciting than I´d hoped.
And this sure didn´t make me feel any better.
No kidding.
Well, it was a long climb, but at least I´m at the -
- Oh no.
A shot to give you an idea of the view from the tower.
And another to give you an idea of how high up it is.
Go into the light . . .
You know you´re in the mountains when the sidewalks have stairs.
Hm, that title sounds familiar.
Views from the top of El Panecillo.
Finally, a close-up of La Virgen.
Yeah, you don´t mess with her.
The inside of the base had a series of gorgeous stained glass windows depicting Mary´s involvement in various miracles. This one was my favorite, since I thought their outfits looked snazzy.
I wish I knew what these birds were called. They look a lot like our house sparrows, except they have little black crests, and they were everywhere on El Panecillo.
The sun going down over the mountains.
