First day in Quito

 Arrival, and immigration shortly thereafter, was extremely quick. Our driver Jaime was waiting. The hotel had asked me a couple of weeks ago if we needed a ride (at our expense, $30USD). This was the same price as a regular taxi however this fellow is a private guide/driver and was perfect for finding out information about the city.

It took an hour to get to the hotel San Francisco de Quito and they gave us our room right away.

After a quick breakfast we went to our room and had a two hour nap.

The historical part of this city is gorgeous and is typical of old cities that were begun by the Spanish. We walked for quite a while ending up at the Basilica before turning around and heading back down to our hotel area.

We noticed a three man group of guitars playing wonderful music. We decided to watch and listen for a while and because of that we lucked out and found a FABULOUS restaurant. A few meters from the group was a place called San Ignacio which had chairs and tables outside for eating and drinking. We ordered a beer (for me) and a glass of wine for Caro. We told the waitress Nazareth that we wanted only Ecuadorian drinks.

We were chased inside by a downpour but that was very lucky too!

We ended up having soup but more importantly the waitress told us the story of the building which was amazing. She got one of her fellow co-workers to show us the wine cellar and while down there he explained how the building had originally been built and told us interesting stories about what had happened there (it had a tunnel from the basement to a nearby church so folks needing protection could escape through the tunnel to the sanctuary of the church)

After leaving there we went back to our hotel room and after I bit I felt ill with chills and  a headache. Basically I laid in bed until 6 PM. when Caro and decided to go back to San Ignacio restaurant where Nazareth again served us. This place specializes in Ecuadorian food so naturally that is what we ate. It turns out this restaurant is very famous and government ministers come there (and apparently the president has as well). The food and service is awesome and we hit the jackpot!