Quito

My first business trip for this year was in Ecuador, a 2-week assignment in one of the refineries in Esmeraldas. It was my first time in South America. Prior to my flight, I searched for information on what to do in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador and the point of disembarkation. I have few hours to go around the city before flying to Esmeraldas.

I stayed at Hilton Colton and as per google search, Quito Old Town was just few steps away. Since I couldn’t sleep because of jet lag, I had an early breakfast and tried to find the tourist attraction. But it wasn’t easy. I got lost but it was fine. I spent a couple of hours but the old town was nowhere in sight. Instead, I found myself in what it seems a residential area. There were vandals, or to some, street arts. Houses were a throwback to past centuries.

  

My feet were a little too tired of walking, I was about to give up when I started to ask for directions. Most of the people I met do not speak English, so sign language was the only option. Then, there was this angel, a jogger, who volunteered to walk with me to the Old Town. She spoke little English and I spoke very little Spanish but we were able to enjoy our conversation. She tried to be my tourist guide for the day. I realized that the place was not that far if only I followed the main road.

footsteps from the past 

architectural delight 

throwback centuries 

The architecture made me drool. I kept on taking photos in amazement. I promised that I will come back again if I had the chance again. So before flying back to Japan, I went back to the old town, this time, at night. The architectures had another life with the lights.

I will be writing about the Equator on my next post as I thought it deserves a separate post. If you can see, the above photos were a bit different from my previous shots, this is because I tried to use snapseed as editing software. Yes, I did it on my phone. 

 /totomai 

2016/02/23 

Photos taken with Nikon D7000, Nikon P310 

Lens used : Tamron 11-16 2.8f