Here’s the best [and unintentional] photo of one dust cloud. It’s in the background at center. We were like, “what’s all this weird fog?”
Yep, bread-hill. It’s here that we felt the 5.1 earthquake. Someone was selling cheap plastic kites, which littered the trees. Great idea! I instead bought an alpaca scarf for $3.
Pim’s is an old restaurant on the side of Panecillo with a spectacular view of the city and surrounding volcanoes. Included with our tour bus tickets was a coupon for the house cocktail, which none of us could identify. It was blended. There was maybe cinnamon in it? Google was no help. Then the table started to shake, and we realized it was an earthquake. Unbeknownst to us at the time, people were killed/injured in a landslide. You can actually see some dust clouds in these photos, though I don’t think that landslide was near us. The food was good and cheap. Also, Layla finally got her fries, and they were $1.65.
This is just the view from the Hilton’s 17th floor executive lounge. I’ll be honest, this was probably the best view of the city. Meaning, it’s not much to look at from street level.
Eating a fancy meal towards the end of the big trip has sort of become a tradition. I take the opportunity to drop all the food rules and eat whatever I want, which typically means raw salad greens. The LUXURY of it all. The stone crab claw ceviche was amazing; there were huge chunks of crab. Also, really delicious crispy calamari. Exiting around 1130pm we naively thought we could find a bar. Yep, no. Everything in Quito closes super early on Mondays. Or every day? Anyway, there was a cab waiting, so we skedaddled.
Gotta have that executive lounge access. It sounds weird to be excited to arrive at a Hilton, but damn did those free canapes and cocktails come in hand. Also, as it turns out, WiFi that allows you to browse websites and upload pictures without failing ever 3 minutes is totally a good thing. Who knew?
Lady Boy Time 